Nobody asked questions when Clint Barton walked out of the Avengers Compound in Los Angeles. After watching the latest news report, the announcement that Presidential Candidate Justin Hammer had survived an attack, he wasn’t in the best of moods. After everything Hawkeye had gone through, the compromises he’d made and outright crimes that he’d committed, Baron Helmut Zemo’s charade had not been uncovered.
Just like before, Zemo had planned everything so carefully. After the Thunderbolts had made their failed invasion of Genosha, Magneto had gone public with Baron Zemo’s involvement. That announcement had coincided with the discovery of Baron Zemo’s corpse, presumably at the hands of a new Scourge. As a result, Magneto was dismissed, and Hammer gained ground as a candidate who promised to destroy the terrorist mutant nation.
All through his trip into the city, Hawkeye asked himself why he’d gone about things the way he did. Not long after he’d seen Zemo’s body, Hawkeye had been contacted by James Watkins III, grandson of the original Citizen V and current wielder of the sword. He believed Magneto’s claim and was gathering a team, made up of those Baron Zemo had wronged, with the goal of bringing him down. The offer was made to Hawkeye because of his time leading the Thunderbolts, and initially the Avenger had turned it down, only to accept it days later.
Clint Barton entered the apartment he secretly maintained in the city. The walls and floors were covered with photographs, news articles, and notes Hawkeye had made in the course of his investigation. One of the photographs was of a young woman known as Vagabond, and seeing that Hawkeye knew his answer. Vagabond had joined the Avengers under false pretenses, working as Baron Zemo’s spy through extortion. The truth had come out after news of his death, and Vagabond had disappeared after a vote expelled her from the team.
That vote was one of the many things Hawkeye regretted. He’d been in situations similar to what Vagabond had faced. Hell, most of the Avengers had been in those situations. They’d voted too quickly, acted too rashly, before anyone could have seen the value of Vagabond as a double-agent. Part of the reason Hawkeye had accepted Citizen V’s offer was because he’d hoped to find Vagabond and help her achieve redemption.
The only other item in the apartment that wasn’t paper was a trunk. Clinton opened the trunk and removed a black and gold costume he’d taken to wearing in recent weeks. It would have been an embarrassment to the Avengers if Hawkeye was caught in an illegal investigation, so he had created the identity of Black Archer. Even the bow and arrows were different, using equipment acquired through less than reputable means.
Peeling off the civilian clothes, Clint Barton stood naked in the center of the apartment and stared at the costume. The Black Archer’s career had failed miserably. The Redeemers that Citizen V had gathered were far less than reputable. Fixer and Beetle had been former members of the Thunderbolts, under the names of Techno and MACH-1, and wanted to aid old teammates they were certain didn’t know who Justin Hammer really was. Unuscione had wanted to avenge the death of her father Unus, more out of pride than anything. Speed Demon and Man-Killer were little more than hired thugs who just wanted to hurt people. Only their latest addition, Blizzard, had truly wanted to find redemption.
Clint knelt down and picked up the old fashioned longbow used by the Black Archer. Bending the bow to string it required great effort; the scarred skin of Clint’s heavily muscled back stretching painfully. The attack on Spider-Man had been a bad idea, but Citizen V had insisted they test their skills as a team and the hero had certainly been a perfect test. One the Reedemers had failed, but Citizen V was beyond caring. That was when the Avengers should have been called, Clint knew. They could have waited near Justin Hammer’s penthouse, used the Redeemer’s attack as an excuse to intervene and in the process unmask Baron Zemo. At the least, lives could have been saved.
There weren’t enough fingers on Clint’s hands to count the ways things had gone wrong. Of course Baron Zemo would have had other super-criminals working for him in secret. One of them must have been a telepath, and Black Arrow’s knockoff psi-shields were nowhere near as effective as Avengers-issue. He’d been a fool to think it would be that easy, and had nearly broken down in tears at the realization he’d carried Citizen V out of there.
Clint had stripped the beaten man of his costume and left him at a hospital, to recover from the injuries that Clint had given him. He’d then returned to the Avengers Compound, prepared to reveal everything and accept the consequences. That news report had stayed his hand, however, and now Clint was dressing himself in black.
An entire building was gone and likely everyone inside was dead. That included security guards, administrative personnel and campaign staff, innocent people who had died because they’d unknowingly worked for a monster. The Thunderbolts and other Redeemers were likely dead too, sacrificed so that Baron Zemo could address America with another man’s face and speak about courage in the aftermath of tragedy.
Picking up the black mask, Clint stared at it and wondered about the two paths. Both ended in disgrace, but he no longer cared about that. If the Avengers were told the truth they would believe him and do everything they could to stop Baron Zemo. They would probably succeed and throw him in prison, where he would eventually escape and try the same thing again. The irony is the people would remain as willing as ever to swallow the same lies.
Donning his mask, Black Archer chose to walk the second path. On live television, during a rally to honor his Thunderbolts, the façade of Justin Hammer would be killed by an arrow. The American people would know the truth with the best kind of evidence possible. The dead body of Baron Zemo.
Just like before, Zemo had planned everything so carefully. After the Thunderbolts had made their failed invasion of Genosha, Magneto had gone public with Baron Zemo’s involvement. That announcement had coincided with the discovery of Baron Zemo’s corpse, presumably at the hands of a new Scourge. As a result, Magneto was dismissed, and Hammer gained ground as a candidate who promised to destroy the terrorist mutant nation.
All through his trip into the city, Hawkeye asked himself why he’d gone about things the way he did. Not long after he’d seen Zemo’s body, Hawkeye had been contacted by James Watkins III, grandson of the original Citizen V and current wielder of the sword. He believed Magneto’s claim and was gathering a team, made up of those Baron Zemo had wronged, with the goal of bringing him down. The offer was made to Hawkeye because of his time leading the Thunderbolts, and initially the Avenger had turned it down, only to accept it days later.
Clint Barton entered the apartment he secretly maintained in the city. The walls and floors were covered with photographs, news articles, and notes Hawkeye had made in the course of his investigation. One of the photographs was of a young woman known as Vagabond, and seeing that Hawkeye knew his answer. Vagabond had joined the Avengers under false pretenses, working as Baron Zemo’s spy through extortion. The truth had come out after news of his death, and Vagabond had disappeared after a vote expelled her from the team.
That vote was one of the many things Hawkeye regretted. He’d been in situations similar to what Vagabond had faced. Hell, most of the Avengers had been in those situations. They’d voted too quickly, acted too rashly, before anyone could have seen the value of Vagabond as a double-agent. Part of the reason Hawkeye had accepted Citizen V’s offer was because he’d hoped to find Vagabond and help her achieve redemption.
The only other item in the apartment that wasn’t paper was a trunk. Clinton opened the trunk and removed a black and gold costume he’d taken to wearing in recent weeks. It would have been an embarrassment to the Avengers if Hawkeye was caught in an illegal investigation, so he had created the identity of Black Archer. Even the bow and arrows were different, using equipment acquired through less than reputable means.
Peeling off the civilian clothes, Clint Barton stood naked in the center of the apartment and stared at the costume. The Black Archer’s career had failed miserably. The Redeemers that Citizen V had gathered were far less than reputable. Fixer and Beetle had been former members of the Thunderbolts, under the names of Techno and MACH-1, and wanted to aid old teammates they were certain didn’t know who Justin Hammer really was. Unuscione had wanted to avenge the death of her father Unus, more out of pride than anything. Speed Demon and Man-Killer were little more than hired thugs who just wanted to hurt people. Only their latest addition, Blizzard, had truly wanted to find redemption.
Clint knelt down and picked up the old fashioned longbow used by the Black Archer. Bending the bow to string it required great effort; the scarred skin of Clint’s heavily muscled back stretching painfully. The attack on Spider-Man had been a bad idea, but Citizen V had insisted they test their skills as a team and the hero had certainly been a perfect test. One the Reedemers had failed, but Citizen V was beyond caring. That was when the Avengers should have been called, Clint knew. They could have waited near Justin Hammer’s penthouse, used the Redeemer’s attack as an excuse to intervene and in the process unmask Baron Zemo. At the least, lives could have been saved.
There weren’t enough fingers on Clint’s hands to count the ways things had gone wrong. Of course Baron Zemo would have had other super-criminals working for him in secret. One of them must have been a telepath, and Black Arrow’s knockoff psi-shields were nowhere near as effective as Avengers-issue. He’d been a fool to think it would be that easy, and had nearly broken down in tears at the realization he’d carried Citizen V out of there.
Clint had stripped the beaten man of his costume and left him at a hospital, to recover from the injuries that Clint had given him. He’d then returned to the Avengers Compound, prepared to reveal everything and accept the consequences. That news report had stayed his hand, however, and now Clint was dressing himself in black.
An entire building was gone and likely everyone inside was dead. That included security guards, administrative personnel and campaign staff, innocent people who had died because they’d unknowingly worked for a monster. The Thunderbolts and other Redeemers were likely dead too, sacrificed so that Baron Zemo could address America with another man’s face and speak about courage in the aftermath of tragedy.
Picking up the black mask, Clint stared at it and wondered about the two paths. Both ended in disgrace, but he no longer cared about that. If the Avengers were told the truth they would believe him and do everything they could to stop Baron Zemo. They would probably succeed and throw him in prison, where he would eventually escape and try the same thing again. The irony is the people would remain as willing as ever to swallow the same lies.
Donning his mask, Black Archer chose to walk the second path. On live television, during a rally to honor his Thunderbolts, the façade of Justin Hammer would be killed by an arrow. The American people would know the truth with the best kind of evidence possible. The dead body of Baron Zemo.
Back to GatefoldIssue #34 by Chris Munn (plot) & Steve Crosby (script)
Thunderbolts Are Go |
Well back from the police cordon, three men and a woman observed as Damage Control West was clearing away the rubble that had been a skyscraper the day before. They weren’t alone, a large crowd had gathered to watch, but Abe Jenkins knew the authorities photographed crowds at crime scenes. He and the others wouldn’t be photographed, digitally or otherwise, thanks to a device Paul Norbert Ebersol had built. Paul had also built the binoculars that Erik Josten, the tallest of them, was looking through.
“What do you see?” Melissa Gold asked him.
“The tree looks…” Erik struggled to find the words. “I have no idea. Everything looks black and dead, but the tree’s intact. It even has leaves attached, black as they are.”
Not one of the former Thunderbolts or Redeemers needed Erik and the binoculars to know that. As tall as the skyscraper had been, the tree was taller, and as wide at the base of its trunk. The outlying branches and leaves brushed against neighboring buildings and blanketed the street. Luckily the cordon was past the canopy, but at that time of day the tree’s shadow fell over the crowd, and that alone brought an unsettling black chill. One could only wonder how the authorities and Damage Control crews found the strength to work beneath that unholy flora.
“You know what deaths we’re concerned with,” Abe said to Erik. “That some made it out are a given. Bodies found are bodies confirmed.”
Those four were among the survivors, smart enough to run when the building began to collapse. They had left others behind, a demonic Scarecrow and his infected abominations: Gladiator, Boomerang, Blizzard and Speed Demon. There had been others, Thunderbolts sworn to protect Justin Hammer and Redeemers sworn to unmask Hammer as Baron Helmut Zemo. Unfortunately, they knew Zemo had escaped due to the press release given out by Justin Hammer, but something like the Scarecrow needed to stay buried.
“I see them pulling someone out,” said Erik. A ladder that had reached high into the branches was lowering. In addition to the rescue workers was a third figure. “For a second I thought maybe Taproot, but this guy looks human.” Erik’s face scrunched. “And naked.”
“Give me those.” Paul grabbed the binoculars and looked through them. “That is Taproot, or at least the man he used to be. It appears that Samuel Smithers is human again.”
“It must have been that fire,” Melissa said. “We saw how it affected Scarecrow when nothing else did, and look at the tree now. I couldn’t imagine how that fire changed Taproot, but it did.”
Paul could do more than imagine. He’d been Scourge, had used a hellfire shotgun that had set Taproot’s tree afire. He had witnessed hellfire’s effects on the soul, and felt that had something to do with Taproot’s change more than any scientific explanation. However, Paul was unwilling to confess this information with his companions.
“Doctors can figure that out. One of them will even write a paper on it.”
Erik was looking up. “He was taken from high up, maybe penthouse level. Makes a person wonder if he saw anything we’d be interested in.”
This time it was Abe that spoke. “We can ask Smithers ourselves, after we’ve sprung him.”
# # # # # # # # # #
It was three blocks later they attacked the ambulance. Songbird opened with a scream, disrupting the driver’s equilibrium. The ambulance careened off the street and into the large waiting arms of Atlas. While he kept the wheels up and spinning, Beetle and Fixer approached the rear doors.
Long fingers stuck to the ambulance doors, and when Beetle pulled the doors were ripped away. Fixer jumped inside, blowtorch at the ready, but found to his surprise that Taproot wasn’t handcuffed to his gurney. “Hunh. They don’t know who you are.”
“Idiots,” Taproot wheezed. It had been so long since he’d breathed oxygen. “You could have snuck into the hospital, spirited me away without incident. Nobody would have looked too hard.”
“Instead they’ll know we survived,” Fixer said. Grabbing Taproot, Fixer pulled him out of the ambulance while configuring the Tech-Pack into a jet pack. “He’ll know. If he’s around to worry about us. Is he?”
“Yes.” As the pair rocketed into the sky, three others close behind them, Taproot struggled to breathe. In between gasps, he said, “I saw Hammer, only he was Baron Zemo. He escaped, in a manner much like this.”
# # # # # # # # # #
Security for a presidential campaign event was expected to be tight. Without an invitation, getting in would have been almost impossible, and Clint Barton couldn’t afford an invitation. His solution was simpler though. He arrived hours ahead of time, and would wait.
Black Archer crept through the nearly empty convention center, avoiding the security agents as they swept the building. To an Avenger with A-1 security clearance, little things like building plans and event schedules weren’t difficult to access. He knew when and where Baron Zemo planned to make at that night’s event, and the best spot from which to shoot an arrow through his eye.
Disappearing into the shadows, Black Archer patiently waited for three agents to walk by. He would have to time it carefully. The window of time in which to enter the room was narrow, but once inside he would be safe to wait. On soft-soled boots Black Archer approached the door before the agents had fully turned the corner, keeping just outside of their field of vision. The lock-picks were in his hand, but before inserting them he activated the white-noise arrowhead on his belt. The sound it made couldn’t really be heard, and it served to drown out all other sounds in the immediate area. In less than a minute Black Archer had picked the locked, hurriedly opened the door, and entered. He closed it just before the next trio of agents would have seen it.
The room was pitch black and musty, used to store old costumes and furniture not used in some time. Footprints were made in the dust as Black Archer approached a wall. His fingers ran along the plaster, seeking the thin spot and finding out. A blade arrowhead was removed, pressed against the wall in search of a seam and them pressed into that. The plans Black Archer had studied were accurate, the room contained a boarded window that looked out onto the main hall.
Black Archer set the plywood, removed a screen from his person and unrolled it over the opening. It wouldn’t do for someone from the hall to glance up and notice a security breach before the time was right. After…it wouldn’t matter.
When Black Archer saw the light it was too late. Pain wracked his body and he collapsed onto his side, unable to move. The bow and arrows fell beside him, just out of the reach of nerveless fingers. Black Archer’s eyes were in the direction of his attacker, emerging from a corner of the room.
Pink and purple were this man’s colors, save for yellow belt, gloves and boots, and white fur along the shoulders and mid-calves. Over the purple mask that covered his head was a circlet of gold. One needed only to look at Helmut, 13th Baron Zemo to realize that he styled himself a king.
In one hand Baron Zemo held an energy pistol. In another a length of rope. He knelt down next to Black Archer, no expression visible under the mask. None was needed. Black Archer could feel the smug satisfaction emanating from him in waves.
“You should be paralyzed until some time after my speech.” Baron Zemo set the rope down. “But in my experience ‘should’ does not often mean ‘will’, hence the restraints. You were planning to kill him,” Baron Zemo said at noticing all the arrows were bladed.
Black Archer couldn’t form words, so he let his eyes do the talking.
“Much as I could love to take full advantage of this, affairs take precedence,” Baron Zemo said. “You are going to watch my speech, helpless in the knowledge that I have won. Afterwards, I will come up here and I will break your neck.”
Black Archer couldn’t make any outward signs of emotion as Baron Zemo set about restraining him. But inside, Hawkeye’s heart was soaring. Because the villain couldn’t resist to gloat, a chance remained.
# # # # # # # # # #
“This is an impossibly sophisticated piece of technology,” Fixer said. He finished fiddling with the plant-gun and handed it over to Taproot. “No offense, but you couldn’t have built this.”
“I had help,” Taproot said, remembering the H’ylthri. They were plant creatures from another dimension, and had imbued the plant-gun with their power so that Taproot, called Plant Man at the time, would help them conquer the Earth. They were all dead now, and recently Taproot had come to regret his part in that.
Pointing his plant-gun at a small weed growing from a crack in the floor, Taproot pulled the trigger. The weed was bathed in unexplained energy and grew rapidly until the trigger was released. “What I was can be reversed. Until then, I’ll settle for this phantom power.”
“That fire was the cause,” said Beetle. “Scarecrow was afraid of it, and it did this to you, and who knows what else. I remember, there was a shotgun, it fell down the elevator shaft and blew up, and the fire from it did this. We could go back to the building, try to look for-”
“Hammer would have the place watched,” said Atlas. “Or rather, Zemo would, if what you said is true. Assuming he survived.”
“He did,” Taproot said. He nodded at Fixer. “On a jetpack like yours, I saw him go. Not Justin Hammer. Baron Helmut Zemo. Whatever illusion he had Zemo decided to drop, as Quantum and TESS-1 were fighting each other.”
“I don’t suppose you happened to see who won?” asked Songbird. Taproot shook his head. “If Zemo still has his bodyguard, going after him is a suicide mission.”
“We won’t know until we try.” Atlas flexed his large hands, imaging them locked around Zemo’s throat. “Zemo lied to us, used us, set us up to die. I’m not going to walk away form that.”
“We may have to.” Fixer turned on the television. The signal his Tech-Pack picked up was being confirmed on the screen. “My oh my…”
# # # # # # # # # #
Through the screen he’d set up, a bound and paralyzed Hawkeye heard the applause that preceded Baron Zemo’s entrance to the stage. Everybody saw the old face of Justin Hammer, heard his voice, but that was a lie. The world was being lied to, and from the applause and cheers Hawkeye knew the world was swallowing it.
“Say what you want about Germans, they know how to work a crowd.”
Out of the corner of her eye, Hawkeye saw her walking toward him. Vagabond didn’t look much different from the last time he’d seen her, during her expulsion from the Avengers. It still wasn’t much of a costume, street clothes for the most part, with only a domino mask to maintain some semblance of a secret identity. The rifle was new though.
“I can only imagine what you’re thinking,” Vagabond said. “But no, I’m not back under Baron Zemo’s employ. Yeah, I know who he is. A few months ago, I heard one his speeches, and recognized a few phrases Baron Zemo had used during our…communication.”
(Author’s Note: I could explain what happened, but then you wouldn’t need to read Avengers West Coast #16 by Chris Munn)
Vagabond bent down, setting the rifle against the wall and scooping up Black Archer’s arrows. “That’s hardly conclusive proof though, and after what happened I didn’t think the Avengers would believe me. So I did my own investigation, and I admit it’s gone badly. A few times I thought about approaching him, going the double-agent route.”
The arrows were replaced in the quiver, and Vagabond set them against the wall alongside the bow. “Clearly, not doing that was the right call. We’ve both seen what he does to…employees. There’s no other way. I can see you agree with me.”
Vagabond undid some of the ropes, but only the ones that allowed Hawkeye to sit up against the screen. She dragged him a few feet and finally set him down against the floor. When Vagabond picked up the rifle and set up position at the screen, Hawkeye knew what she planned. It took so much struggle, but his mouth opened and a squeak came out.
Vagabond paused and, after a moment’s thought, did set the rifle down. Hawkeye rejoiced, but only until she punched him in the face. “I’m sorry, but now you can say you tried to stop me.”
Hawkeye was dazed, with blood on his face, but still he struggled. But this time Vagabond didn’t paused as she took up the rifle and ripped the screen aside.
“Tell Captain America I’m sorry.”
The shot was loud, and the screams that immediately followed were louder still. Tossing the rifle aside, Vagabond sprang toward the door. She barely made two steps before the door was kicked in and armed guards appeared. They fired without hesitation, but for an instant it seemed that Vagabond was bullet-proof. She collided with the men, tossing them aside like they were nothing.
But past the door there were more men, more guns. The impact of the bullets drove Vagabond to the ground. Her head turned, her eyes meeting Hawkeye’s. He tried to focus on them, tried not to see the blood pooling beneath her.
That should have been me.
# # # # # # # # # #
Erik Josten was still unconvinced. “It could still be a trick.”
“Right. Baron Zemo revealed himself to the world and faked his death to lull everybody into a false sense of security for when his real plan comes about.” The mocking tone in Fixer’s voice conveyed what he thought of that.
“What we need to do is figure out what’s next,” said Beetle. “There could still have been other survivors, maybe even Scarecrow. And there’s that shotgun-”
Fixer sighed. “It blew up, the fired died, nothing remains. Waste your time if you want, but my purpose here is over. I plan to go back to the way things were.”
“And what was that?” asked Melissa. “Maintaining equipment for low-rent super-villains?”
“Better than would-be world despots who would try to silence me after. And don’t scoff at my profession. Who else would you go to when that harness breaks down and you go back from a songbird to a screamer?”
Melissa touched a hand to the harness at her neck. Fixer had indeed repaired it, restoring the functions based off Klaw’s sonic converter. “That was Baron Zemo’s name for me, back when I had nothing but this ‘gift’. I’m back to being a screamer now, and while this is what people will see it’ll be the scream they won’t know until it hits them.”
“That was a long way of saying, ‘Don’t call me Songbird. Call me Screamer,’” said Josten. “But yeah, it’s time we back to our own names and not what Baron Zemo tried to make us. As far as the world is concerned, the one true Goliath is back.”
Beetle almost reminded that man at he’d originally called himself Power Man, but thought better of it. Given his history with that name, Goliath would’ve likely reacted violently. Instead he said, “Well, it looks like Fixer and I are already ahead of you. And I suppose Taproot died in the building collapse, huh Plantman?”
“The taproot is difficult to remove because it grows downward. You can pull out the plant, but because the root stays in the ground, it will resprout.” The plant-gun was turning over in his hands. “Perhaps if I turn it on myself, the sprout will grow back faster. But that would only change the body. My mind, it will need to reconnect. Nevertheless, Taproot is who I am.”
“Well said.” Fixer clapped Taproot on the back. “None of us should turn from what we really are. We allowed ourselves to be seduced by cheers, forgetting that without the lie those cheers would’ve become screams of outrage.”
Beetle opened his mouth, but was unsure of what to say. Screamer and Atlas were more than ready with their answers however.
“Yeah, I know exactly what I am.”
“No more running. No more being afraid.”
Beetle looked down at the elongated fingers that were a part of his armor. He thought about the MACH-1 armor, how proud he’d been of that achievement. A new age in fighter jet technology, and he’d used it to play super-hero.
“Baron Zemo taught me one thing. I’m done with thinking small.”
# # # # # # # # # #
Weeks passed. Still declared an unsafe site, the shattered headquarters of the Thunderbolts could not be cleared away. Nor could the blackened tree be removed, its branches maintaining a dark shadow over the neighborhood. It was late one night that a lone figure passed under those branches, leaping over the cordon and onto rubble.
“Blizzard, you damned fool.” Blacklash was talking to nobody in particular, save for the spirits he imagined walking the site. “I could have gotten you out. You and Boomerang both.”
The moment he’d returned from the pocket dimensional hideaway, Blacklash had sought out news of Justin Hammer and the Thunderbolts. He’d cursed at the revelation about Baron Zemo, laughed over his true death, and raged over the declarations of other deaths. Some Thunderbolts had been seen since, not Blizzard nor Boomerang however.
Uncoiling his electric whip, Blacklash cracked it against the piles of debris. The explosions drowned out his screams of anguish. Despite all the deals and precautions, his friends were gone. With Baron Zemo did, was there even a target for his vengeance?
A strike against the blackened trunk caused the entire tree to shake. An object, caught high up in its branches, was dislodged and fell. It narrowly missed Blacklash’s head, bouncing near his feet. His wrath paused, Blacklash knelt down to see what he’d uncovered.
As Blacklash closed his hand around it, the shotgun was warm to his touch.
The End
“What do you see?” Melissa Gold asked him.
“The tree looks…” Erik struggled to find the words. “I have no idea. Everything looks black and dead, but the tree’s intact. It even has leaves attached, black as they are.”
Not one of the former Thunderbolts or Redeemers needed Erik and the binoculars to know that. As tall as the skyscraper had been, the tree was taller, and as wide at the base of its trunk. The outlying branches and leaves brushed against neighboring buildings and blanketed the street. Luckily the cordon was past the canopy, but at that time of day the tree’s shadow fell over the crowd, and that alone brought an unsettling black chill. One could only wonder how the authorities and Damage Control crews found the strength to work beneath that unholy flora.
“You know what deaths we’re concerned with,” Abe said to Erik. “That some made it out are a given. Bodies found are bodies confirmed.”
Those four were among the survivors, smart enough to run when the building began to collapse. They had left others behind, a demonic Scarecrow and his infected abominations: Gladiator, Boomerang, Blizzard and Speed Demon. There had been others, Thunderbolts sworn to protect Justin Hammer and Redeemers sworn to unmask Hammer as Baron Helmut Zemo. Unfortunately, they knew Zemo had escaped due to the press release given out by Justin Hammer, but something like the Scarecrow needed to stay buried.
“I see them pulling someone out,” said Erik. A ladder that had reached high into the branches was lowering. In addition to the rescue workers was a third figure. “For a second I thought maybe Taproot, but this guy looks human.” Erik’s face scrunched. “And naked.”
“Give me those.” Paul grabbed the binoculars and looked through them. “That is Taproot, or at least the man he used to be. It appears that Samuel Smithers is human again.”
“It must have been that fire,” Melissa said. “We saw how it affected Scarecrow when nothing else did, and look at the tree now. I couldn’t imagine how that fire changed Taproot, but it did.”
Paul could do more than imagine. He’d been Scourge, had used a hellfire shotgun that had set Taproot’s tree afire. He had witnessed hellfire’s effects on the soul, and felt that had something to do with Taproot’s change more than any scientific explanation. However, Paul was unwilling to confess this information with his companions.
“Doctors can figure that out. One of them will even write a paper on it.”
Erik was looking up. “He was taken from high up, maybe penthouse level. Makes a person wonder if he saw anything we’d be interested in.”
This time it was Abe that spoke. “We can ask Smithers ourselves, after we’ve sprung him.”
# # # # # # # # # #
It was three blocks later they attacked the ambulance. Songbird opened with a scream, disrupting the driver’s equilibrium. The ambulance careened off the street and into the large waiting arms of Atlas. While he kept the wheels up and spinning, Beetle and Fixer approached the rear doors.
Long fingers stuck to the ambulance doors, and when Beetle pulled the doors were ripped away. Fixer jumped inside, blowtorch at the ready, but found to his surprise that Taproot wasn’t handcuffed to his gurney. “Hunh. They don’t know who you are.”
“Idiots,” Taproot wheezed. It had been so long since he’d breathed oxygen. “You could have snuck into the hospital, spirited me away without incident. Nobody would have looked too hard.”
“Instead they’ll know we survived,” Fixer said. Grabbing Taproot, Fixer pulled him out of the ambulance while configuring the Tech-Pack into a jet pack. “He’ll know. If he’s around to worry about us. Is he?”
“Yes.” As the pair rocketed into the sky, three others close behind them, Taproot struggled to breathe. In between gasps, he said, “I saw Hammer, only he was Baron Zemo. He escaped, in a manner much like this.”
# # # # # # # # # #
Security for a presidential campaign event was expected to be tight. Without an invitation, getting in would have been almost impossible, and Clint Barton couldn’t afford an invitation. His solution was simpler though. He arrived hours ahead of time, and would wait.
Black Archer crept through the nearly empty convention center, avoiding the security agents as they swept the building. To an Avenger with A-1 security clearance, little things like building plans and event schedules weren’t difficult to access. He knew when and where Baron Zemo planned to make at that night’s event, and the best spot from which to shoot an arrow through his eye.
Disappearing into the shadows, Black Archer patiently waited for three agents to walk by. He would have to time it carefully. The window of time in which to enter the room was narrow, but once inside he would be safe to wait. On soft-soled boots Black Archer approached the door before the agents had fully turned the corner, keeping just outside of their field of vision. The lock-picks were in his hand, but before inserting them he activated the white-noise arrowhead on his belt. The sound it made couldn’t really be heard, and it served to drown out all other sounds in the immediate area. In less than a minute Black Archer had picked the locked, hurriedly opened the door, and entered. He closed it just before the next trio of agents would have seen it.
The room was pitch black and musty, used to store old costumes and furniture not used in some time. Footprints were made in the dust as Black Archer approached a wall. His fingers ran along the plaster, seeking the thin spot and finding out. A blade arrowhead was removed, pressed against the wall in search of a seam and them pressed into that. The plans Black Archer had studied were accurate, the room contained a boarded window that looked out onto the main hall.
Black Archer set the plywood, removed a screen from his person and unrolled it over the opening. It wouldn’t do for someone from the hall to glance up and notice a security breach before the time was right. After…it wouldn’t matter.
When Black Archer saw the light it was too late. Pain wracked his body and he collapsed onto his side, unable to move. The bow and arrows fell beside him, just out of the reach of nerveless fingers. Black Archer’s eyes were in the direction of his attacker, emerging from a corner of the room.
Pink and purple were this man’s colors, save for yellow belt, gloves and boots, and white fur along the shoulders and mid-calves. Over the purple mask that covered his head was a circlet of gold. One needed only to look at Helmut, 13th Baron Zemo to realize that he styled himself a king.
In one hand Baron Zemo held an energy pistol. In another a length of rope. He knelt down next to Black Archer, no expression visible under the mask. None was needed. Black Archer could feel the smug satisfaction emanating from him in waves.
“You should be paralyzed until some time after my speech.” Baron Zemo set the rope down. “But in my experience ‘should’ does not often mean ‘will’, hence the restraints. You were planning to kill him,” Baron Zemo said at noticing all the arrows were bladed.
Black Archer couldn’t form words, so he let his eyes do the talking.
“Much as I could love to take full advantage of this, affairs take precedence,” Baron Zemo said. “You are going to watch my speech, helpless in the knowledge that I have won. Afterwards, I will come up here and I will break your neck.”
Black Archer couldn’t make any outward signs of emotion as Baron Zemo set about restraining him. But inside, Hawkeye’s heart was soaring. Because the villain couldn’t resist to gloat, a chance remained.
# # # # # # # # # #
“This is an impossibly sophisticated piece of technology,” Fixer said. He finished fiddling with the plant-gun and handed it over to Taproot. “No offense, but you couldn’t have built this.”
“I had help,” Taproot said, remembering the H’ylthri. They were plant creatures from another dimension, and had imbued the plant-gun with their power so that Taproot, called Plant Man at the time, would help them conquer the Earth. They were all dead now, and recently Taproot had come to regret his part in that.
Pointing his plant-gun at a small weed growing from a crack in the floor, Taproot pulled the trigger. The weed was bathed in unexplained energy and grew rapidly until the trigger was released. “What I was can be reversed. Until then, I’ll settle for this phantom power.”
“That fire was the cause,” said Beetle. “Scarecrow was afraid of it, and it did this to you, and who knows what else. I remember, there was a shotgun, it fell down the elevator shaft and blew up, and the fire from it did this. We could go back to the building, try to look for-”
“Hammer would have the place watched,” said Atlas. “Or rather, Zemo would, if what you said is true. Assuming he survived.”
“He did,” Taproot said. He nodded at Fixer. “On a jetpack like yours, I saw him go. Not Justin Hammer. Baron Helmut Zemo. Whatever illusion he had Zemo decided to drop, as Quantum and TESS-1 were fighting each other.”
“I don’t suppose you happened to see who won?” asked Songbird. Taproot shook his head. “If Zemo still has his bodyguard, going after him is a suicide mission.”
“We won’t know until we try.” Atlas flexed his large hands, imaging them locked around Zemo’s throat. “Zemo lied to us, used us, set us up to die. I’m not going to walk away form that.”
“We may have to.” Fixer turned on the television. The signal his Tech-Pack picked up was being confirmed on the screen. “My oh my…”
# # # # # # # # # #
Through the screen he’d set up, a bound and paralyzed Hawkeye heard the applause that preceded Baron Zemo’s entrance to the stage. Everybody saw the old face of Justin Hammer, heard his voice, but that was a lie. The world was being lied to, and from the applause and cheers Hawkeye knew the world was swallowing it.
“Say what you want about Germans, they know how to work a crowd.”
Out of the corner of her eye, Hawkeye saw her walking toward him. Vagabond didn’t look much different from the last time he’d seen her, during her expulsion from the Avengers. It still wasn’t much of a costume, street clothes for the most part, with only a domino mask to maintain some semblance of a secret identity. The rifle was new though.
“I can only imagine what you’re thinking,” Vagabond said. “But no, I’m not back under Baron Zemo’s employ. Yeah, I know who he is. A few months ago, I heard one his speeches, and recognized a few phrases Baron Zemo had used during our…communication.”
(Author’s Note: I could explain what happened, but then you wouldn’t need to read Avengers West Coast #16 by Chris Munn)
Vagabond bent down, setting the rifle against the wall and scooping up Black Archer’s arrows. “That’s hardly conclusive proof though, and after what happened I didn’t think the Avengers would believe me. So I did my own investigation, and I admit it’s gone badly. A few times I thought about approaching him, going the double-agent route.”
The arrows were replaced in the quiver, and Vagabond set them against the wall alongside the bow. “Clearly, not doing that was the right call. We’ve both seen what he does to…employees. There’s no other way. I can see you agree with me.”
Vagabond undid some of the ropes, but only the ones that allowed Hawkeye to sit up against the screen. She dragged him a few feet and finally set him down against the floor. When Vagabond picked up the rifle and set up position at the screen, Hawkeye knew what she planned. It took so much struggle, but his mouth opened and a squeak came out.
Vagabond paused and, after a moment’s thought, did set the rifle down. Hawkeye rejoiced, but only until she punched him in the face. “I’m sorry, but now you can say you tried to stop me.”
Hawkeye was dazed, with blood on his face, but still he struggled. But this time Vagabond didn’t paused as she took up the rifle and ripped the screen aside.
“Tell Captain America I’m sorry.”
The shot was loud, and the screams that immediately followed were louder still. Tossing the rifle aside, Vagabond sprang toward the door. She barely made two steps before the door was kicked in and armed guards appeared. They fired without hesitation, but for an instant it seemed that Vagabond was bullet-proof. She collided with the men, tossing them aside like they were nothing.
But past the door there were more men, more guns. The impact of the bullets drove Vagabond to the ground. Her head turned, her eyes meeting Hawkeye’s. He tried to focus on them, tried not to see the blood pooling beneath her.
That should have been me.
# # # # # # # # # #
Erik Josten was still unconvinced. “It could still be a trick.”
“Right. Baron Zemo revealed himself to the world and faked his death to lull everybody into a false sense of security for when his real plan comes about.” The mocking tone in Fixer’s voice conveyed what he thought of that.
“What we need to do is figure out what’s next,” said Beetle. “There could still have been other survivors, maybe even Scarecrow. And there’s that shotgun-”
Fixer sighed. “It blew up, the fired died, nothing remains. Waste your time if you want, but my purpose here is over. I plan to go back to the way things were.”
“And what was that?” asked Melissa. “Maintaining equipment for low-rent super-villains?”
“Better than would-be world despots who would try to silence me after. And don’t scoff at my profession. Who else would you go to when that harness breaks down and you go back from a songbird to a screamer?”
Melissa touched a hand to the harness at her neck. Fixer had indeed repaired it, restoring the functions based off Klaw’s sonic converter. “That was Baron Zemo’s name for me, back when I had nothing but this ‘gift’. I’m back to being a screamer now, and while this is what people will see it’ll be the scream they won’t know until it hits them.”
“That was a long way of saying, ‘Don’t call me Songbird. Call me Screamer,’” said Josten. “But yeah, it’s time we back to our own names and not what Baron Zemo tried to make us. As far as the world is concerned, the one true Goliath is back.”
Beetle almost reminded that man at he’d originally called himself Power Man, but thought better of it. Given his history with that name, Goliath would’ve likely reacted violently. Instead he said, “Well, it looks like Fixer and I are already ahead of you. And I suppose Taproot died in the building collapse, huh Plantman?”
“The taproot is difficult to remove because it grows downward. You can pull out the plant, but because the root stays in the ground, it will resprout.” The plant-gun was turning over in his hands. “Perhaps if I turn it on myself, the sprout will grow back faster. But that would only change the body. My mind, it will need to reconnect. Nevertheless, Taproot is who I am.”
“Well said.” Fixer clapped Taproot on the back. “None of us should turn from what we really are. We allowed ourselves to be seduced by cheers, forgetting that without the lie those cheers would’ve become screams of outrage.”
Beetle opened his mouth, but was unsure of what to say. Screamer and Atlas were more than ready with their answers however.
“Yeah, I know exactly what I am.”
“No more running. No more being afraid.”
Beetle looked down at the elongated fingers that were a part of his armor. He thought about the MACH-1 armor, how proud he’d been of that achievement. A new age in fighter jet technology, and he’d used it to play super-hero.
“Baron Zemo taught me one thing. I’m done with thinking small.”
# # # # # # # # # #
Weeks passed. Still declared an unsafe site, the shattered headquarters of the Thunderbolts could not be cleared away. Nor could the blackened tree be removed, its branches maintaining a dark shadow over the neighborhood. It was late one night that a lone figure passed under those branches, leaping over the cordon and onto rubble.
“Blizzard, you damned fool.” Blacklash was talking to nobody in particular, save for the spirits he imagined walking the site. “I could have gotten you out. You and Boomerang both.”
The moment he’d returned from the pocket dimensional hideaway, Blacklash had sought out news of Justin Hammer and the Thunderbolts. He’d cursed at the revelation about Baron Zemo, laughed over his true death, and raged over the declarations of other deaths. Some Thunderbolts had been seen since, not Blizzard nor Boomerang however.
Uncoiling his electric whip, Blacklash cracked it against the piles of debris. The explosions drowned out his screams of anguish. Despite all the deals and precautions, his friends were gone. With Baron Zemo did, was there even a target for his vengeance?
A strike against the blackened trunk caused the entire tree to shake. An object, caught high up in its branches, was dislodged and fell. It narrowly missed Blacklash’s head, bouncing near his feet. His wrath paused, Blacklash knelt down to see what he’d uncovered.
As Blacklash closed his hand around it, the shotgun was warm to his touch.
The End