In an another Earth in the Multiverse was an Earth with a similar history but still different with different heroes; instead of the Avengers the team of their Earth's mightiest heroes were known as the Squadron Supreme. Their main 5 members (who were all founding members) were:
Mark Milton who was secretly known as Hyperion the leader and most powerful member of the Squadron; an alien member of the powerful advanced species known as the Eternals from a doomed planet who was sent on an escape pod where he was found and raised by rural farmers. He was the most popular member and in his civilian life he taught American history in Kensington, Maryland and found it hard to connect emotionally with people.
Billionaire congressman Kyle Richmond who was secretly known as the masked vigilante Nighthawk. After his emotionally distant wealthy parents were killed; he dedicated himself to training his body and mind to the fullest and was a night time vigilante and as Kyle Richmond he served as the Washington representative in the House of Representatives; using a Life Model Decoy robot to take his place when he was needed to go out as Nighthawk. He was a paranoid and distrustful man and one can't help but think that he had initially joined the Squadron to keep an eye on an alliance of the most powerful Superhumans on the planet from the inside. As Kyle Richmond he had introduced bills preventing the Squadron from taking the law into their own hands in regards to taking care of villains and that they couldn't try to dictate Earth's future; though most members agreed with the sentiment that the Squadron couldn't have too much sway there was a general sentiment that he didn't really trust anyone but himself. He had come to blows with Hyperion before at least.
Colonel James Ledger who was known as Dr Spectrum; he was an air force colonel who on a space flight had came across a powerful alien artefact known as the Power Prism which allowed him to create light based constructs amongst other powers like flight and creating beams. He was a bit of a clown in his demeanour and immaturity and he was not exactly the biggest fan of aliens; he had admitted that growing up his dream was to go out into space and kill all the aliens that could invade. He certainly had made himself little friends in the alien species beyond Earth.
Stanley Stewart who went by Blur the fastest man alive; he was a jogger who ran through a cloud of mist which altered his physical chemistry and made him super fast. The downside was that he had a short attention span and so went through several jobs on the same day and in his off time could be found watching several screens at once while playing games. He was a little immature and could be seen doing live vlogs of his fights but could be counted on when you needed him. He had a lot of bad breaks in his life like when he was a young child his mother was murdered with his father being sent to prison for the crime; the Squadron ended up finding out that the real killer was Stanley's arch enemy James Sanders the Speed Demon who was sent back in time by Kang the Conqueror a time travelling warlord who was one of the Squadron's most persistent enemies. Plus to save the life of his wife Mary-Jane Watson; he had to make a deal with the demon Mephisto that erased not only their marriage but her memories of their time together.
Last and certainly not least was Zarda Shelton the Power Princess; she was the long lived and strong princess of an island known as Utopia where the advanced residents were descended normal humans experimented on by the alien race known as the Kree in ancient times. While Utopia was peaceful and advanced; Zarda liked the practice fighting with swords and her hands while hoping for something to challenge her. In World War II; a sailor called Phil Sheldon came across the island and made them aware of the War; while the rest of Utopia used a ship to go beyond the stars, Zarda decided to go the outside world as an ambassador as well as being excited for threats to fight.
She had been a member of the Squadron's WWII precursor group the Golden Agency and was responsible for beheading Adolf Hitler himself. She had fallen in love with Phil and they had gotten married. Zarda while always having the warrior spirit; wished she had done more over the decades instead of just fighting foes and helped out more in events such as the civil rights movements or the witch hunts of the McCarthy hearings.
Phil eventually died of old age and she kept his surname in his memory as she continues fighting foes and saving lives when she could. In her off time she practiced boxing with a Utopian necklace that put her strength to normal human levels. Plus she liked to go out and party and drink loving the taste of beer though she was not capable of being intoxicated and had to de-escalate things when bar fights happened.
After some time in the Squadron after Sheldon's death; she began to hold a torch for Hyperion but it never really worked out, they never really connected beyond nights they had together. It seemed they were hitting it off with him saying he had realised his feelings but it turned out to have been the Hyperion of their evil mirror universe doppelgangers the Squadron Sinister who had fallen for her and had taken out Hyperion (at least for the time being) to impersonate him. After he was dealt with Zarda was angry at him and at herself for allowing her feelings for Hyperion to have her fooled and to think that she kissed him passionately thinking it was her Hyperion. She reacted with disgust and thought about beheading him with an axe if they ever had to deal with the Squadron Sinister again.
Zarda's feelings for Hyperion had died after that accepting they were friends but she hadn't yet found a new romantic partner. Spectrum was interested in her but she had no mood for his stupid antics and she suspected that Nighthawk felt something for her but he was too brooding and distrustful. Truthfully she could probably find an enamoured fan who would love to be her lover but that wasn't what she was after.
Plus she couldn't help but hate how tense things could be and when it was the time things erupted between Hyperion and Nighthawk. Especially when they had loud arguments about how to go about a proposed Superhuman Registration Act. Nighthawk was quite vocal in saying that while Kyle Richmond worked for the US Government; Nighthawk never will. She had to be the team mother and break things up and use her ambassador skills to sort things out peacefully with Congress to kill the bill. She hated how surprised the media and politicians acted; wishing that her diplomat sides as well as her caring and love side was more well known to the public than just the side of her being a warrior who enjoyed fighting.
She allowed herself to be seen like that so she was working on fixing that reputation.
The Squadron were called to fight Hyperion's greatest enemy Emil Burbank the Master Menace who was using an inter dimensional portal device to the universe of the Avengers who were an alternate Earth superhero team that the Squadron had teamed up with before; he was kidnapping heroes from the Avengers' Earth to try and brainwash them into being his Superhuman army. They had stopped his plans and freed the captured heroes to stop Burbank before he could gather a large enough force but in the scuffle the device was destroyed. Nighthawk was working on fixing it and triangulating the multiversal destination of their Earth but until then they were stuck with the Squadron welcoming them to stay at their headquarters the Rocket Central.
Amongst these alternate superheroes was a young man who went by Spider-Man; she remembered Captain America mentioning him as a hero on his Earth who deserves more respect than he gets, something that he squealed about upon being informed of. He was willing to trust the Squadron with his name of Peter Parker though and the other Heroes from his Earth agreed to stay away when he was unmasked or talking about his identity.
Working at the Rocket Central was a costumed vigilante ally of Nighthawk; Gwen Stacy who worked at as an intern at Ravencroft Institute and spotlighted as the masked vigilante Nightbird who took down the same villains that she hoped to help and treat at Ravencroft, she also was skilled at computers. She had been flabbergasted to learn that Spider-Man was a younger counterpart of her fiancé. This world's Peter Parker was a scientist who was a big help when he was brought in to help the Squadron with the Rocket Central's technology; technology left behind by the late Squadron Member Tom Thumb a stout man who was a beast in his intellect whose technology was far beyond what anyone else could have made in his time (even though Burbank came close) and had passed due to Cancer.
This Peter was quite a wise cracker so he could bond with Blur alright (including them being amazed when Stanely brought up his ex-wife whose marriage was erased and it turned out like on this Earth MJ had been a neighbour with their aunts having been friends who tried to set them up once). However Peter was able to focus and did take crime fighting seriously. His determination at doing the right thing including mentioning how he got himself to lift up debris crushing him to get life saving medicine for his Aunt May; reminded Zarda of the heroic nice guy determined to help out attribute that had drawn her to falling in love with Sheldon.
He was amazed to learn that she had beheaded Hitler in this timeline but she had brought up she felt like a failure due to the decades that she spent focusing on the villains to defeat and people in immediate danger; that she could have helped out more in events that had transpired. Peter had bemoaned asking how could she call herself a failure when she saved the world multiple times and due to his own mistake his Uncle Ben died and also spoke of how Gwen died in his universe.
This shocked the Squadron nearby and Nightbird looked like she wanted to talk to him and was even motioning to unmask herself when Nighthawk stopped her; who knows how he would react in this state. Nighthawk came over with his stoic expression and told him after putting a hand on his shoulder "Osborn was almost the same in this universe but called himself just the Goblin. My best friend and partner was Sam Wilson the Falcon who I was unable to save myself and I never stopped blaming myself as well. You are young and don't need to let your failures haunt you like I have done."
This shocked the Squadron who forgot how he could be considerate when he needed to be.
She felt the jealousy grow when he brought up his girlfriend but Peter was nice, heroic, fun to be around and a cute guy so she could believe that 3 women decided that they wanted to be with him at the same time. He found her nice as well and after seeing videos of her fighting aliens, robots and monsters he couldn't help but say that he liked her warrior side as well even if he usually wasn't too fond of the violent heroes. She giggled at his words and his reaction showing that he didn't mean to say as much as he did.
She showed him the trophies in her room and he marvelled at Mjolnir; one of the last remainders of the Asgardians after Ragnarok and Loki one of her most persistent enemies had tried to use it for his own gain. She kept it there after it was sent her way for safe keeping by the spirit of Thor; she didn't want to try moving it not knowing how she would react if it found her unworthy. She knew the Asgardians were alive in the Avengers universe and Thor was even a main Avenger so Peter's reaction was to be expected.
He tried to pick it up and was just as surprised as Zarda was when he succeeded; suddenly her attraction to him grew.
After 2 weeks the device was fixed and Zarda told Peter that she hoped to see him again soon; she shook her head as she saw his 3 girlfriends embrace him in their suits muttering that he is not allowed out of their sights again. She was wide eyed along with the other Squadron members to see that among Peter's girlfriends was the counterpart of Nighthawk's ex the Black Cat. Arcanna Jones and fellow Squadron founding member Amphibia encouraged her to tell Peter how she feels before he leaves but she was vehemently refuting them but this was noticed by Peter's girlfriends.
Days later she was in her room thinking that she accepted that she had fallen for Peter but he was at home with the other 3 women whose hearts he had stolen. However through the Siege Perilous portal artefact in her room came out Susan Storm. She introduced herself saying that her group the Future Foundation were not strangers to alternate universes and smirked saying that Peter talked a lot of her and it took a while before they finally got him to admit that he had fallen for her as well. She asked if she was accusing her of stealing their man but Susan laughed it off, Susan explained that she was able to find the dimensional frequency that her world's Siege Perilous had and Peter explained about her having it in her universe.
"Jennifer, Felicia and I decided that we wanted to get to know you as well and we trust Peter's judgement; we decided that if you are both alright with it then there is room for another in our relationship." Susan told her and Zarda had a big smile as Susan told her to come when she was ready. Zarda remarked about it not finding it hard for the three of them to be okay with Peter wanting to date all three of them since Peter was Peter. Susan confused Zarda by laughing and had to explain that it was their idea and Peter at first was too focused on trying to ignore his feelings for Susan in order to be the faithful boyfriend to Felicia and then needed to talk with his girlfriends before he accepted that he had fallen for Jennifer as well.
Zarda could actually believe this as well, Susan gave her a pamphlet with a love heart and a cartoon Spider-Man head on it, it was what to expect dating Peter Parker/Spider-Man. Zarda was growing excited to get to know the fellow members of Peter's polyamorous relationship (she can't help but think that she doesn't think that she can stop herself from indulging with competing for Peter's attention or messing with them) and she went through the portal.
After being formally introduced to the others, she talked with Peter which formalised it and Zarda held Peter in her embrace as she was kissing him passionately like she hadn't done in a long time. "Beautiful with an amazon's body; I think she would just need to look to you Jennifer to see that it wasn't a turnoff for Peter." Felicia told Jennifer and she shook her head.
I said it many times but Mark Gruenwald's Squadron Supreme is my fave Marvel comic and like my other recent stories with Zarda in them; here the Squadron are portrayed as like their selves in Heroes Reborn but much more actually heroic even with their flaws. Zarda is probably the most changed from her Heroes Reborn counterpart to be much more like herself from the masterpiece of a maxi series even though I will be portraying her as having a playful side to interacting with Peter and his girlfriends.
While typing up the bit where Nightbird comes in; I was reminded DC had done the idea of Bruce Wayne treating the villains that he fights as Batman in the Elseworld comic the Batman of Arkham. Haven't read it but from the information I have read online Bruce Wayne runs Arkham circa 1900 where he treats the villains that he defeated as Batman, Jonathan Crane is his scheming subordinate and Crane had written off Poison Ivy for calling out women's treatment in that time period.