"Jack Monroe?" Someone calls out my name from behind me. I turn around to see who it is.
"Yeah? What? Don't I know you?"
"No." Despite his answer I'm fairly certain I've seen this man before.
-BLAM!-
My suspicions about the man give out at fast as my lungs do. The pair of .45s rips straight through my chest and throws me onto the hood of my car. The man calmly walks over to my perforated body and throws it into the trunk. Before he shuts the lid, I catch one last glimpse of the man. It's not just a face I've seen, but a face seen by every kid and his grandma.
The boy sidekick. The teen patriot. The kid every kid wanted to be. The kid I once tried to be. But I don't see that child in him. I see a ghost of wars lost in the winters of time. And now he sees it fit to make sure I'm lost as well.
The lid falls shut.
1.
Wait. What? Where in the blue hell am I?
Let's see…half-empty glass of Coors', redwood paneling, a broken window facing a poker table, a 1970's Playboy spread overlooking some cheap tequila. Damn. Not Curtis' again. I swear to God the first thing I'm gonna do with this new lease on life is find myself a better bar.
Seriously, though. I was dead back there. After one year of chronic pain, disturbing visions, and the degeneration of my super-serum enhanced blood, I was put out of my misery by a man who looked very much like the one I was once meant to replace.
And now, for some reason, I find myself in this disgusting cesspool of American society that has the gall to call itself a bar, somehow liberated from my cancerous affliction, without so much as a scratch? Wait. Hang on.
Yup. Even the hole in my chest is gone.
I know the gift of a new life isn't something you take grudgingly or warily, but I have to say, there is something terribly wrong here.
No duh, Jack. Apparently, someone just killed you, or at least tried to. Nobody comes back to life without some sort of reason, just ask those mutants in Westchester. Don't you think the first thing you should do is settle that score?
And speaking of coming back to life, wasn't the man who shot me dead too? And I mean dead since World War 2? I don't think it could have been him, but given the way this weird world works, who knows? Perhaps dead superhero sidekicks don't just stay dead anymore. Or perhaps he's just another fool trying to carry on the legacy I once had to shoulder and fail at, and he's just getting rid of the old shame. In any case, whoever this guy really is, he's going to be answering to me very soon.
"Oi, Jack!" Curtis, always quick to accentuate the negative, does what he's best at. "You get back here after five whole years, and the first thing you do is get piss drunk, fall asleep on my counter, and drive away half my customers with your horrid snoring? I wouldn't be so pissed if it weren't for the fact that you've been doing this since before you left, not to mention all the fights you started! Now pay me and get out you asshole!"
Jesus. Five years just went by like a dream. I want a shot at this guy; I'd better take a look what's changed in all this time.
Two dollars. Just enough for a few hours in an internet café. Not enough for that and my tab.
"Uh, Curtis, you mind if I pay you some other time? There's something I really gotta do-"
"Pay me some other time? I don't think so, pal. You caused me too much trouble to let you off. You're gonna pay now, one way or the other." Ten huge guys sit up from their tables, most of them with rather pedestrian brass knucks and lead pipes, but one's got a rather ornate nickel-plated M1911. Ten guys with pawnshop-grade weaponry against one super-soldier. Yeah, I don't like their odds.
Still, Curtis doesn't seem to be in a diplomatic mood, and I don't have time to be negotiating for the delayed payment of my bar tab while my killer could still be anywhere out there. These guys don't deserve the beating I'm going to be giving them tonight, but since they're keeping me from the man who does, they're going to have to endure it anyway.
I'm really sorry guys, but not as sorry as Bucky's going to be.
2.
"The Age of Heroes has begun anew." So says the footer to the Frontline article that summarized all the weirdness I thankfully avoided these past five years. The disbandment of the Avengers. The mutant decimation. The superhuman Civil War. The takeover of the Hulk. The Skrull Invasion. Hell, these people were even dumb enough to hand the Green Goblin the keys to their security. I mean, I've seen and made some real bad choices in my life but that last one just trumped all of them.
But in the center of that article was perhaps the only thing that could have been worse than all those debacles combined. The death of Captain America. The one man who showed me that I can break free from all the bad choices I've made and make a true hero out of myself was shot in the back and branded a traitor by the very people he's saved time and time again. Those bastards took the greatest hero they could ever hope for and crucified him for the world to see; a sacrificial lamb ready for the six o-clock news.
Thank goodness he's back, but I can't help but wonder if all those catastrophes could've been avoided if he had lived. Has the damage already been done? It seems that the world's been smashed and ripped and torn apart so many times these past five years, that it takes more than the guiding influence of a Captain America to put it back in order. Maybe it's why Steve isn't wearing the flag anymore. Maybe instead of just taking the law into his hands, he now has to be the law. Maybe it's what we needed all along.
"And in his place, a new Captain America has risen, to take on those who would threaten the Dream!" Those guys at Frontline sure are poor judges of character. I see past the shiny new suit and the machined-steel wings. This guy's no Captain America. He may have skills and he may have the respect of a team of vigilantes, but deep down, he's just a fool who's trying desperately to be part of a legacy he knows he can't handle. He's just a pretender, thinking that the glory, the fame, and the action were what turned Steve into a legend.
He's just like me.
Hypocritical as it may be, I can't let this guy wear the flag and throw the shield. The only man who deserves to be Captain America is Steve Rogers, and if he can't be Captain America yet, then until he can, no one will be.
"Um, sir? Is everything alright?" The attendant paces cautiously over to where I'm seated. I look down and I see a smoking heap of plastic and rubber and wiring where the mouse used to be.
"Damn. I uh…I'll pay for it."
3.
"Where in hell are these idiots going?"
I see the streaks of blue and red shoot out of the corner of my eye and fade into the distance. The cops sure took their sweet time getting here. I mean, it's not like I'm that far off from Pittsburgh. The dopes seem to be lost too, I mean, the bar I –accidentally- torched is two miles the other way.
Still, as long as the police aren't looking my way, it'll be easy to get into the city, get some cash from my stash and hop on the red eye to New York. Less contact with the law, less chance of me being identified and getting pulled over for interrogation.
Daredevil's probably in town, and the article said he and this new Cap served together on some outlaw Avengers team, maybe he can tell me all I need to know about "Cap" and how to convince that guy that no one but Steve Rogers is fit for the flag. Matt's pretty connected on the superhero scene; maybe he can tell me all about this Bucky lookalike, or whatever he is, as well.
That's right Jack, stick to the plan, and take it one step at a time. Just because you're a super-soldier doesn't mean you have to go charging into every fight. Be patient and soon what you're looking for will fall right into your lap.
-BOOM!-
Oh what now?
I run a few hundred meters in the direction of the blast when I suddenly realize why the cops were so busy not noticing the bar I left in ruins.
A steel and glass salad of armored cars lies tossed and shredded in a middle of the street, the rips are irregular and jagged, with small, round dents at the edges; whoever did this, did it by hand.
And true enough, as they spout the blather of their street-slang as indecipherably as the Norse enchantment empowering them, the uncultured rabble betrays its identity. It's a terrible, terrible day when you run into the Wrecking Crew.
"Oi! No witnesses! Git all them peds!" Oh crap. The Wrecker spotted me. I have to get the hell out of here. Getting my ass flattened by a bunch of Thor-level supervillains is seriously going to put a stick in my plans, to say the least.
"HELP!" I spot one of the drivers, pinned under the wreckage, trying to pull himself out. Jesus, Jack, you may have a job to do, but you can't just leave the guy at the mercy of these sick bastards. These guys could pummel the Hulk into raw steak, how long do you think he'll last with them?
"Yo! Where your head at?" A giant wrecking ball comes careening straight at me. No time to deliberate, Jack. You're strong, but you can't stop that thing with your bare hands.
I duck under the ball with an ease that surprises even myself. I roll forward right into a sprint and in the time it takes for Thunderball to retrieve the wrecking ball; I'm already at the wrecked car. I tear at the door and I rip it off its hinges as easily as someone would pry a post-it off a refrigerator. I've never felt this strong in my life. I pick the driver up and run him over to the closest tree, his head slumps calmly back and I breathe a sigh of relief. He's alive, but he's not going to remember who saved him.
"What? He's a cape! Get his ass!" Oh. Right. I just forgot that I was being hounded by a group of mystically empowered supervillains. This is gonna suck.
-WHACK!-
A star shoots out of the trees behind me, flaring red and white, smashing the Wrecker in the face. It blasts back and forth between the Crew, knocking them to the ground as it goes. Then it zooms back into the darkness, called back by whatever it is that let it loose in the first place.
Then he shoots out of the darkness like a cold blue comet, weaving through the Crew with the star –that indestructible shield- on his arm, smashing his way through them with unnatural grace.
Captain America is here.
The Crew swings their fists and their weapons wildly and with enough force to make the street beneath them crack and crumble. But the Captain simply blocks and dodges them with coordination that for all my training and superpowers, I simply cannot hope to match. It's as if he's just dancing with them. I have to hand it to the guy, he may be just some fool thinking he can use this legacy to get some glory for himself, but damn can he fight.
Thunderball leaps into the air, wrecking ball twirling over him. The Captain simply rolls to the side, the ball missing him by scant inches… and instead burying itself in the waiting face of Piledriver. Bulldozer charges down the street, ready to trample the Captain underfoot. The Captain whirls around, and slides forward, shield first, smashing Bulldozer in the knees, tripping the man and sending him rolling right into Thunderball. The two smash into the street like some flaming meteor of iron and spandex.
"Enough of this!" The Wrecker's exasperation makes itself apparent as his comrades suddenly start dropping to the street, clutching their sides as they squirm away from the Captain. He's withdrawn his power from them to reach his maximum ability. His crowbar starts rattling as Nordic runes start erupting from it in spurts and sparks. "Think you can take this, Cap?"
"You! Get out of here!" Cap shouts at me as he instinctively brings his shield to the ready. A bolt of lightning shoots out of the crowbar, lashing out at the Captain. The bolt smashes into the shield with enough force to blow out every light on the street. Somehow, Cap and the shield stand up to it, and with no place to go, the bolt bounces off the shield and barrels straight for me.
Oh shi-
4.
"You alright, sir?" Damn it to hell. Here I am hatching a plot to talk down the new Captain America and call him out for the poser that he is and the first thing I see upon getting up from being blasted with a bolt of lightning is this shiny blue wing-head staring right down at me. So much for confronting him on my own terms.
"The lightning bolt hit the tree, so you didn't take most of the impact. You got a tree branch to the face, though. You're bleeding badly from the head, but you'll pull through." I reach up and touch my face. There's blood all over it. It's disgusting and painful for a mask, but who am I to complain? It seems to work fine.
"You're a pretty tough guy. Saved that driver, took enough damage to put most guys in a coma, and you're still getting up. I swear, you remind me of somebody…" A dark green shadow looms over his shoulder, a glint of iron hovering above it, glowing with a faint, but distinct sheen of electricity. What the hell was this moron doing checking on me without making sure the Wrecker stayed down?
"Look out, you dumbass!"
The Captain turns around in time to catch the crowbar with his shield. A shockwave ripples out of the shield, blasting me right in the face, knocking me back down.
Gotta hightail it out of here. I can't be around once Cap deals with this fool. I got lucky just to stare Cap in the eye without him getting a good look at my face, no sense to push my luck even further. The Wrecker's leading him back into the street, now's my chance.
Before I leave I rummage through the driver's pockets for something useful. Let's see, spare keys, a hundred dollars, a .40 Glock –fully loaded-, and what's this? A little black plastic box? I'll sort it out later.
Then I start running through the trees, as fast as my legs can carry me. The trees around me start to blur into an endless wall of green, the stars above me start turning into fuzzy white lines. The branches reach out of thin air to grab me, but I'm too fast for them to catch. The roots try to trip me, bursting out from nowhere, but I duck and I jump over them and as abruptly as they appeared, they vanish into the woods behind me.
I've never gone this fast in my life. This is too much. This is too fast. I gotta stop I gotta stop I gotta stop Igottastop Igottastop Igottasto-
The street lamp rushes up from out of the ground and hits me square in the temple. I roll on the ground for about a dozen feet before finally coming to a stop. I lift my red and battered head off the pavement and see I'm but a few miles from the city.
I wipe my face with what's left of my shirt. Maybe the beer will disinfect the wound some.
That's strange. It's just been a few minutes after being opened up, but the wound's stopped bleeding completely, to say nothing of the physical exertion I just put myself through. Alright, I'm not just dreaming this up. My physical abilities are getting way stronger for some reason, and that's after suffering a year of my super-serum's gradual breakdown AND THEN getting shot twice in the chest. After I sort this business out, I have to ask someone, maybe Reed Richards or Hank Pym about this.
Speaking of business, let's see what's in that little black box.
I take the box out of my pocket and open it up. A hologram bursts from the box, forming a tiny keyboard on the inside of the lid. A recording plays, "Please type in your S.H.I.E.L.D. identification number." A S.H.I.E.L.D. PDA?
Jackpot.
5.
Well goddamn. I don't believe it. I don't frickin' believe it. The guy who shot me wasn't just a Bucky. He was THE Bucky. Bucky friggin' Barnes is alive?
That's what this PDA I've been poring over for the last six hours on this park bench says about the guy who shot me. Man, five years, two alien invasions and one hostile takeover by a mass-murdering supervillain, and S.H.I.E.L.D. still can't bother itself to secure its intelligence database. If there's anything good that came out of my time as Scourge, it's those lessons in computer systems Gyrich had me taught. I knew those would come in handy outside of hacking into the Thunderbolts mainframe.
Says here that Bucky survived his and Steve's last mission in World War 2, but instead of being frozen in a block of ice, he was rescued by the Soviets a few hours later and revived without a left arm and most of his memory. They brainwashed him, gave him a bionic arm and used him as an assassin, "The Winter Soldier" to dispatch targets overseas, and spent his time between missions in cryogenic stasis. That explains a lot, like why he up and tried to kill me. I almost feel flattered that some relic of the Cold War thinks of me as important enough to kill.
Still, it doesn't say anything about where he is now. I'm still nowhere closer to killing him than when I started reading this damn thing. Let's try checking these files from last year. Hm. Let's see…nope. Nothing in the main database, let's try checking these files by individual agents…nope. Wait. "To be discarded."
Let's see what's in it… Mostly some more files by individual agents… S.W.O.R.D. reports on the Breakworld… some sex videos of Hawkeye and Ms. Marvel… nothing useful either. Hey wait a minute. What's this?
"Tony Stark" Hmm. What's Iron Man doing with S.H.I.E.L.D.? Let me see… Inauguration as Director, guess he didn't like the way Nick Fury was running stuff… Invaders incident… Recruitment for Mighty Avengers…
"03.2008" It's the only file with a date as its title. Could be something useful. Let's see what it is.
"Access denied. You require level 10 S.H.I.E.L.D. clearance." Damn. What is on file that's so secret I need Director's clearance to open it? Wait. Isn't Steve S.H.I.E.L.D. Director now? If he hasn't changed his passkey yet, I could definitely get a look in that file. Thank goodness I snooped in on him when he was using the database on that one mission.
0-3-0-3-2-0-0-5. "Access granted." Alright! Now let's see what was so important Tony Stark had to hide it from everyone.
Hey wait a minute. What's Barnes doing in Stark's office?
"I've upheld half of the bargain, Bucky. You're free of all of the Winter Soldier programming. We even took the liberty of installing some psionic shielding in case anything like that happens again. Now, are you ready to uphold your half?"
"Hold on, Stark. You've only upheld half of your half so far. Remember, I don't take orders from you, and if some S.H.I.E.L.D. team shows up to bust me while I'm out on patrol, you can bet your ass I'm coming back here for you."
"Of course. Now take your uniform, please. It just came in from the tech division. It's Kevlar coated in a super-thin sheen of vibranium. It's stronger than Steve's uniform, but way lighter. Courtesies of the Black Panther of course."
Stark opens up a panel on the wall and hands Bucky a large piece of cloth. It glows a cold, pale blue, the stars and stripes glistening brightly from out of it.
No. No way.
I just set out to kill the guy who tried to kill me, and it turns out he's the new Captain America?
I can't do this. I can't kill Captain friggin' America. I can't. All I wanted to do was talk the guy down, tell him he was making the biggest mistake of his life, but kill the guy? No way man. The country's already seen one Cap shot on live TV. They're not seeing it again.
Okay. Scrap the "kill Bucky" part of the plan. All I have to do is just go to Avengers Tower and have a sit down with the guy, ask him why he thought it a good idea to kill good 'ol Jack Monroe, and make him beg for my forgiveness. I'll only kill him if he tries to kill me first. Again. Yeah. That's what I'll do…
"AARGHHH!"
The pain bites through my head as if everything I just learned these past few hours is trying to claw its way out my eyes and ears. I feel my memories being ruffled through like a stack of memos on an in-out pile. My mind starts being cut into pieces and pasted back together in linear order, like some slideshow put on display for the enjoyment of some sick voyeur, laughing his ass off as I lie trying to rack my brains for some explanation.
The vision in both of my eyes blurs like a slot machine in play. Pictures, people, movements flash before me as my already-addled mind struggles to keep up with them. They suddenly stop, with each of my eyes seeing differently.
On my left I see Bucky in his black combat gear, bringing a rifle to his aim. On my right, I see the new Cap, ready to bring his shield down on me. Damn. Gonna die here. Gonna die here. Gonna die here.
I try work the feeling back into my left arm; try to make it reach into my pocket. I feel the Glock's cold steel permeate through my numb fingers. I reach for the trigger and –
-BLAM BLAM-
Bucky and the Captain crumple to the ground, writhing and twitching in reflex, heads split open like raw eggs. I lower the gun to aim at them, but as I'm doing so, their bodies fade, blood and brains and all.
My head goes light. My sight goes red. A single voice echoes through my skull.
"KILL"
6.
"Don't I know you?"
"No"
-SPLASH-
The frigid water blasts me in my face with the same force those .45s hit me that night. I pull myself up; gasping for the air my lungs can't seem to reach on their own. I look around; see if there's anyone I can return fire to. I almost find myself reaching for the Glock just to shoot back at… the balding head of the taxi driver?
How did I end up in a taxi? The last thing I remember is dropping onto the pavement near the park bench.
"You okay buddy? Sorry 'bout that. Forgot to roll up the window. Damn kids opening up the fire hydrants. Anyways, you just woke up in time. We're here."
"Where?"
"This address you handed me on this hanky. You don't remember that do you? Jesus, when you hailed me from that park bench it was like you'd been shot or something. Here, take a look. You sure you don't want me to drive you to a hospital first? West Penn's not too far from here."
I take a look at the handkerchief. "1000 Friendship Avenue, Pittsburgh, PA" was scrawled on it in blood, most probably mine. Well, no reason to waste this guy's time any longer.
"No, thanks. Here. Keep the change."
I get out the cab and duck into the alley next to the convenience store. Can't stand to shock a few patrons with all the blood on me and probably get the law on my ass. I really should've bought the lot above the safehouse. I move the dumpster next to the back door a couple of feet, there's a trapdoor below it. I move the dumpster back into place before closing the door.
I flip the switch down the end of the hallway. Ah. The motherlode's still here. It's nice to see Gyrich and his secret agent goons haven't repurposed the armory I used during my time as Scourge.
Perhaps around a metric ton of guns and exotic weapons coats the walls of the room more thickly than any wallpaper. On the far wall, the Green Goblin's glider sits on a charging dock. In one corner, sits the energy cannon-on-a-helmet of the Unicorn, and the multi-storey stilts of the Stilt-Man, both deactivated and disassembled. In the center of the room, on a stand, lays a pair of golden discs, no more than four inches in diameter. Seemingly harmless, they contain a pair of internal tasers, each capable of delivering an output voltage of up to 1000 kilovolts through their surface plates. Ah the Stun Discs, how I've missed you.
I take a quick shower, and change into some fresh clothes. I pull down a small mattress and lie down as I start to sort out the matter of –KILL CAPTAIN AMERICA-
No, that isn't right. Damn it, I can't –KILL CAPTAIN AMERICA-
No goddamnit! I have to go to Avengers Tower, and have a talk with –KILL CAPTAIN AMERICA-
–KILL CAPTAIN AMERICA- –KILL CAPTAIN AMERICA- –KILL CAPTAIN AMERICA-
"KILL CAPTAIN AMERICAAAARRRGGHHHNOOOOO!"
-KLANG-
I hear the trap door slam against the back wall, the thumps of bootsoles crashing against the floor, the rattles and clanks of combat rifles bouncing against their owners' chests. Who in the world could have possibly tracked me here?
"Jack? Jack Monroe?" I remember that voice. Steve. How did he find me? Oh god. The PDA. Stupid stupid stupid move, Jack. Of course they can trace the damn thing. I turn around to see Steve, as jarring as it is, without the flag and the shield, instead in a Kevlar bodysuit like some Nick Fury knockoff, flanked by about a dozen S.H.I.E.L.D. agents.
"Jack? It's me, Steve. Are you alright? I remembered this was your old safehouse. You showed it to me after we had those nanites Gyrich planted in you cleaned out. I hope you don't mind that I let myself in." No Steve! Something's trying to make me kill Captain America! You have to stop me! Get me some help! Quick!
"Everything's fine, Steve." What? No it's not! I didn't say that! I said I need help! Help me goddamnit!
"One of my agents, the only one who survived the attempted breakout of the Wrecking Crew said he lost his PDA and I had it tracked, since it appeared someone accessed the database from it. I was about to send out a field team to recover it and debrief whoever took it, when Captain America burst into my office, saying he saw someone who looked just like you dragging the agent to safety. I figured I should come along and see for myself."
"Yeah. About that. Sorry about using the PDA, I had to catch up on current events, like who this new Captain America is." Of course he does! I do? Whatever! He wants to kill the guy! Stop him! Stop me!
"Then you should know he came back from the dead, just like you seem to have. You want to explain to me how you're back?"
"That's the thing. Even I don't know. I was hoping to see some eggheads about this. Maybe you could bring me to Avengers Tower? Have Tony Stark see me?" Dammit. Cap and Iron Man are on this new Avengers team together. If Steve gives him a ride to Avengers Tower, it'll be over for Cap.
"I don't see why not. Team, have the pilot set course for Avengers Tower."
"Thanks, Steve." My hand reaches out to shake Steve's but I catch a glimpse of what it's really planning. A stun disc sits hidden up my sleeve, ready to be slipped into Steve's waiting hand. The bodysuit may be able to take the shock without incident, but Steve's gloves are simple leather, not to mention fingerless. He's going to get the whole output right up his arm.
I try my hardest to pull my arm back, but it seems as if it's on autopilot now. Damn it Steve, don't let him touch you! I'm not doing this! I'm not doing this—
-ZZAAPPP-
Steve goes down, squirming and drooling, eyes glazed, like an epileptic under a disco ball. The agents barely realize what's happened, still struggling to bring their weapons to the aim.
"Director Rogers is down! Engage subject Monroe! Repeat, engage subject Monroe!"
Forearm smash. Elbow to the sternum. Hip toss. Arm twist. My hand plucks the rifle out of the agent's hands and turns it on his comrades.
-BAM BAM BAM BAM BAM BAM BAM BAM BAM BAM BAM -
The agents crumple to the floor, choking and clutching their chests. Oh thank God they weren't packing lethal.
I try to check on Steve if he wasn't too hurt, but my neck doesn't let itself swivel around to see. Knowing Steve though, he's going to pick himself up not a few seconds after that. Who or whatever's controlling seems to know that too. As soon as he slides the trapdoor open, the rips the handle off the bottom of the dumpster. He climbs out and after shutting the trapdoor, he rolls the dumpster into place and kicks the wheels off. Steve isn't getting out of there without help from the outside, which probably isn't gonna come until a few hours from now.
"Team, what is your status? Please advise." The pilot prattles on into the radio, unaware that his entire forward team has been taken down. He's too busy checking on the radio to notice his door gunner's already been ripped out of his seat. The gunner slams into a tree ten feet from the door, breaking both it and his spine in half. The pilot gets up, pulls his machine pistol, and turns to check where that sharp crack came from. Too late, I've already made my way into the crew bay.
"Hey! What are you—" My hands reach for the pilot's neck. It snaps like an old rotten twig, the pilot slumps into the seat without incident. I spot the autopilot tracker. It's set to Avengers Tower. I see myself climb into the seat and activate the autopilot. The exhaust from the thrusters rattle the dropship as it takes off into the blazing midday sun.
"Autopilot engaged. En route to Avengers Tower," the computer sounds off as it tilts its engines towards New York.
Good God. I'm really going to kill Captain America. And there's nothing I can do to stop myself.
7.
"E.T.A. to Avengers Tower: 2 Minutes. Control switching to manual." I take the controls, hands shaking as I do. In the past hour or so, I've been trying to see if I could force control back over my body. The most I've been able to do is twitch my thumbs. That's not going to make much difference to a body enhanced to the peak of human physical capability and trained in multiple hand-to-hand combat techniques. Even if I were able to completely regain control of my hands, that's not going to stop whatever's controlling me now from kicking Captain America off the top of the Tower.
The dropship starts rattling again as it descends on the landing pad. A full landing crew, with hooks at the ready to guide the dropship down and pin it to the tarmac. A team in the communication tower, equipped with a CCTV array, ready to monitor each and every landing. A squad of gunners on the anti-air guns, positioned in an arc around the pad, to cover the largest possible area. A pair of snipers watching the entrance. All these people were surprisingly missing, from what I expected to be the entrance to one of the most heavily-guarded landmarks in America. Where the hell are all these people?
I find myself stepping out onto the empty tarmac, heading for the balcony. I try to jerk my head forward and hunch my shoulders, in the hope that I'll trip over the rail and fall to my death; it seems like the only way to stop this is to somehow kill myself, which is proving much of a problem, considering my near-total lack of bodily control now.
My head tilts forward anyway, and as it leans over the edge of the Tower, I see exactly why there's nobody manning the pad.
The rubble pours out of the ground floor of Avengers Tower, broken like the bottom of a wine jar, releasing the fermenting rage of a gang of supervillains, hacking and slashing their way out of their sterile underground prison. Guess these guys were still having their paperwork processed so they could be moved to The Raft.
It's the perfect diversion. Even a breakout of just ten supervillains is going to cause so much chaos; any shot is bound to come from anywhere. With the action down on the streets, the last place anyone's going to think of looking for a shooter is four hundred meters above the crime scene. This thing controlling me doesn't seem too keen on self-preservation, given that he fought his way to this spot as unsubtly as possible, but from way up here? He's going to get off scot-free.
He realizes this too, and pulls me away from the railing and heads for the dropship's door gun. It's a massive piece of fine Stark-Tech engineering. I've seen this one at an arms expo before. It's an electronically-operated, belt-fed repulsor slug-thrower that uses a concentrated directed energy pulse to propel a 20 millimeter-wide depleted uranium round at 4000 feet per second, with an average fire rate of 600 rounds per minute. It's like the bastard love-child of an M60 and an Iron Man suit. If there's anything that's going to go through Cap's suit, it's this.
He yanks the gun off its hinges, not even flinching at the thing's weight. He stomps on the floorboards; they give way no more easily than a soda can. He pulls out the gun's ammo supply. The whole thing must weigh about five hundred pounds, but he barely gives this notice as he strolls back over to the balcony and props the gun over it.
He turns on the gun's scope and peers through it to look for Cap. There he is, leaping out of the sky, stars and all, leaping to engage a…bus? He zooms in closer and I try my hardest to flinch in horror as I see the twenty kids or so stranded on that bus, teetering over the edge of a large crater, no doubt made by the battle. Cap slides under the frame, shield over his head. He crouches under the bus and with its entire weight on the shield; he starts to lift, hoping to let the bus roll down and away from the sinkhole.
-BLAM-
A blood red hood shoots out of an alley, from it, a volley of pistol rounds flying out from it. I try to shift the aim, see who it is. I recognize this kid; it's Parker Robbins, that Kingpin wannabe who gets his powers from the hood. Shot after shot rings out, some make their mark on Cap's back. As poor a shot this Robbins may be, he's managed to land enough shots on Cap's back to make him fall back to his knees; the bus starts sliding towards the sinkhole again.
Goddamnit! I can't just sit back and watch this happen. If I don't do anything, Cap isn't just going to die. These kids are going to be left to the mercy of that psycho. Jesus, Jack, your right thumb! There must be a safety on this thing!
I feel my index finger slowly wrapping itself around the trigger. It pulls back; the trigger eagerly anticipating the full pressure to release the shot. I try to twitch my thumb, reaching for some kind of switch. I feel a small bump on the side of the gun; frantically, I flick it, setting the gun on…CHARGE?
The ejection port on the gun snaps open, flinging the uranium cartridge out; it doesn't snap shut, the gun's essentially empty. A faint yellow glow seeps out from the barrel, the gun starts shaking too much for even my hands to control. That must be why it was bolted to the chopper. Soon the trembling spreads to my knees. If this thing goes, I'm going down with it.
-BOOOOOOMMM-
A beam slices through the air, expanding down onto the street. I see where it hits before the gun knocks me to my feet. The beam misses Cap and the kids, the few inches that all that shaking moved me translated to several feet down below. The side wall of a building gives way to the beam, releasing a cloud of debris right over Robbins. Cap's problems are over.
Mine have just peaked. My body struggles to control the beam, in its confusion, struggling to point the gun downward. Bad idea. The support struts of the landing pad get ripped into confetti, the pad tilts on its side, sliding me towards the edge.
I try to reach out for something, keep my balance, but my body's too busy hanging on to the gun. I roll off the pad, off the balcony, out into the open air, down into the street.
Someone save me. Please.
8.
"He's opening his eyes. Somebody call Bucky!" I try to take a look at what the commotion's about. Let's see; I'm in a sterile white room lying on a gurney, I'm up to my neck in bedsheets, the air stinks of Pym Particle gas, Iron Man's checking on my vitals. I always did sort of hope my first visit to this place would be better.
"You're in Avengers Tower, Mr. Monroe. Sorry about having to put you in my lab, the infirmary's still being repaired at the time being, not that it would have been much use to you." Oh damn. You know you're in big trouble if a guy like Tony Stark, who's pretty much been on the ass end of luck and pretty much everything in this whole upside-down universe these past few years tells you there's something wrong.
"Uh…what do you mean? You guys are the Avengers. You guys come back from the dead, like, all the time. I'm pretty sure my multi-storey drop would've been a cinch to fix with whatever advanced medical techniques you've got in here. Hell, I even considered coming here the first time I thought I was dying."
"Yes. About that. I was able to save you from hitting the street by projecting a force field to slow your descent, as I was physically unable to reach you in time. I was able to carry you safely to about, say, 80 feet above the street when I took an energy blast from The Living Laser, one of Parker Robbins' men. Suffice to say I wasn't able to keep the field up, and you fell the remaining distance and landed feet-first right into the sidewalk. Captain America rushed you to the infirmary to try and save you after getting those kids to safety and taking Robbins down. When he got there, though, the nurses that examined you told him that…well, it's better if you take a look yourself."
"Before that, where is this new Cap anyway? He's the reason I'm in here in the first place. Did you morons know that that piece of trash is a stone-cold killer? Hell, he tried to kill me for God knows what reason! That asshole isn't fit to be wearing the flag!"
"Actually, I did kill you, Jack." The door swings open; Bucky steps in, the cowl on his uniform left to hang on his nape. He keeps his head down, trying to hide the face I saw that night, the face that looked down the sights as he blasted my chest open, the face that looked on smugly, as if in judgment, as he slammed the trunk shut. "I killed you, Jack, and I'm sorry."
"Please, Jack. It wasn't his fault. He was under his Soviet programming at that time. Now if we could just get to the matter of—"
"Alright, let's say his brainwashing does excuse him (which it doesn't, by the way), how am I even alive? How did I survive falling 80 feet? And what the hell do you mean that you killed me? How do you think I got here?"
"Yes, I was just getting to that. Here, take a look." Stark pulls off the bedsheet, giving me a clear view of my waist down, except it isn't there anymore. Where my legs once were, now lay a clump of wires, trying desperately to keep connected some metal shards and a handful of gears into a pair of jagged rods somehow resembling human femurs. Right above where my thighs used to be sits a horribly broken axle, rending and shearing itself as I try to squirm for a better view. My guts are now an empty cavity, reeking of the oil of a shaped explosive, wires from a detonator carelessly hanging about.
"Oh God! I'm a-a Terminator?"
"Heh. Something like that. You're an extremely advanced Life-Model Decoy, yes just like the human-looking robots we use to fill in for S.H.I.E.L.D. field agents who really can't afford to be killed on the job, as popularized by Nick Fury. You pass for human because you have nanomachine scramblers built into you that fool metal detectors, and have organic skin, some muscles, even part of a human brain encased in that endoskeleton. I stumbled upon some notes left behind by Norman Osborn after we had him imprisoned. He's been making others like you to hunt down the Avengers, the REAL ONES, not his fakes, should they become too difficult to contain. It wouldn't be murder or manslaughter, since you're officially dead, and not on any H.A.M.M.E.R. database, therefore making him not open for indictment. Hawkeye reported a story similar to yours, but with the LMD appearing as the first Swordsman. I believe Osborn had you and any others like you, if they're still out there, appear as dead friends and loved ones from our past, perhaps so we'd let our guard down."
"But why go through all the trouble? Why not send his Avengers? Or plain 'ol LMD's if he's feeling stingy?"
"Presumably to avoid a show, can't have superheroes killing other superheroes in broad daylight, can we? Oh no, sir. Anyway, ordinary LMDs require communication from an external signal in order to be kept under control; a signal that can easily be detected given the level of tech the Avengers had acquired at that time. You on the other hand, maintain no connection with an external signal. The artificial parts of your "brain", so to speak, are responsible for your motor functions and delivering nourishment to your organic parts. The human part of your brain allows you to think for yourself, which is what Osborn likely wanted. Of course, he had to guide you along the path, so you were given an artificial set of memories, constructed from information in the real Jack Monroe's files, some of his memories recorded by the nanites during his time as Scourge, and likely some memories of Bucky's as well, perhaps taken from Dr. Faustus, who had been responsible for Bucky's most recent brainwashing. You were also subliminally programmed to kill an intended target, in this case Bucky, when coming within prolonged visual contact with him."
"Okay, I presume there was a bomb in my gut, which is why there's a hole in it now. I know it sounds like a good idea to have as a plan B, but I mean, you guys have taken bombs to the face before. What's a half pound of Semtex gonna do?
"Oh the plastic explosive was just there to kill you if you violated your programming. Of course, you were knocked unconscious, and even if the bomb could go off independently, it was taken out quickly enough for it not to detonate in you. This was the real bomb." He holds out a small black piece of metal inlaid with blue glass, no larger and seemingly resembling a red ant. "We have no idea what it is and how it can stand to vaporize a city block. All we know is that it's been used to try and kill the Avengers before; planted inside someone as dense Luke Cage, it's virtually undetectable."
"Well. This is a little too much to take."
"Try not to think about it too much. From the outset, you're virtually indistinguishable from your human body, and give or take a few memories, you think and act exactly like Jack Monroe. The only thing you'll readily notice to be different is your physical capabilities, which are obviously more powerful than what you've been accustomed to, although I think since you've gotten this far, they wouldn't be too hard for you to get used to. For all intents and purposes, you are the real Jack Monroe."
"Thanks for the vote of confidence, Stark, but that's not what I came here for. I came here to see you swear off that uniform, Barnes!"
"Believe me; I enjoy its presence on me a lot less than you do. I never wanted to be Captain America. The only reason I'm wearing it is because Steve asked me to."
"But what about the responsibility you have to the American people?"
"These people need Captain America, not me AS Captain America. All they need is someone to save their stuff from a burning building, rescue their cat, throw the opening pitch at the Yankees game, pose with them for their MySpace pictures just so they could get back to their decadent lives. I used to think the burden of being Cap was about trying to keep yourself an example, a role model for the people to follow and rally behind from time to time, but I found out that's just par course for any superhero with at least half a sense of decency. The real burden is deciding to keep the flag on, despite the fact that almost nobody around you knows what you're really worth, nobody cares that you're actually trying to make them better than what they are, all in the hope that one receptive soul might notice and slowly, painfully start the true change from there."
"I-I never thought about it that way."
"Listen. While what America needs is important to me, over and above that, what my friend needs means the world to me. As to why he'd want me to keep wearing the flag, I have no idea, and I won't ask him any further, but I'm keeping the flag, no matter how much you, or anyone don't want me to."
"I guess…I'm cool with it. Just don't make me regret saying that."
"You know I won't. By the way, Steve wanted you to have this back." He pulls the stun disk from his belt; a row of little round dents marked the disk's diameter. Steve still managed to crush the thing and pick himself up after me. Talk about hard. "He says between you and the agents' families there are no hard feelings. He also asks if you're still having those problems finding your purpose. He told me back in your "previous life" you felt you didn't have an identity and coasted on his and mine. Maybe you've been given this new life to try making one for yourself again."
"I…hadn't really thought about that. What do you think I should do?"
Well, even with three Avengers teams, (one of them's a secret by the way, so if you're asked, say two), there's still a lot of ground in the country we can't cover, the southwest especially. Plus, those sleeper LMDs are still out there. I thought you'd be interested in picking up a costume again, give us a hand; Tony says he could rebuild your legs, repair the damage, and have your brainwashing erased just like mine. What do you say, Jack? Can you be that one soul? Travel the country, inspire the populace, and defend the overlooked? Can you be the Nomad?"
"Huh. You bet your ass I can."