I don't own these characters or profit from them.
Anti/Hero: Heroes of a Feather
By, Clayton Overstreet
The new heroines known as Hummingbird and the Gray Owl arrived at East Gotham Bank and Trust about twenty minutes after they left Hummingbird's AKA Piper Pájaro's house. Sloan MacBrute was not in the best shape, relying more on her superhuman intellect, but having just spent time in each other's bodies training to win a special educational adventure courtesy of Bruce Wayne both girls were in pretty good shape.
What they were not was in time to assist the police with the robbery Piper's Uncle John had let slip in front of the burgeoning superheroes. There had been talk of exploding pies and clowns before he rushed off. And while Piper was inhumanly strong and capable of lifting a small car, provided her metabolism had been boosted by sufficient food within the last hour, super speed and flight were not among her skill set and the swarm of drones flying around her new partner/best friends were too small to carry anything more than a watch.
The bank was only about a mile and a half from the house but they were still only about halfway there when they saw and heard the explosion. The two bird themes heroes were on the sidewalk when a purple limo with a clown's face and jets sped by pursued closely by the black flash that was the Batmobile. Before Sloan, a huge fan girl where the Dark Knight was concerned, could even geek out they were followed by half a dozen police cars complete with flashing lights and sirens.
"I think that was my uncle's car…" Piper said.
Sloan nodded. "Yeah, I remember his license plate. We're never going to catch up o them you know." She sighed and lifted up her cape. "You know I never understood the phrase 'all dressed up with nowhere to go' until now. Maybe I could build us some flying bikes or something, if I can get the parts. Your parents' old lab probably isn't being guarded by the cops any more…"
"Well I'm not turning around. Abuela and Ben just sent us off with a smile. We can't just turn around and go walking back. Maybe there are still some bad guys over at the bank."
Sloan considered and nodded. "It's worth checking out." She too did not want to just turn around. It had been a few days since they had saved their school from her grandfather, who had accidentally used the same device that had the two of them switching bodies to merge with his pet grizzly bear. She had been itching for another chance to prove she took after her mother instead of him.
When they arrived it was a terrible scene. There were huge gobs of melting whipped cream on the sidewalk, but that was not as funny as it might sound. The bank had a huge hole in the side and was on fire. Ambulanced and fire trucks were all around and while firemen tried to put out the fire paramedics were loading bodies into their ambulances. The girls could not see them because they were covered in sheets. A few others had already sped off and could be heard in the distance, probably carrying living people to get needed medical attention.
Piper covered her mouth and began saying something in Spanish that Sloan was pretty sure was a prayer. Sloan just stared. She had, up until recently, been a thief working for her grandfather because he was blackmailing her and had been keeping her mother from getting steady employment. Both as a way of controlling his granddaughter and to punish his daughter for not taking over East Gotham's crime years earlier as per his plans.
She had never hurt anyone though. Sloan had been a smash and grab tyoe or had used her tech and skills to sneak around or as distractions. Even her mutated grandpa had just been trussed up for police and animal control.
This was different. When you heard that the Joker or Penguin had robbed a place using jack-in-the-boxes or sword umbrellas only to be chased off or caught by Batman or Superman on the news it was definitely different.
"God, why couldn't we…?" Piper began.
Sloan put a hand on her friend's shoulder. "There was nothing we could do." She was not sure if she was talking to her friend who was dressed as a feathered luchadore or herself. She had been so happy with the new look of her costume, complete with domino mask. Now it just felt stupid. They were kids It was one thing when she was ripping off pawn shops for food money or when her super strong friend was sitting on the edge of roof tops looking for muggers and burglars to fight.
She saw something by their feet and looked down. It was a playing card. A picture of a jester smirked up at them. Half of it was sprayed with blood. The uncovered part had edges that glittered like a razorblade in the streetlight.
One of them might have suggested going home, but not too far away the police that remained and some of the firemen began to buzz around like ants at a picnic. One moved away across the blocked off street, not even noticing the two girls. She pulled off her helmet and held up a radio. "I repeat we have heard banging from inside the safe. We need someone to get down here now…" She paused as she finally noticed the two costumed kids. "What are you doing here?"
"We came to help," Sloan said softly.
The woman began to say something and from the look of her face it was going to be along the lines of "Go home and leave this to the professionals." But Piper, who had been trying to be a hero and who had always been a lot more positive than Sloan said, "We have super powers. And we'll do whatever you say."
The woman hesitated. "I saw you two on the news. You stopped that giant bear at the school."
"Batman said we impressed him," Sloan said, that being the first thing to pop into her head.
She had alternated between a crush on the caped crusader and wishing that he was her dad, a man who her mother had not quite been able to talk about but whom she had always assured Sloan was a good man. Her grandfather had said it was his influence that turned his daughter against him, so whoever he was Sloan still had hope. Either way shaking batman's hand after the incident at the school had been the high point of her life up until then.
The woman hesitated. She was middle aged wearing the yellow coat with reflectors and still holding her fireman's hat in her other hand. Then she said, "Fine. Let's see what we can do. You can't do much more damage the way things are. What are your powers?"
"I'm really smart," Sloan said nodding to the drones. A tiny robot appeared out of her watch and waved as her digital assistant Minnie appeared. "And my friend here is super strong."
"Do you think you can crack a safe?"
The two girls shared a look. There was a little worry in Piper's eyes behind her mask and Sloan looked guilty. Hedging she said, "I can give it a try." In other circumstanced Piper might have giggled.
The woman hesitated. "The building is damaged. I only just sent my own men inside and we heard tapping from the direction of the vault. There's a lot of rubble and…"
"Minnie, have the drones scan the building."
"Aye-aye captain!" The drones buzzed off and floating over the working first responders they began to shoot out lasers. "Several support beams have been damaged and there is significant structural damage and parts are still on fire. I sense one person under a damaged section in the corner under plaster and what appears to be whipped cream. The vault seems relatively in tact but there is a metal beam leaning against it that weighs several hundred pounds as well as a few bricks. Most of the damage had been done though an what' left seems stable. It's a very strong building."
"Okay." She looked at the fire fighter. "My friend will need an oxygen mask, gloves, goggles, and something to eat."
"I have a fast metabolism," Piper explained.
The woman hesitated about being told what to do by a young girl, but then again the police had just allowed an unidentified man in a bat costume to take the lead in a hostage situation. "Got it." They hurried up and the girls waited a little ways back as she gave orders to the firemen. A moment later an oxygen tank connected to a clear mask by a hose was strapped on Piper's face over her superhero mask and on her head someone had procured a hat that held two sodas with straws that stuck under the mask and into her mouth. "Sorry, it's the best we can do."
"It's fine," her voice said. "S—uh, Gray Owl, I don't think you should come in with me."
"I agree. You're the Wonder Woman wannabe. I'll send a drone with you and communicate through it. I'll monitor from out here and guide you while you do the rescuing."
"Works for me," she said with a grin. The two of them had spent time in each other's brains and she knew that while Sloan needed a few lessons in social awareness, the girl's brain was better than top notch. Even if Piper had been an A student with an educational scholarship she would not have had half the brains the silver haired girl did. She trusted her implicitly.
Sloan blushed a bit at her friend's faith in her and said, "Just don't get killed in there."
A few minutes later Piper was inside the bank carefully stepping around the broken bits of building. She winced as she saw a hand hanging from a bloody lamp shade on a tipped over desk. The drone buzzed nearby while Sloan guided her through the rubble.
"The guy in trouble is to your left. You should check on him first…"
"Got it." She made her way over. The whipped cream was mostly melted and covered in dust. Not exactly edible. She came around and saw a shape under it. Being careful she saw a man in a suit colored by the dust breathing through a hole in the whipped cream. She bent down and wiped it off him, being careful not to hurt the man. "Ah!"
"What? Are you okay?"
"I am, but are you seeing this?"
There was a pause. "Zooterkins!"
The man had a pale face and even unconscious his mouth was stretched into a terrible smile over yellowing teeth. His eyes were closed and he was breathing steadily. Under the dust his suit was purple. Piper looked down and gasped before kicking the gun by his hand across the room. "What is going on?"
The firefighter's voice came out of the drone. "It happens. The Joker isn't exactly careful with his henchmen and he often leaves them in the blast zone if he thinks it'll help him get away or just because he thinks it's funny. Do you have any first aid training?"
"Just what I learned in the scouts," she admitted.
"Then leave him. We'll be in there in a minute as soon as the fire's completely out to drag the bozo to a hospital."
Piper hesitated. "I'm not sure I should just leave him…"
"No, she's right P… Hummingbird. My drones had scanned the vault. I'd say there are five people in there from the head signature I don't know how long they've been in there, but they're running out of air."
Piper nodded and hurried on, following the drone. Finally she reached a far wall and there was a bank vault door, a lot like a metal fire door except it seemed a lot smaller. There was a keypad on the side rather than a tumbler arrangement. It was a small bank. Not a gold reserve or something. She had actually seen inside when she was there with her grandmother. The whole inside was maybe ten foot square and lined with safety deposit boxes. The actual safe part was maybe the size of a refrigerator.
The door was thick, solid metal, and currently had a bean leaning on it. She reached for it and Sloan's voice said, "Wait a moment." She froze. "Okay grab and twist it to your left, but as you do step back. There's a ninety percent chance part of the roof above you will fall when you move it." Piper nodded and grabbed it. Taking a deep breath she yanked and then stepped back and let it fall. It clattered across the tile floor and as she jumped back several dozen bricks came loose and fell around where Piper had been. When the dust settled she moved back to the door. "Okay the firemen called the day manager. There weren't that many people. Just a couple of guards, a few accountants working late, and the night deposit people. Maybe ten people and four of them are unaccounted for. The code for the vault is 9-7-3-4-1."
Piper tapped in the number. There was a clank as several large bolts moved inside the wall. She reached out. The handle of the door moved but when she tugged the door stayed firmly shut. "Owl?'
"The wall's brick with steel behind it. It's as sturdy as you can expect and I think they've got maybe two minutes of air left, if that. Go for it."
It was a new experience, breaking a door on purpose. Normally it took a lot of control for Piper not to crush door knobs and rip doors of their hinges. This one actually took some effort, but when she yanked the metal shrieked as the door bent. Then the handle broke off. Two hands stuck through it and people began screaming through the crack.
"Stand back citizens," Piper said loudly. The voiced quieted and the hands withdrew. Working her fingers into the crack piper grabbed and pulled. A moment later the door popped free, badly bent like a piece of paper and four people rushed out of the tiny room behind it. The boxes and safe were mostly open and there was a strong smell of acid. There was a fifth body, the face melted off leaving a grinning skull. Piper turned and managed to rip off the plastic face mask before she threw up. From the looks of the vault floor she was not the first. When she got her breath she told the drone, "I've never been so glad I didn't go with the mouth covering ninja mask look for my costume."
"You can come out now. There's nobody else alive in there."
The firemen were working their way inside now, gathering up the citizens. Piper saw two paramedics picking up the unconscious henchman and an officer bagging the gun she had kicked earlier. When Piper got outside and took off the oxygen tank and soda hat she had been wearing, dropping them on the ground.
Sloan came over and gave her a quick hug. "You were great."
"Couldn't have done it without you." She looked around at the busy people. "Okay, now we can go home."
Five minutes later the woman who had brought them in was looking around for the two young heroes, but they were long gone.
Back at Piper's house they told Ben and Abuela what they had done john had called and said they would be late. The Joker had gotten away this time, but Batman had recovered the money as well as several other things from the safety deposit boxes as well as capturing several of his minions.
The two girls were drained when they got back and Piper's grandmother made them both cups of hot chocolate (Piper's had come in a cup the size of a bowl with about twenty marshmallows) before sending them off to bed.
Despite being so tired Piper asked, "Sloan, do you think there's anything we could have done? Like if we'd been out patrolling or…"
"No. I mean batman and the cops were probably looking for the Joker from the minute he escaped, but even they can't stop him before he actually does something. If they could it wouldn't be right anyway. That's how the Gestapo worked. I think some heroes can see the future, but…"
"No, I get it. It's just…"
"You saved four people for sure," she said. "Maybe more. The firemen might have tried moving the beam and gotten hurt. That clown you found on the floor might have woken up and shot someone."
"We saved those people," Piper said firmly. "I couldn't have done it without you. I'm not an idiot but I've been in your brain. I can't do the calculations on material, weight, and tensile strength or whatever you do. Me muscle. You brain. We work best together."
"Thanks. Um, but the thing is I don't think we shouldn't fight crime."
Piper sat up. "What?"
"I am not saying we let something go if it happens right in front of us and people are in danger, but Piper, what if we'd been there? Neither of us is bullet proof. There were bombs and razor playing cards, and guns. People died. I don't think even with my smarts and your strength we would have been much help.
"Maybe I could track the Joker and figure out where he would strike next, but we've got school and things, so it's not like we can stake those places out. Even if we did we wouldn't have been much help."
"Are… are you saying you want to quit?"
"No, but I think there's better ways of being a hero. I think… I think maybe we should stick with what we did tonight. We can still listen and rush into action, but we work in clean up. Instead of chasing bad guys and all that, we help save people who are in car crashes or trapped in exploding buildings or fires or help look for kids who get lost in the woods or who fall down wells or something. At least for a few years until we get actual driver's licenses. You know, while we're in training." Piper lay there quietly. "Is… is that okay? I mean I don't want to seem like I'm afraid or anything…"
"It's brilliant." She took a deep breath. "I know we can't be everywhere or even get there as fast as people like Batman or Nightwing or the Teen Titans. For all kinds of reasons. They can drive or fly or teleport. I felt awful when I thought we showed up late, but like you said we did save people who would otherwise have been hurt or worse. We did good work and i… I'm not sure how I would have felt if we'd seen those people getting hurt. Fighting a bearded bear is one thing or a bunch of muscle bound guys in kilts, but…"
"Yeah, I think for now we should just stay in our lane and work up to it. I think Batman started with muggers and worked his way up to fighting Darkseid and Poison Ivy. If we take it slow and work the aftermath of things like we did tonight, that'll be good too. By the time we're sixteen or seventeen, I'll have built us lots of cool gadgets and we'll be ready for more if it comes up."
Smiling a little Piper yawned and said, "I can't wait. You can build us a jet plane or a submarine or power armor."
"And you can fight Bane or Killer Crock and tell everyone that the short girl kicked their butts."
"Please. Just because you are all skinny and built like the Scarecrow…"
They teased each other a bit but soon they faded out and the only sound in the room when Uncle John came home was light snoring.
000
A few days after the bank explosion Fire Captain Antoinette Starling was reading the paper. The front page showed the Joker being trussed up in a body cast. Apparently Harley Quinn, his ex-girlfriend turned vigilante, had come back to town and robbed the Joker's vault before throwing him out of a window. (See: Harley Quinn and the Birds of Prey). She could not help smiling at how messed up the guy was.
Still it made her think of those two girls who had helped out. She had not seen anything about them since then and nobody had gotten pictures. The security system at the bank was trashed. There were plenty of bird themed heroes out there. Hawk and Dove. Robins 1-12. Raven. Black Canary. Not to mention villains like the Penguin and Mockingbird.
She was still thinking when one of her men came in with a box of cookies. "Hey Captain, some girl came by and said you ordered some Girl Scout cookies?"
"What? I didn't…" She stopped when she looked at the box. The picture on the side showed two girls in familiar costumes drawn as cartoons. "Oh right. Uh, thanks." She took the box and waited until he left. She carefully opened it and looked inside.
There were no cookies but when she topped it out she found a smaller box containing an orange watch and a note. She read the note. "Captain Starling, we enjoyed working with you. Commissioner Gordon has the Bat-signal. If you need some heavy lifting or a big brain, press the third button on the back of the watch we named The Bird Call and we'll get there as soon as we can. Try not to use it during school hours unless it's really important and we might not always be able to come, but we'd like to help. Sincerely Hummingbird and Gray Owl."
She pursed her lips and looked at the watch. It wasn't very expensive looking, but neither was the one the Gray Owl had worn that night and it had talked. It was not, she knew, like a doctor's pager. She and the rest of Gotham knew that sometimes commissioner Gordon shone the signal for the Bat into the sky for days without getting a response. Batman presumably had a life or sometimes he was off planet fighting aliens or chasing down the Joker or fighting ninjas.
Still she wrapped it around her wrist and smiled a little. It might not always work, but at the same time it couldn't hurt to try. The girls had arrived on foot and had made their official premier at a local school. They lived somewhere in the area. There were a lot of things that could use a smart girl or someone who could bench-press a car, even if the Jaws of Life were just held up in traffic. Every little it helped and she had the feeling these girls could do more than a little bit.
Author's Note
I just read the book Anti/Hero by Quinn (no relation) and Lunetta and I genuinely think Hummingbird and Gray Owl are potentially good superheroes, but at the same time they strike me as too cheerful and nice to really spend their careers like batman, alternating between detective work and punching supervillains in the face. Not that they can't do it if required, but looking at the last page of the comic I just can't see them doing it all the time.
Instead I picture them taking that trip to the Antarctic and rescuing Piper's parents' lab from an avalanche. Helping people how got into a car crash because of the Joker or Penguin by tearing off doors and getting them to safety before the cars explode. Disarming bombs and rescuing little girls in wells. Sloan would say invent a device that can put out fires or dig under ground but they can only be used by someone with super strength like Piper. They might even form a new team of similar kids or less action based superheroes called Aftermath.
As for villains I can picture them stopping say an arsonist (maybe that mean kid who tried to cheat then in the slime maze), crooks who try to convince them to switch sides, or company executives who offer Piper merchandising rights/action figures or giving Sloan her own research lab, threatening to split them up, and the like. Maybe one gets offered a place in the Lantern Corps (color varying) or is secretly descended from interdimensional royalty or something. And of course anyone with powers gets somebody swinging by trying to steal/copy them and the occasional evil twin, death-rebirth, or time travel/alien world adventures. Or more mundane things like cheating scandals, embezzlement, drugs, kidnappings, or the like. There are a lot of possibilities.
Mostly I see them working in disaster relief. Fighting fires. Helping after Earthquakes. Working cleanup and crowd control like Booster Gold in that one episode of Justice League. Helping in car crashes or if a roller coaster goes off the rails, in a train/plane crash, incase a volcano is going to erupt or if a hospital needs to move a huge piece of equipment or a seven hundred pound metahuman. Maybe even getting paying jobs guarding Arkham asylum because they can't get any regular people to take the job any more.
There are a lot of ways to be a superhero without actually fighting bad guys all the time. Given their strengths and weaknesses these two strike me more as firefighters than cops, but not quite paramedics. At least for a few years. Sometimes characters change. Catwoman went from thief to retrieval expert. Harley Quinn dumped the Joker and opened up her own vigilante for hire business. The Riddler briefly took up a career as a detective and Lex Luthor joined the Justice League. Things change in comic books.. even if it takes a few decades.