(Epilogue)

There was a little known secret to Robin Scherbatsky, the MacLaren's gang's favorite Canadian, gun-toting, cigar-smoking, occasionally temptress-like ex- pop star. This secret was something that Robin had hidden from her friends for years, fearing that if she unveiled it, they would think that she was absolutely, out of her mind insane and would feel distrustful of her afterwards, since she had kept a secret this big from them all along- so it went many years, not a word was spoken about this crack in Scherbatsky history. And Robin liked it that way.

The secret in question was that, about two years after Robin had moved from Canada to New York, she had signed up for what she believed to be a telemarketing job or, from what the ad appeared in the newspaper, a job that was simply just office work and nothing really beyond that.

Weeks passed, and one day, Robin received a letter in her mailbox which stated that she would have to come in for a quick interview before it could be evaluated whether she'd received the job or not. The stamp on the outside of the envelope was odd, and Robin thought to herself that it looked a bit out of the ordinary for a company's logo that was supposed to represent selling objects by phones. If anything, the logo stamp more closely resembled that of some kind of top secret business that no one was supposed to know about.

For now though, Robin just shrugged this off. She was excited to be starting a new job, no matter what it was.

The interview for the job was far from an ordinary interview, and Robin quickly caught on to the fact that this job was not, in any way, an ordinary job. She found herself in a skintight body suit, packing a gun, but that wasn't even the weirdest part. During the span of the interview, which lasted about an hour, Robin had to endure explosions- real explosions, not just some cheap greenscreen stuff- fires, and the shooting of bullets. To top all that off, the woman conducting the 'interview' made Robin run a test evaluation over how well she'd be able to defend herself against a 'giant, manlike green creature.'

By the end of the day, Robin was more than happy to return home. Another week passed. One day, she opened her mailbox to find yet another, larger envelope. She opened the envelope precisely, and inside it was a certificate that said Robin was approved to be in the SHIELD Initiative.

SHIELD Initiative? Up until now, Robin hadn't even realized that's what it was called.

As she pulled out the envelope to read it closer, a card fell from it, about the size of any other regular ID card. The card was completed with a photo of Robin's face. It read "SHIELD Alias Name: Maria Hill," and provided several other facts about Robin, such as her weight, eye color, hair color, and date of birth.

In bolder, white print at the bottom of the card, the only words were this:

Welcome to the Initiative.

Many years went by, and this top secret, government organized job proved to be a bit much for Robin. Eventually, she resigned, saying that she wished to pursue an easier job- perhaps a news anchor or something like that. And that was the last SHIELD ever saw of Robin, of Maria Hill.

At least for a few more years…

…..

Elsewhere, a young, blond man by the name of Billy Stinson, shy, socially awkward, and built with a smallish frame, was desperately trying to prove that he wasn't the pansy he felt he'd been set up to be. His alias name was Dr. Horrible, and he was something of a mad scientist. For a while now, he'd been planning to join the Evil League of Evil, a supervillain club of sorts run by a diabolical (Though nonspeaking) horse called Bad Horse, for obvious reasons.

At the same time, Billy was relentlessly pursuing a kindhearted redhead named Penny, whom he'd met up with at the laundromat on Wednesdays and Saturdays for frozen yogurt.

He hoped daily that Penny would see him for who he was- just a guy who was hopelessly, irretrievably in love with her- but she never seemed to.

Through a series of events, grief struck. Billy had never meant for things to end the way they did, but the league demanded this from him, and they'd surely gotten their wish.

Due to a death ray misfire, per request from Bad Horse that he build a death ray, Penny had ended up dead. And that was it. There was no turning back now. There was an empty hole in Billy's heart that would never be filled again; he personally regarded himself now as a monster. But he kept himself going, and was accepted into the league just like that.

He operated with the league for about two years, but eventually snapped. Evildoing couldn't be his thing anymore. One day, he quit, headed home, packed his bags, and got on the nearest plane to New York City, as far away from the purgatory that had become California as he could get.

From there, he legally changed his first name to Barney (As everyone who'd reported his crime had known him only as Dr. Horrible, and had not once found out his last name, making it easy for him to do this without fear of disclosure), became a hippie, and got a job at a coffee shop, later finding love once again with a blond named Shannon.

The story took a turn for the even darker from there- Shannon suddenly broke up with Barney, out of the blue, for some rich jerk in a suit that reminded Barney all too much of his mortal enemy, Captain Hammer.

That was the icing on the cake holding Barney back from his, well, horribleness. He was going to give up on being such a goody-two-shoes, and he saw no reason why he shouldn't. So far, this kind of personality had gotten him nowhere in life. Now, he had a plan.

The night of the break up (And with some assistance by an ad passed to him on the street that read "Suit up and save"), Barney made some drastic changes- he shaved his goatee, trimmed his hair, and agreed to only wear suits from this point on. It was, in a sense, somewhat like returning to the league all over again.

And in the months that followed, Barney had taken on an entirely different persona. He trained himself to be smooth. Calculating, manipulative, a skilled liar, shameless of what he had to do to get what he had to get.

Women were his targets. No more romantic nice guy. He set his eyes on one conquest after another, feeling no guilt as he conned them to his advantages, then ditched the next day.

Now, he truly was becoming something of a villain. And he wouldn't even try to stop it this time. There was a certain, satisfying rush of power he got every time he'd manipulated some dumb chick into coming home with him for the night, and this rush intensified day by day.

He became known, around town and to himself, as 'The Player King of New York City,' and he saw no shame in that.

Why be good when you can be awesome?he thought, mentally winking.

Over time, Barney had acquired a few friends, one of which was Ted, a usually quiet, intelligent, dark haired man who he met at a urinal in the bathroom of a bar he often visited.

Fairly enough, he tried using Ted to the best of his advantages, but Ted was cunning enough himself to not fall under this spell.

The two quickly became best friends, and shortly afterwards, Barney discovered that Ted had two friends who were also ironically a couple- a tall, gentle man named Marshall, and a shorter redhead named Lily, who proved to be precocious enough not to fall for Barney's schemes either and to keep him in check. And though at times their relationship sickened Barney, he had to admit that they were pretty good friends to him, something he never really had in his life.

As fate would have it, in the year 2005, both Barney and a certain ex-pursuer of his would coincidentally cross paths, setting into motion a rocky chain of events unlike no other.