Ever been so utterly exhausted, so completely wiped out, so totally drained of energy, that you sleep right on through? No waking up, rolling over, and going back to bed? No getting up to take a leak and crawling back under the covers?
No dreaming?
I wasn't that lucky.
It's weird talking about this now...I know I was dreaming, but at the time, I kinda didn't, but I did. If you can make sense of the last sentence, then you know where I'm coming from. If you can't, then just assume I'm telling you about this dream post-fact...which I am...wait. Ah, damn it, let's just move on.
The sky above Times Square was on fire.
At street level, the city was abandoned. Wearing my full costume, I turned in place, slowly looking around the Crossroads of the World. The neon signs, a never-ending parade of electronic advertisements and commercials, were cold and lifeless. The streetlights at the junction of Seventh Avenue and Broadway were dark, and from where I stood, not a single car was in sight. The asphalt stretched off into the distance, empty of automobiles, or people. Even the air was motionless, without any hint of a breeze.
I knew not to call out. I was the only person left alive in New York City. Calling out would have served no purpose but to draw attention to myself from them. The buildings around me...ABC Studios, the Orion, hell, even the unfinished Bank of America tower. They were packed. Behind the locked security doors, the grated lobbies, the sealed loading docks, they waited. I couldn't see them, but one noise from me, one misstep, and they'd all come pouring out into the street. Even the rooftops weren't safe. That's where the fires were, burning bright and turning the sky above me red with flame and smoke. The corpses had crawled and stumbled to the tops of the buildings, even as the soldiers kept following Osborn's Order, throwing every zombie they killed on to the fire even as they were overrun by the undead wave. The smoke overhead would soon be all that was left of hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers.
My feet started moving of their own accord. The steps of my metal boots on the street were muffled, like I was hearing them through cotton stuffed into my ears. I walked down the middle of Seventh Avenue, heading northbound. There was only one place to head, and my subconscious was taking me there.
It was the silence that bothered me. New York never slept. No matter what time of night you were walking...a car screeching past, a hero and a criminal going at it, a hustler on the corner catching late night drunks stumbling home from the bar and suckering them into a three-card monte game, or even a hot dog guy, doing the same thing for the last call crowd. Even during the times when the city had been evacuated, you could still hear something going down a few blocks over, some stubborn guy refusing to listen to the authorities, the very thing that helped define what being a New Yorker was all about. The only sound was my muted footsteps softly thumping the pavement as I headed up towards the Seventh Avenue entrance towards Central Park, passing Carnegie Hall, the proud narrow bricks rising about the street. No music would ever be played there again.
As I walked the final block, I could make out the barricades. Thick, interlocking crowd control devices, invented by Reed Richards to be lighter then plastic individually but as strong as steel once joined together, ran perpendicular to Seventh Avenue down West 59th Street. This is where the undead had pushed and prodded, trying to defeat a design by the smartest man in the world, primordial hunger vs. genius. Directly in front of me, where Artisan's Gate stood, the barricades were stacked outward, projecting out from the neat white line. Buggies used to pick up tourists here to give them a short tour of the park. Now, thick steel plates sat on rails, acting like a sliding door, giving those inside Central Park egress to the outside. The plates were apart, wide open, giving my feet easy access to carry me into the park proper. I looked around as I walked, trying to catch a glimpse of something that showed human beings had been here. A dropped rifle, a patch of a SHIELD outfit, discarded webbing, maybe an abandoned cell phone.
Nothing.
As soon as I stepped foot across the sidewalk, putting it down on the premises of Central Park, a loud crunching sound ripped at my ears, slicing through the "cotton" and causing me to freeze. My first thought was hoping that no one else heard that, even as the noise echoed back down Seventh Avenue and across the park in front of me. After a few seconds of being perfectly still, I looked down at what I caused the loud noise. Dry leaves were scattered over the brown grass of Central Park, mixed in with dead branches fallen from gray, leafless trees. As far as I could see, the normally green expanse of parkland was covered with dead vegetation.
It sounded like bones being broken as I continued into the park. My feet were my driver, taking me wherever my dream wanted me to go. Each step scraped across my eardrum, crunching and snapping with my forward motions. The noise, at least, didn't seem to be drawing attention. The trees were bare of leaves. Skeletal limbs arced over me, motionless with the lack of wind, as I walked on the debris. I felt...I wasn't panicking, or screaming to wake up, or quaking. But I wasn't calm, either. Apprehensive...but curious. There you go. My feet had a destination in mind for me, and I was just along for the ride.
After a few minutes, I found myself turning, bearing in on my destination. We came out of the trees into a clearing, a small sitting area next to a red-and-white house, octagon in shape. Several stone tables had been carved and set into the ground, 8 x 8 grids painted and emblazoned on the tops. The Chess and Checkers house. During the year, anyone could bring their own pieces and play a game. In the summers, the city even had teachers on hand to show kids the ins and outs of the game. Now, no one sat at the tables...but one table was already set up, white pieces across from black pieces at the table closest to the actual house. By now, I was moving of my own accord, and of course, my subconscious proved just how well it knew me as I moved right for the table. My footsteps were normal again, no cotton, no leaves, just metal on stone.
The pieces were carved out of ivory and onyx, with such skill that they wouldn't have felt out of place in a museum. I bent down to take a closer look at them. The white pieces...I knew the King immediately, simply by virtue of the round shield with a white star clutched to its chest. The queen, the big busted blonde from the press conference so many days and words ago. The bishops, a hammer-wielding God of Thunder. A man of iron as the rooks. And a black knight on horseback as the white's pieces. In front of them, spread out eight abreast...
...me.
Eight carvings of me, in Shocker regalia, as the pawns.
That hit a nerve.
Biting my lip in my dream, I looked over at the black pieces...and eight carvings of Spider-Man. The rooks were Aleksei in full stride. With an arm cocked back, holding a shatterang, Fred was the knights. James, Speed Demon, arms crossed with cocky attitude, as the bishops. The queen?
Me.
That hit a nerve, too.
And the king...could there be any doubt? Even as I studied the piece, I heard the whine of the glider, and the high-pitched cackle coming from right behind me. I turned around, knowing full well what waited for me. Hovering just above the ground, the jetwash shimmering in the air, the Green Goblin was the spitting image of the onyx king, down to the jawline and high-tipped ears of his mask.
"You can be the pawn, Herman...or you can be at my right hand," I heard him say. "The question you need to ask yourself isn't whether or not your fledging sense of morality is worth turning down power and glory. The question is...do you really want to make an enemy of me, Herman?"
Pause.
"Do you?"
A hand suddenly clasped down on my shoulder, gripping tightly. I couldn't turn around as strong, gray armored fingers digging into my skin. Now, my body was frozen, my feet refusing to budge, as a deep, rumbling moan reached my ears, stone grinding on stone. The moan was soon overwhelmed by the laughter of the Green Goblin, piercing my ears. I twitched, trying to move, but it was too late, as the teeth of my friend bit into the soft flesh behind my neck...
X
I didn't wake up screaming, at least.
My eyes shot open, and I turned my face to look behind me, giving myself a close-up of the blue futon cushion. The familiar piece of furniture helped me come to grips with the fact that I was, blessedly, back in the waking world. I rolled onto my side, stretching my arms out from underneath the gray blanket someone had thrown over top of me. The two sets of televisions were still on, the volume low and the big one showing a first-aid tent overflowing with refugees, with a subtitle reading "GRANT PARK, CHICAGO." The other one showed what appeared to be a riot in progress, with police in riot armor battling an angry mob. Chinese characters were prevalent, and underneath those, a translation for guys like me and most of the world who didn't know Cantonese...or Mandarin, reading "CHENGDU, PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC OF CHINA."
Nice to see that the world was still going to hell even while I was unconscious.
My limbs were still stiff as I swung my legs down to the floor, draping the blanket over my shoulders. In the course of my sleep, someone had taken my pants off, leaving me in just my boxers. I rubbed at my eyes, the cottonmouth taste of the just-awoken in my mouth. Hmm...do zombies wake up with cottonmouth when they reanimate...ah, hell, that was a lovely thought. Nothing like waking up when your mind's still sorting out your dreams. Sometimes, they lead to flashes of inspiration, and other times, well, you get what just happened.
"Hey! You're awake!" Ashley smiled with pleasant surprise as she walked up from the kitchen area. She held a green ceramic plate with a sandwich and a pile of potato chips stacked on top, along with a bottle of water. "How are you feeling," she asked as she sat down in a nearby chair, balancing the plate on her thighs.
"Stiff," I answered. "What time is it?"
"About nine o'clock," Ashley answered.
Almost twelve hours unconscious. Damn. Slowly, I raised my left arm, pre-cringing at the feeling of pain that was probably going to shoot through a shoulder socket that hadn't been worked over in...
...the pain didn't come. My left shoulder was a little sore from being slept on, but the bolts of pain I was expecting didn't flash at all. Same for my right shoulder, once I tested it out. And not even a single complaint coming from my lower body as I pressed both feet against the floor. When I looked down at my bare chest, I saw that the red marks from Electro's current, and the black-and-blue reminders from our hand-to-hand? Gone. Not a single mark, scab, cut, or bruise. "The hell," I wondered as I studied my torso.
Then, I heard laughter. The deep, rumbling laugh of Aleksei, mixed with the rapid-fire chuckles of Fred...and a giggle somewhere in between, low, but gleeful. It reminded me of a Wall Street broker playing around with his new Blackberry. But the laughter wasn't coming from nearby. The warehouse itself was devoid of movement. Save for Ashley, I didn't see anyone else awake. Blankets were scattered on the floor nearby, and the crew of civilians were conked right out it looked like. Even Bobby, absent from the computer and instead curled up with a pillow, was grabbing a nap. "People decided to follow your example," Ashley said with a slight tease in her voice. "Everyone's been on edge for so long...well, your nap precedent just set everyone else down the same path."
"Uh huh," I said, confused as now, I heard voice. Definitely Aleksei's, and a new voice, somewhat distorted by...I didn't know what the hell by. "Why aren't you asleep," I asked.
"I woke up about half an hour ago, actually, when your other friend showed up." She took a bite of the sandwich (turkey and mayo) while I processed what she said. "Fred and Aleksei grabbed a case of beer and headed up to the roof to meet him. They told me to tell you when you woke up to go join them."
"My other...my other friend? Who the hell...James?" Ashley cocked her head at the unfamiliar name. "You'd know him as Speed Demon," I suggested.
"To be honest, I didn't get a good look at him. He just stuck his head in the skylight..."
She pointed upwards. The sounds of conversation were coming in through an open skylight in the roof. One of the skylights that I had made impossible to open from the outside unless you had a key.
"...and next thing I knew, Fred and Aleksei were telling me I was in charge and to, and I'm quoting here, 'send Herman's ass upstairs once he wakes up.'" She smiled, and handed me the open bottle of water. "So, I'd suggest going to see them. It sounds like they're having a blast."
"Yeah. I hate to miss a party." I stood up, the blanket wrapped around me to retain some modesty. My legs easily, and without protest, carried me to my bedroom. Mark and Sally were comfortably asleep atop my covers, with Radar clutched to Sally's chest. I quietly grabbed a pair of sweatpants and an Empire State t-shirt. After changing, I put the gray blanket over top of the two kids. With a wave to Ashley, I headed for the steps up to the roof. The freedom of movement was confusing, but well welcomed as I climbed without effort.
"...and that's when I bought the horse a prostitute!"
I could hear the laughter at Boomerang's joke before I opened the door. The sky was lit up, aglow from the fires still burning across the river in Jersey. On Manhattan proper, I could make out the telltale smoke of bonfires reaching up the West Side Highway, and in the distance, a building was on fire in the Upper West Side. The stench of burning material filled my nose, but the breeze from the Hudson helped clear the worst of it away, making it an annoyance rather than a hindrance.
Fred saw me first. He stood up from the lawn chair, raising a can of Budweiser in my direction. "Herman! Glad you're awake," he said with a huge smile on his face. "Come on, mate, you're just in time to help us get plastered."
Aleksei turned to look over his shoulder, as his broad back was facing the doorway. He grinned as I walked towards him. If he was angry with me, the guy was doing a damn good job hiding it. "About you woke up, Herman. It was getting tough, being in charge all day."
"Like hell you were in charge," Fred replied good naturedly. "Hey, mate, grab Herman a beer. Herman, grab a seat." One foot tapped a lawn chair that had been set up just for me. Sure, the city was burning around me...but the very act of being offered a brew? Hell, that was normal, and right now, in my confusion at being pain-free, I'll take it.
I walked over, clearing Aleksei enough to see just who Fred had been referring to. I could understand, now, why Ashley didn't quite recognize my friend, and indeed, this guy was my friend, wearing a brand spanking new outfit. Just seeing him, alive, in one piece, and raiding my beer, brought a huge smile to my face. I quickly closed the distance as my friend opened up the beer cooler and pulled out a cold can. He gently underhanded to me from his seat. In one smooth motion, I caught it, and popped the tab, ignoring the white foam that poured out. "Jesus, what is that, your fifth suit of power armor? You go through designs faster than Susan Storm goes through hairstyles."
MACH-IV (MACH-V?), aka the Beetle, aka Abner Jenkins, smirked as he saluted me with his own can of beer. "Still the fourth iteration, but you know me, Herman, always tinkering, always patching."
X
"So the pimp looks at me, and I swear to God, he says 'Ese, you don't get it...some clients, they're already paying five, six times normal rates. As long as you get a ball gag in her...or his...mouth, they can get as rough as they want with the merchandise!'"
"Ah, Christ, Abner, that's just bloody disgusting..." Fred realized what he said, and, groaning, put his face in his palm. "Pun unintended."
"You're kidding me," I said after taking a sip of beer to act as brain bleach. "Abner, you gotta be kidding. That's just wrong on every single conceivable level."
Abner shook his head slowly. "God, Herman, I wish I was kidding. He got off lucky, though...the guy was starting to make me an offer before Songbird clocked him one. If he had finished his pitch, she probably would have dropped him in the Atlantic."
"Why...why would someone want to bang a zombie?" Poor Aleksei. He wasn't drunk enough for this conversation...none of us were, really. But Rhino was trying to process the information, and wasn't really creative enough to play it off. "That's nasty, and who knows what kinds of disease those things carry?"
"Aleksei," Abner said, leaning forward and slapping the big guy on his knee, one of the only people on the planet who could get away with doing that, "you'd be surprised what kind of sick and twisted lusts people out there have. To them, it's just necrophilia where the corpse fights back."
Aleksei's face twisted as he pondered that concept. "Ew," he finally said after a few moments of contemplation. "People are sick."
"How the hell did we get on this topic of conversation again," I asked.
"We're all on our third beer, Herman...including you. Nice catching up." Abner crumpled the can in his hand, and dropped in on the rooftop before pulling another from the cooler. He sighed, leaning back and looking up at what stars were visible through the haze. "What a mess," he mumbled. "I thought it was bad during the Registration thing. This just blows it all out of the water."
"Well, at least you're keeping your sense of humor," I snarked out of concern. Abner was always the type to push forward, keep shoving, never slow down until the job's done. He wasn't rash, but a planner like me. But when anything went down, Abner was first in and last out. He never gave anything less than 100% percent. Maybe that's why, a few years ago, he got out of the criminal racket and went legit with the rest of the Thunderbolts, trading the green-and-purple power armor of the Beetle for the silver and black of Mach-One. From what I've seen, he's done about as well as a reformed super villain can. He's one of the few people I know who can hang with the heroes and still has cred with the bad guys. He may not come to the birthday parties anymore, but Abner won't arrest us and throw us in the Vault for loitering either. "How you holding up, Abner?"
I knew those eyes, fighting off sleep with caffeine and pure willpower. I've had those eyes a few times. "I've been going non-stop since SHIELD put us all on alert," he answered. "I've slept maybe an hour at most, been slamming black coffee and Pop-Tarts, and flying all over the city trying to help everyone. Just...I needed a break. Just a few hours to decompress and let someone else deal with things. When we heard that you were alive and well, and holed up down here in TriBeCa, they need a volunteer to check in on you...and I volunteered."
"Hey, Abner...you're not here to take us all in, right?" Aleksei squeezed his empty beer can, flattening it before dropping the pancaked can onto the roof to join the others. "You're not here to drag us all up to Central Park, are you?"
"Actually..." Abner chuckled a bit, wiping his mouth as he laughed. "...we've been told, directly from Norman Osborn, that you guys are an illegal gathering, and with the combined firepower the three of you hold, sending anyone down here to fight you and 'rescue,'" he said, using airquotes, "the citizens you guys are holding hostage would be a waste of resources. So pretty much, we're supposed to ignore you and let you guys just wither on the vine until you come to your senses and join everyone else up in Central Park."
"Wow. Gotta love Osborn, a real humanitarian, that guy. Hey, mate," Fred inquired, "how's the guy holding up? I mean, I keep thinking he's gonna snap any minute, but when I see him on the news...well, he's holding up better then Nixon ever did under pressure."
Abner chose his next words carefully. "The best way to put it...some guys thrive under pressure. Osborn's apparently one of those guys. He hasn't snapped, or done anything off-the-wall. His orders...people grumble about them, but they make sense. But everyone's keeping an eye on him. Spider-Man just figured you'd want to hear that from someone other than him, Herman."
I cringed. I figured that Abner was the guy Spider-Man had sent to check in on me, and I'll give the wall crawler points for good sense in choosing who he did. The problem was, I hadn't explained what the hell had happened to me that morning, with Electro, the Punisher, and Spider-Man, to Fred and Aleksei. Right now, all they heard was 'Spider-Man.' The looks on their faces as they stared at me...well, I knew that look very well. And I quickly put up my hands to both of them, trying to hold it off at the pass. "Now, wait, I can explain, guys..."
"Spider-Man, Herman? I swear, mate, if you sold us out..."
"Oh, no, Fred, it ain't like that at all," I countered. "I ran into him earlier this morning, after the whole...look, just let me start at the beginning, ok? It's a long story, and it'll all make sense at the end, alright? I promise."
Aleksei was still glaring at me, and Fred rubbed his chin as he contemplated my offer. "You know, Herman, if it was anyone else but you...Spider-Man. Christ. Ok, mate. Spin."
"Fine. Someone hand me another beer first..."
X
"...and that's when I passed out." I finished the beer, and leaned back in my chair, letting the can fall to the roof to join the other empties. And for one of the few times in my life, I had the pure, unadulterated joy of knocking Fred Myers speechless. Around "And then Electro tried to kill me," Fred had gone quiet. He stayed in his lawn chair, sipping at his beer, not saying a word. Abner and Aleksei had been quiet too, but they weren't as prone to jump in as Fred usually was. By the time I wrapped everything up, the only sounds were that of a dying city; sirens, gunfire, and burning buildings. Maybe dying's a little harsh, but right now, I was seeing damn little to convince me to go the other way.
"Damn," Abner finally said, breaking the silence. "That's a hell of a story, Herman. Electro trying to kill you, I didn't think he had it in him. Poor Max. We could have used a guy like him right about now. He didn't seem to kick your ass too badly, though. I don't see any bruises or burns, and you're moving around no problem."
"Yeah...about that." I looked over at the still-quiet Fred. "I was a Picasso when I came home. Fred slipped me some pills, and twelve hours later, I'm as right as rain. Fred, what the hell did you give me?"
"You complaining, mate?" He cracked open his sixth beer of the evening, still speaking without a slur in his voice. "Last of a bunch I got from Hammer Industries. Experimental recovery pills. Hammer was sick of paying medical and hospital bills for all his employees who got their ass kicked, so he had his bunch come up with a miracle pill to act like instant first-aid. I've had those for, maybe a year now? From what I can tell, it's a mix of HGH and stem cells. Won't fix a bone fracture or repair a torn tendon, but works wonders for general, all-around beatings."
"You...you slipped me experimental drugs?"
"Hey, they did the job, didn't they? Besides, I've been taking them for a year, and when was the last time you saw me limping around like I had gone a few rounds?"
"Sometime in the next ten minutes," I groused.
"Neutral corners, guys." Abner put out a hand to both of us as he spoke. "I'm just glad you're in one piece, Herman. Man...so the Punisher killed Electro." He shook his head. "That explains a few things," Abner said, turning to look all of us in the eye. "Ok, what I'm about to say? You can't spill it to anyone else..."
Pause.
"The hell am I kidding? Alright, I haven't seen anything myself, but I picked up some scuttlebutt from around SHIELD HQ. Apparently, some of the other guys have been finding dead supervillains all over the city. And I don't mean they turned into zombies. I mean, heads blown off dead. High caliber weaponry, one shot, one kill. People figured the Punisher was behind it...guess you just confirmed it, Herman."
Great. Forgive me if I didn't feel overjoyed. "Who else bought it?"
"Piledriver," Abner said. He started to count off on his fingers. "He was the first one they found. Styx and Stone, laid out on the street in Hell's Kitchen. Zombies were munching on them when Falcon flew over the bodies. Bushwhacker, shot in the head and burned to a crisp. Leap-Frog..."
"Leap-Frog?" Fred gave a strangled laugh at that name. "You're kidding me. Punisher actually took the time to kill Leap-Frog? Christ...why in the name of all that's holy would he waste a bullet on him?"
"What's stopping him?"
Fred and Abner turned to look at me as I spoke. I was slouched back into my chair, chewing on my lower lip. "Think about it. The good guys are out saving as many people as they can. No one's going to get in his way...and any super villain worth his salt is going to do the right thing and run as fast as they can from Castle if he shows up. Which means they'll die in public...how's looting? Arson?"
Abner shrugged. "There're dead people walking around trying to eat everyone. The smart ones are behind locked doors...unless...you think the Punisher's taking care of business?"
"He doesn't have to really worry about civilian casualties if everyone's off the streets," Fred chimed in. "Wow, mate...you might have dodged a bullet, pin intended this time." He raised a beer at me in mock salute.
I know I've bitched before about not being considered an 'elite' villain. Hell, when he was still alive, Stilt-Man snagged more "Fox News Alerts" then I did. Maybe being second-string didn't give you all the money, power, and broads you wanted...but it kept me off the radar of a guy like the Punisher. Why waste time on me, a safecracker, when there was, for lack of a better term, better prey out there?
Now, though...a guy like Leap-Frog probably dead at the hands of Punisher? If he'd hunt down and off a C-list guy like Leap-Frog, there ain't no stopping the Punisher from hunting down and doing the same thing to me. Earlier, maybe I had just been a case of 'wrong place, wrong time.' Now, though...did I just make the Punisher's "to do" list?
Aleksei, during all this, had quietly pulled another beer from the cooler. He slowly pulled himself out of the double-wide, reinforced lawn chair, and, standing up, popped the can's tab with one massive thumb. "Guys...we owe Max a drink. Maybe he tried to kill Herman...but he was one of us."
After a few moments of silence, Fred nodded...and I followed a second later. Ok, yeah, the guy tried to off me, and came damn close to succeeding. Once upon a time, though, he had been a partner in the Sinister Six, and a drinking buddy in bygone days. I'd like to think, before everything that happened over the past few days had gone down, Max would have done the same thing for me at my wake.
Abner grabbed a fresh beer for the three of us, and handed them out to everyone. "I feel weird doing this...I didn't get along with the guy. But dying at the hands of Frank Castle...that's not the way to go. Herman, you cool with this?"
I shrugged. "Yeah...yeah, I am. Maxwell was one of us, no matter how me and him ended up. If he was alive, I'd smack him the next time I saw him...but Aleksei's right. We owe him this much."
"Maxwell Dillon," Fred said, hoisting his beer.
"Electro," Aleksei chimed in, the lid of his can peeking out over his fist.
"The Villain of Voltage," Abner added.
"Man...Max, wherever you end up, I hope you get the chance to rest in peace." I held my beer up, and we all touched cans on the roof of my warehouse hideout.
X
"So...that YouTube video with you and Rhino..."
"Ah, man. Did you have to bring that up?"
"Hell yeah, I did." Abner was smirking at me as he spoke. "What the hell were you thinking? I figured a smart guy like you would have gotten the hell out of Dodge the second the balloon went up."
I shrugged. "Where the hell else was I going to go? Didn't have a car big enough for Aleksei, don't know how to drive a boat, and didn't know what the hell was going on. By the time I was smart enough to figure out that I needed to barricade myself with a bunch of supplies...well," I said, waving a hand to include the entire warehouse, "I had an extended family."
"Just...never took you for the actively heroic type," Abner said over a cup of Anne's coffee. We were sitting at the "dining room" table now, a pot of sobering coffee shared between the two of us. He was taking it black, while I added sugar to mine to help gulp it down. Aleksei and Fred had given us privacy, at Abner's request. The pair sat in the living room area, absorbed in the sights and sounds coming from the two flatscreen TV's. "The smart plan would have been to just wait."
"I know, oh, do I know. But, like I've said to other people, I saw Robert, Ashley, and Bobby in trouble...and I had to go for it. What the hell kind of human being would I have been if I just sat here getting drunk while someone got murdered a few blocks away?" It was getting easier and easier to say. And now, I was starting to believe I believed it, and wasn't just giving lip service to the idea of morality. "And you know how it is. Once you have one refugee...you just have to collect the whole set."
Abner nodded "Hawkeye was PISSED when she showed back up, Herman. I mean, trash can kicking pissed. You embarrassed her on national television..."
"Forget her," I said, waving a dismissive hand. "I told her I was on a rescue mission, and she kept insisting I had some grand plan involving hostages."
"In her defense...you've taken hostages before."
"Ok, yeah, but...you see...wait, this is different..."
Now Abner waved a hand. "Forget it, man. Water under the bridge. Besides, a little humility might do her some good. She ain't the first Hawkeye by a long shot." He settled back in his chair, blowing on the rim of the cup. "Man, this is good coffee.."
"Aleksei's fault. He insisted we bring Peter and Anne in...then, when we went to get supplies from Walgreen's, we picked up Mark and Sally. And now, after a run-in with the Punisher, I'm done." I motioned to the sealed and welded loading dock door. "We haven't seen a zombie down here yet, and no one's come knocking. I'm out of the exploration business. My ass is plopped down, waiting for it all to blow over or end the world. Either way, I'm fine right here. I did my part for humanity. No offense to you, Abner...but heroics just ain't my bag. The right thing got me almost killed, more times than I can count."
He took a slow, brief sip of coffee. "I'm not blaming you, Herman. You did your part, and you're right. You kept all these people safe, after rescuing them. You brought them into your home, gave them shelter, food, and medicine. What the hell am I supposed to say? You didn't do enough? I'm in a suit of power armor that can withstand a zombie bite. You're in a quilt. No offense to you, Herman."
"None taken," I responded. "So, you're not going to say anything about how me being here violates Osborn's Order?"
"I see a non-functioning warehouse," Abner responded. "And like I said earlier, moving you would involve a fight with the Shocker, Boomerang, and Rhino. That would require reinforcements. But, wouldn't you know, in the heat of things, I just keep forgetting to ask people for help. And they seem to keep forgetting to ask me..." He smiled, a wry grin that I knew very well from the former Beetle. "We've left behind as many people as we've moved to the Park. If someone's set and secure, we mark it down and move on to come back later. If it's a family in a rundown tenement, they get moved. Osborn hasn't said anything to Cap or Iron Man..."
"Cap? So you're on a first name basis?"
"Yeah, yeah..." He studied me as I downed half the cup of coffee in one strong, eye-opening gulp. "So, you're done with your responsibilities as a leader of the community?"
"What community? Hell, Boomerang and Robert pretty much run things in here, Robert the practical stuff, Boomerang the social activities. No need to mess up the power structure in this team."
"Not that, Herman...I mean, everything else. The greater community as a whole."
"What, the city? Hawkeye took a shot at me and Spider-Man took convincing that I had some sort of credibility. Maybe once upon a time, that'd get me elected Mayor, but not anymore."
Abner was staring at me now, openly confused. "You...wait. You mean, you haven't...you don't know?"
"Know what?" I sounded puzzled as well. "What? Did I win some kind of contest and become new leader of the Thunderbolts?"
Abner was quiet for a few seconds, his hand on his chin, and his finger tapping his lips. "You seen YouTube lately?"
"Oh, come on..."
"No, seriously. The website's been running nonstop since everything started. Your video's one of the most popular ones on there...but there are other videos too, Herman."
"Yeah, I've seen some of those, like that Max guy...or Batroc, saving that little girl."
He snapped his fingers at me, one of the only people I'd let that slide for. "That's what I mean, Herman. There's more videos like that online...and on Versus, too. Not just Batroc...but other people. And stories, too, on bulletin boards or social networking sites."
"I've seen some of those videos...ordinary people just being heroes," I shrugged. "What does that have to do with me?"
Abner sighed in his chair. "Christ...how the hell am I going to explain this to you without expanding your ego..." The sincere look he gave me spoke volumes. I leaned forward as he spoke, puzzled, but attentative. "I'm gonna lay this all out, Herman," he told me. "And as much as I can verify is true. You...what you did that first night, it had repercussions..."
I should have known. Action causes reaction. A force always applies an opposing force. Ripples in the water. Magnets pulling on gravity fields. But, at the time...I mean, I was just me. Herman Schultz. How the hell could I have known? The tale was spun, picked up by Abner through YouTube videos, posts from online bulletin boards, and, of course, second-hand hearsay and rumor. I pulled it all together in my mind, and I'm laying it out for you now. One little butterfly, batting his wings, ended up unleashing a storm.