Chapter Three: Leaguers and Avengers
Steve Rogers, aka Captain America, moved away from the statues and out into a clear area. It took only a brief glance around to identify several friendlies. "Status report!" he rapped out, his eyes narrowing and his shoulders bunching as he realized the statues looked like real people.
Iron Man, followed closely by War Machine, kicked off from his initial landing spot and flew over, careful to avoid hitting any of the statues. "JARVIS is rebooting," Stark remarked as he landed. "Should be online in a minute. Me 'n' Rhodey are fine, Cap. Once JARVIS is back up, I'll run a quick check on the suit."
Rhodey didn't speak, but did toss his friend's team leader a salute as he began running his own check on his equipment. Though Rhodey hadn't often worked with the Avengers, the Avengers all knew the Air Force superhero and appreciated him as one of Stark's few real friends.
Cap nodded as Hawkeye and Black Widow joined the group, checking over their weapons before tossing their team leader two thumbs up. "I'm fine, but I think Clint might have hit her head," Black Widow remarked, glancing over at the unusually quiet sniper.
Clint shook her head in disagreement. "I'm fine, Nat," the archer insisted. "Just got a bad feeling about all of this."
"I think we've all got a bad feeling about this, Clint," Steve remarked, pulling off his mask and running a hand over his head; idly, he wondered when he'd cut it so darn short. "Anyone else here?" he asked, before breathing out a sigh of relief when he spotted Thor.
Thor strode over, his expression angry and his hand on Mjolnir's handle. "All of this stinks of Loki, Captain," he announced. "Though where my brother may have hidden himself, I do not know. I suggest we seek him out before he can cause further harm."
Rogers inclined his head, acknowledging the advice as he surveyed his team with a worried expression. "No Banner?" he questioned.
His teammates looked around, only just now registering that Bruce Banner was nowhere in sight. Iron Man kicked off, getting above the eerily still statues and scanning in all directions. "Nothing," he announced, coming back down. "Not even JARVIS can find him, but we've got another group of superheroes here, Cap. Don't recognize any of 'em though."
"Booster!"
Booster Gold bit back a groan as he clutched his head. Hammers were pounding all around his inner skull and Beetle's loud panicking was not helping. "Maybe you could yell just a little louder, Beetle?" he jabbed as the mental pain started to ease. When he looked up, Beetle was hovering next to him, looking a lot younger than Booster remembered him being. As a matter of fact, Booster himself felt younger than he remembered being. Since when was he so short?
"Sorry," Beetle apologized, resting one hand on Booster's arm as he looked around. "Any idea where we are? Or where everyone else is?"
"According to Mother Box, we are in Toronto, Canada," Mister Miracle announced, appearing just above the two Leaguers on his aero-discs and tapping at the box on his arm. "I'm not detecting any other members of the League, but Mother is saying that Max is here. I haven't spotted him yet, though. Mother is also picking up another group of heroes, but no one I recognized, I'm afraid."
Booster's spirits lifted at that. Max might be just their manager, but if he was here, then the situation might not be quite so bad; Max tended to avoid the actual danger part of the Justice League. "Maybe I can help with spotting good ole Max," he remarked, kicking off and joining Miracle in the air. Lifting his wrist, he spoke into the communicator integrated with his wrist launchers. "Skeets! Come on, buddy, talk to me…we've got to figure out what's going on."
"No need to shout, sir," Skeets remarked, drawing all three Leaguers around to face the small football shaped flying robot. Three fins adorned the rear of the 'football', giving Skeets his ability to maneuver, regardless of his surroundings. "I have already located Mr. Lord; however, there does appear to be a bit of an issue…"
"What's wrong?" Beetle demanded at once.
Skeets dropped lower to better include their one ground member. "Mr. Lord did not immediately react to his own name; my own identification is a bit…blurred, if you will…he appears to actually be two separate individuals."
Trading worried looks, the three superheroes followed Skeets through the crowd of statues to find Maxwell Lord on his knees, with a pained look on his face. Booster felt a surge of fear for his friend, more intense than he'd expected, to be frank. And since when did he consider Max one of his friends? He skidded out of the air, landing right next to Max and gripped the other man's arm without saying a word, wary of exasperating any potential headaches.
Max's head came up, his brown eyes meeting Booster's blue through his goggles. For an instant, Booster felt another sort of recognition bubbling just under the surface, then it faded. "Booster," Max managed, through a clenched jaw and a pained expression.
"Max, you okay?" he asked for all three Leaguers, taking the lead without even thinking about it. His gaze shifted to Max's suit and he frowned in confusion. "And why do you have a bullet-proof vest on?"
Max's eyes flicked down, but he didn't look surprised. "I've got a gun, too," he admitted. "And, I think something weird is going on; I'm not just Max right now."
" 'Not just Max'?" Scott questioned, landing on Max's other side. "What does that mean?"
"And how'd we get here without the rest of the League?" Beetle chipped in, edging closer. All four heads came up and Skeets turned at the sound of footsteps.
Hawkeye frowned as she moved through the crowd of trapped civilians; something was wrong, something beyond just ending up in a strange location without any communication with SHIELD or Banner or anyone else. The answer danced at the tips of her fingers, but refused to slip into her grasp, leaving her frustrated and grimmer than usual. The markswoman ignored Widow's worried glances to focus on their destination…the three mystery heroes Stark had spied from the air.
Then they broke into another small area free of statues and her gaze fell on a man she'd thought dead. Shock and guilt slammed into her, even as her eyes were drawn to one of the figures crouching next to her mentor and handler. Familiarity marked every line of the gold and blue clad hero, but she'd never seen him before, she'd swear to that. "Coulson?" she breathed, turning back to the man she did know.
Coulson looked to be in some pain, but when his brown eyes met her violet ones, he smiled. "Agent Barton," he greeted simply.
Natasha flowed over, giving the two right next to Coulson a suspicious look. "Sir, it's good to see you," she remarked; Clint knew the assassin was holding back due to the three unknowns and smirked, just a bit, at Nat's caution. Caution that, for some reason, she didn't share; for some reason, she trusted all three unknown heroes and even the small gold football-shaped robot hovering next to the gold and blue hero.
Cap took the lead as the golden hero and the green caped hero helped Coulson up. "Who are you three?" he asked them, caution and curiosity mixing in his voice.
The oldest and tallest of the three unknowns replied first. "I am Mister Miracle of Justice League International."
The blue on darker blue hero waved briefly. "Call me Blue Beetle."
Clint's focus turned back to the tantalizingly familiar golden figure. "I'm Booster Gold," he introduced himself. One hand waved to the small robot. "This is Skeets."
"A pleasure to meet all of you," Skeets remarked, bobbing in greeting.
Before Cap could start with his own introduction, Clint dove in. "I go by Hawkeye," she drawled lazily, resisting the urge to lean against a nearby statue of a woman dancing.
She earned surprised looks from her entire team, before Cap coughed and stepped back in. "Captain America; I lead the Avengers."
Stark put up his faceplate, eyeing the Justice League. "I'm Iron Man," he introduced in a clipped voice; Clint noted that the billionaire did not add the 'Tony Stark' part, as he usually would. Apparently, suspicion and distrust was the order of the evening. The billionaire gestured to Colonel Rhodes. "This is War Machine."
"Black Widow," Nat purred, though one hand dropped to where Clint knew a knife or two hid. Without glancing at her partner, Clint shifted so she was close enough to interfere with Natasha's throwing arm. The Black Widow's glare didn't even phase the archer.
Even Thor, normally friendly and gregarious, was suspicious of the Justice League, for he offered up a rumbling, curt, "Thor of Asgard; God of Thunder." His eyes shifted to Coulson and softened. "It is good to see you again, Son of Coul."
The three League heroes cast their own suspicious looks at the Avengers; Clint felt a twinge, then noticed that Gold's expression was more for show than in earnest. What was so familiar about him? And why did he feel like family?
"Let's not start a fight here," Coulson interjected hastily. "I'm not completely clear on what's going on, but, as I was telling the Leaguers, I seem to be operating with two sets of memories."
Thor's hand rested on Mjolnir's handle in an instant. "What have you done to the Son of Coul?" he boomed angrily at the three Leaguers.
"We didn't do anything," Blue Beetle retorted hotly. "We wouldn't hurt Max!"
"A likely story," Stark scoffed, shifting and bringing his repulsors up; they hummed and began to glow a threatening blue.
"That's enough!" Coulson/Max barked, moving so he was squarely between the two teams as Miracle and Blue Beetle pulled what looked like their own weapons. "Fighting amongst ourselves isn't going to help anyone; it certainly won't help these civilians who need our help."
"But they hurt you," Black Widow protested, unwilling to drop the antagonism.
Right then, Clint's world exploded in a brief, but very intense pain; violet flared around her, forming the image of a phoenix and she heard the bird's indignant shriek in her mind. As she went down with an involuntary cry, she saw…everything.
Family, family, family. It was a constant thrum, right at the back of his mind whenever his vision drifted past the coiled, red haired archer. Booster shook his head, but, even as tension mounted, he couldn't muster up the same wariness, the same antagonism that Scott and Ted seemed to feel. He trusted all of the Avengers, implicitly and without reservation, no matter how snarky and hostile they were getting. And Hawkeye, she felt even closer to him than the rest, as close as his twin sister had been.
Then the pent-up feeling finally reached the tipping point and he went down with a cry as gold flooded the air around him and a gryphon snarled defiance in his head, even as it appeared in the midst of the golden light that flared from his entire body. And in the heart of the pain, in the center of the light, he saw…everything.
Maxwell Coulson; it felt right and wrong at the same time, as if someone had been trying to merge two worlds together in a single person. Max darted a few looks around as Booster and Mister Miracle helped him up, but his head still ached far too much for him to think. And he needed to think, that much he knew; if he didn't figure this out, two teams he trusted – and who trusted him in return – were going to end up at each other's throats, wasting time they didn't have to waste.
As hostility ratcheted up and teetered on the very brink of violence, Coulson threw himself in the center, trying to get them to back down and listen, for goodness' sake. Then Booster and Hawkeye went down with near identical cries of pain, light flaring from them and lighting up the room; the glow of magic illuminated the nearby statues and Max…saw.
"Halloween," he whispered, going pale; he hardly noticed the swirl of magic curling around his shoulders and sinking in, didn't notice his headache vanish as if it had never been. It made sense, it made horrid sense, but who on Earth could have set this up? And why? "It's Halloween," he repeated, louder this time as both sides stiffened in outrage at the perceived attack on their respective teammates.
Thor spun Mjolnir, lightning crackling around the hammer as he growled his fury; Stark's faceplate dropped into place and he kicked off, aiming his repulsors in earnest. Black Widow had a truly deadly expression on her face; put Clint in danger and she reacted, badly. Rhodes, Coulson knew, would back Stark to the hilt; War Machine's weapons hummed as they spun up and Rogers' shield was in his hand, ready to throw.
"Look around you," Phil Coulson called, trying to get through the indignation and anger. "All of these people are in Halloween costumes! That means we're in Halloween costumes, too!"
On the opposite side, Skeets thrummed as the security 'bot summoned his rarely used tactics and weapons in defense of his master. Beetle had his Beetle gun in hand, a snarl on the normally laid back hero's face; threaten his best friend and this was always, always, always the result. Scott was airborne and just waiting for the first move to counter, his eyes narrow under his mask.
"It's Halloween!" Maxwell Lord yelled. "That's what happened! Someone turned us into the Leaguers and the Avengers and then turned all these people to stone! Stop! We're all on the same side!"
Author note: For Justice League International, their memories, if you will, date to a point before Booster Gold left the League to join the Conglomerate (a corporately funded superhero team that briefly competed with Justice League International). I chose this period because it marks a time when Booster Gold and Mister Miracle were both on the same team (at least, a team that I'm familiar with), Maxwell Lord is still one of the good guys, and Blue Beetle didn't have a heart condition (or a dead condition).
For the Avengers, their memories date to after the first Avengers movie.