She-Hulk #0.2 - Hello... Ruby Thursday?
Location - Los Angeles, California

---

2 months previously...

The piercing noise of the police siren rang loudly down the streets of Los Angeles, drivers tried their best to make the way clear for the lights flashing red and blue on the police car. Swerving in and out of the busy traffic many drivers were privy to a passing glance of the inside of the vehicle. Where they would have the chance to see what was an extremely uncomfortable She-Hulk curled up and hunched over in the passenger seat. With each turn and every bump she found herself knocking her head against something. Her eyebrows broke out into an uncontrollable twitch born out of irritation. It had been only a few minutes since her father, Officer Walters, had been requested for back up at the Union Bank. And with how traffic can get in Los Angeles, they had been fairly lucky with how quick their journey had been so far.

Officer Walters gave a side eyed glance to her, his hands steady on the wheel. "I told you, you should have shrunk down for the drive and when we get there, get all big and green again."

"No, that wouldn't work dad. You do realize that a strangers first impression of someone is made in mere seconds after meeting them? I don't want to take any chance."

He chuckled quietly "Yeah some impression you are going to make when you get stuck trying to get out."

"J-just keep your eyes on the road all right? And anyway we can just park around the corner from the bank." She crossed her arms just as her head bumped against the roof of the car again.

"Hmmm. That doesn't sound like such a bad idea to me. You never know how much property damage is going to go on when it's a powered criminal huh?"

"Yeah we don't want your car getting any scratches on it."

The chatter continued back and forth as they drove. It might have been hard to believe for the average onlooker that the duo were on their way to an encounter with a potentially dangerous meta-human. However, both of them had many years of experience fighting crime, albeit each in their own ways. They had both been around and seen a lot, dealt with a lot too. So when someone who finds themselves having superpowers decides that they think they can hop down to the local bank and make a quick buck for free? Well they weren't too worried about it. After all most of the time these types weren't really out to hurt anyone, there was plenty of scarier people to cross paths with who didn't have superpowers.

Officer Walters slowed down the car and pulled it to the stop at the side of the road. "Well that is us just around the corner as requested." He unclasped his seat belt and gently opened the driver side door as he pulled his police radio out of his waistband and raised it to speak into. "Officer Walters reporting, arrived on the scene, brought a little extra assistance too."

Jennifer had to be careful with how she moved within the car. If she wasn't then there was high chance of several things being damaged or even broken. Unclasping her own seatbelt she carefully as she could opened up the passenger door and attempted to exit the car legs first. Officer Walters stepped up and out of the car so there was more room for Jennifer to move about. She slowly pulled herself out of the car in what was almost an improvised limbo. As odd and awkward as it looked, it did the trick. Once out of the car Jennifer made sure to stretch her neck, soldiers, and back, with her joints cracking as she did so. She rested her palm on the roof of the car. "Could be time to upgrade to a van don't you think?"

"Oh I could but y'know. I've been driving this beauty for years and years now. Wouldn't trade her in for anything else in the world. Speaking of vehicles of course." He smirked dryly. "Sitting in the back would have probably been easier."

"Ahahaha, in some ways sure it would but then it would look like you were taking She-Hulk to jail or something. Not exactly the best look is it?" Jennifer feigned laughter.

"Yeah you are probably right on that part. Anyways, let's go see just what we are dealing with shall we?" Officer Walters face shifted into a serious countenance that signaled that he was now 'on the job'.

As the two of them were about to turn the corner a police officer went flying past them. He hit the lamp post hard and crumpled to the ground unconscious. Officer Walters rushed over to the officer and knelt down next to him. "Go on, I got him." He motioned with his head for Jennifer to continue on. Nodding she did so, rushing around the corner.

The street was for the most part empty, the police who had responded to the initial call had done a stellar job at guiding civilians out of harms way. There was still several empty cars parked up against the pavements as well as 2 empty police cars. Most of the cars had some small amounts of damage done to them, while the police cars had considerable dents all over the body of the cars as well as smashed in windows. One of the police cars was even flipped upside down. Jennifer could not see any other officers besides the one that had just been thrown into the lamp post behind her. Although they might have been inside of the bank. In the middle of the street was a rather strange figure. She was a tall woman, perhaps around 6 foot, wearing red boots, and expensive pair of red trousers, a large red jacket, and to top off all of that, where her head should have been was a large red orb. It almost looked like it was made of plastic, it was featureless and eerily smooth. There was something off about how the light fell on it. In each hand the woman was holding onto a full duffle bag, likely stuffed with cash taken from the bank. It was hard to tell due to the lack of a face but Jennifer felt like the woman was staring right at her.

"You?! Just what are you doing here?! Aren't you supposed to be in New York!" The womans voice had a strange effect to it, as if something was distorting it. Although despite having no mouth it was still rather clear when considering that. As she spoke she clenched her hands tightly into fists. "The entire point of doing it here was because none of you people were!"

She-Hulk cracked her knuckled, loudly for the added effect. "Well can't say I am sorry for showing up and throwing a wrench in that well thought out plan of yours. I just happened to be in town so it looks like you got rather unlucky, Miss...?"

"Pfaa the name is Ruby Thursday. And soon that will be name that people speak with gratitude in their hearts! What you do today matters not She-Hulk for whether it is tomorrow or in a year I shall find a way to carry out my research by any means necessary."

"Last time I checked, prisons for meta-humans didn't have the best of facilities for that sort of thing."

"You can't possibly understand, none of you fools can. That will change in time. In good time..."

"Yeah I am sure it will... Why don't you just put down those bags and calm down, let us settle this peacefully there is no need for anymore violence than there has been alright?"

As She-Hulk finished her sentence, something began to grow out of the head of Ruby Thursday. If she was not mistaken it looked almost like, a long red plastic arm. The fist grasped the air just before it was launched towards She-Hulk like a piston.

Taking off guard the fist cracked her right on the nose. She-Hulk took a step back and and put up her forearms to block any kind of follow up attack. And right she was in doing so as two more punches collided with her forearms just moments after being raised. The strikes were not so powerful that it was something to worry about but they were rather, irritating.

She-Hulk attempted to grasp the arms out of the air but they moved in a strange serpentine like manner, graceful and slippery they coiled and swayed about out just on the brink of being within arm length of her. Suddenly the appendages retreated back to hovering around the head of Ruby Thursday. It looked like they were being directly controlled by Ruby as if they were extra limbs. And where there was two, six more suddenly sprouted up from the red orb.

"Oh great."

She-Hulk surged forward, almost closing the distance between the two of them in a matter of moments. However, Ruby had taken hold of one of the cars nearby with all eight of her strange red appendages and with effort lifted it up, before lobbing it at She-Hulk.

"Better and better." She-Hulk muttered as she bit her lip.

Planting her feet on the ground and bracing for impact She-Hulk adopted a wide and stable stance, which allowed her to catch the car straight on spreading the impact throughout her body, allowing her to execute the catch and descent of the car back onto the ground with relative ease. With gentle care and precision she executed the maneuver, resulting in damage only being done to the front where she caught it.

While She-Hulk had been distracted, Ruby had boosted herself up onto the roof of the car using some of her appendages to push herself into the air. From atop the car she sent punch after punch down onto She-Hulk.

She-Hulk, largely shrugging this barrage off managed to take hold of one of the red plastic arms and swatted another away with her free hand. Yanking the arm that she caught she pulled Ruby Thursday down off the car and onto the road right in front of her. The rest of the arms continued to punch and slap at her whether it be in the side of the head, the chest, stomach, or legs.

"You really should have just put the bags down at the start."

With a single, well restrained, punch She-Hulk knocked Ruby Thursday unconscious. The eight arms sprouting from Ruby Thursdays head lay limp on the ground with the rest of her body before they slowly started to retreat back into the red orb.

---

She-Hulk - Gamma World Tie-In #2
Location - Gamma Base
@Kale19

---

Jennifer laughed nervously at her cousins joke about 'lounging about all day'. Now what he had said was very true and rather on point actually. Bruce was always working on something, not just working on something most of the times, it really did come off like it was always. That caused her to be a little worried about her cousin, stress or burnout for Bruce... She felt that would not bring about the best results for anyone, for Bruce himself most of all.

The sudden ringing of the alarms caught Jennifer off guard, her eyes widened and almost instinctively shifted into her She-Hulk form. Thankfully she was wearing her combat gear underneath her clothing, as she always did just in case, unfortunately that did mean the clothes she had been wearing were torn to shreds. Jennifers transition into She-Hulk was a rather quick and seamless one, a matter of sections and a brief feeling of adrenalin pumping through her entire body along with a wave of euphoria and it was all done.

She accepted the tablet from Bruce in her now large green hands and turned it towards herself to get a look at it. "Amadeus Cho huh? Well best I get out there before those agents get the chance to say hello before I do."

Jennifer smiled kindly at her cousin. "Don't worry Bruce, I will handle this quickly and be back at the lab in no time." She waved after him as he made his way down the hall.

She followed that path out of the base after the Agents who had passed her and Bruce earlier. Standing with them they all looked up at the sky where it looked as if Amadeus Cho was arriving in some sort of aircraft.

"Well let's see what he wants shall we?" She spoke to the agents as she waved at the aircraft as friendly as she could in greeting.

The sounds of the market outside seemed an almost blaring cacophony compared the home he was used to as different creatures spoke in their native tongues trying to buy and sell their various wares from God knows where. As Hellboy looked from the window above the market he couldn’t help but give a weak smile as seeing others like him living openly with no fear brought at least a little joy to him. As he took a deep drag of his Cuban cigar he turned back to his miniscule apartment the smile faded as he was reminded why he was there. Looking around seeing the parade of stray cats and research material littering the one bedroom apartment he walked back to his makeshift desk, which really only consisted of milk crates and plywood, he continued reading over the material Professor Broom left him. The Complete Cthulhu Mythos Tales with a hand written message inside the front cover,

’He was closer to the truth than anyone expected. Rasputin is close, don’t let him'.

It had been years since he had heard that name, at least the mid-90s, and he even went to Hell to make sure he had stayed there. Why was he the one that father was so worried about, and what did some racist paranoid delusional have to do with him? There were so many questions that he had if only he had been on better terms with him before he died. The thought of Broom brought back painful memories of Liz which he quickly had to dismiss or be lost in swell of sadness from their final meeting. Instead he returned to the book and began skimming through the pages hoping to find more clues his father left. After several hours, which included several cat breaks most of which involved one affectionately named Mr. Whiskers, Hellboy came across more hand written notes in a story named The History of the Necronomicon.

There were several mentions of the Blood God as well as several scribbled names that seemed like they were out of a bad horror novel, and then it hit him. Hellboy scrambled down stairs that led to Ellowyn's shop floor. The two entered into their strange agreement several weeks prior when Hellboy had saved the prior from a vampire robbery gone wrong which, needless to say, ended with the death of the attacker. Ellowyn was a gruff yet kindly elderly elf that looked nothing like the typical description of an elf. To say that the years had not been kind to him would be an understatement as he looked as if he had been in several battles and barely came back alive, his face covered in scars and gouges which left him with a blind eye and a hardly working good one. As Hellboy came bounding down the stairs with the energy of a kid at Christmas the old elf could only sigh as he turned the page of the book in front of him.

”Could you be in more of a hurry boy? I’m hoping you’ll be dead by next week so I can have my storeroom back.”

”In yer dreams ol' man I’ve got aplenty more years ta go before I croak,” He knew because the Angel of Death had predicted his death once, he still tries to avoid it.

”, say you wouldn’t happen to know anything about a book called the Necronomicon and it’s connection to a Blood God would ya?

The elf paused and slowly looked up from his book and eyed the demon questioningly,

”Now what business do you have with something so foul? Ain’t nothing good come from THAT save for damna..”

”Yeh, yeh, yeh damnation and sufferin' could ya just get to the connection before I clock ya one and find out my self?”

A brief surprised chuckle escaped from the elf as forgot a moment who he was dealing with. The day he saved him from that mugger Ellowyn knew exactly who Hellboy truly was and to be honest he was terrified of him. It was only after listening to him and hearing his story of what drive him here that he decided to befriend him. Closing the book he was reading and grabbing another from the shelf he mindlessly flipped pages until he got where he was looking for,

”There are several mentions of Blood Gods but none if them have and connections to that book. However, there was mention of a witch out of Britain that was said to have worshipped the Dragon of Revelation, and get this,” he said pointing at the spit in the book he was referencing, ”, And she would become known as the Queen of Witches or more commonly known as the Queen of Blood. While she ruled over witches other denizens of the night were rumored to pledge their fealty which included vampires who revered her as the God of Blood.”

As Ellowyn stared at Hellboy with a smug look of satisfaction the latter’s dull yellow eyes sparked with joy as this was the first solid lead he had had in weeks,

”Alright now were gettin' somewhere. What was her name?”

”Nimue.”

Chapter 1: Something ends.

Strapped to the cold stone table laid the 16-year-old girl, her skin paler than the moon, clad in her purple spandex, her robe had been removed and destroyed - a symbol of her saviors' power that her captors had no interest in preserving. She wouldn't need it anymore. Her name was Raven, at least that was her new chosen name. Once upon a time, her mother had called her Annabelle. That very same mother was currently one of the six-eyed beasts holding her captive. She was bound with chains enchanted with the blood of the sorcerers of Azarath - Ravens own masters. The young mystic knew this meant only one thing. Azarath had fallen, the first line of defense the multiverse had against the greatest evil she knew had fallen.

Her father was coming.

She strained against the chains, she tried to cast her magic. She went through all of the trials and tribulations in her head. Her friends. Her regrets. All of those feelings she had never allowed herself to feel. In fear of her father creating a bridge into this world with them. All of her sacrifices would now be for nothing.

"BROTHERS!" A man clad in a black hood yelled, he was standing on a stone next to Raven, facing the other way, out towards the crowd. The other, 20 or so people around the dimly lit cellar of the thousand-year-old mansion. The rest of his followers gathered there, among them Raven's mother, she threw her head to the other side and found her uncle, cousin, and other relatives, people she had known and loved here in the mortal world among the members of the cult. The man cast off his hood. The girl recognized him immediately. His name was Jackson Devlin, and he had been her high school teacher, the only one who seemed to care about her while she was growing up - before she dropped out. He held in his hand a dagger, ornate with runes on it in an ancient language very few could still read. Raven knew she could even though she had never learned how to read it. She refused to read it, she knew where the knowledge came from.

"Today our mission ends! Our duty is done! Today, we herald our master into this world. We shall bask in his glory and create our paradise under his rule!" The crowd cheered.

"But there are two things that still need doing. First, we, the loyal subjects have to make an offering." He promised with the knife in hand.
"An offering in blood. Join me, brothers and sisters, put your hands on the stone and let your life force give power to the spell!" The stone pillar the altar stood on had a place at the bottom for everyone to put their hands, Raven only now realizing she was some 5 meters into the air. The air got colder as everyone placed their hands on the rock.

"Now, brothers and sisters. Let your power enter the altar of S'aar. Power up this tool of our lords' excellence!" Jackson cackled, Raven, recognizing that people were losing blood that came pouring up the rock, around her forming a pentagram, no. Not just a pentagram. A rune. Six eyes. And she could immediately feel her body changing, tensing up. The intense mystical power inside of her surging. She was stronger than ever before right now. If the chains weren't holding her down - she could have changed the world with a thought. This power... Was intoxicating.

But soon, the fantastic of it started to vain, her training and resistance to such pursuits, the easy solution kicked in and she came back down, down to her sense. The followers' dark hoods began falling off from their faces as their bodies had given enough blood.
Throwing her head around, she'd see old teachers, nurses, the nice cashier at the supermarket. The guy at the antique bookstore. Everyone Raven had known and held dear were in this very room, their eyes glowing with a sinister red glow. Once the rune was fully charged, Jackson cut his hand open, six eyes appearing in his head. Raven's mom appeared on the other side of the stone table, next to Jackson. Her six eyes had a more intense glow to them. Her mom said nothing, Raven was horrified at the sight, trying her hardest to use her new powers to break free, but she couldn't.
Her mother sliced her hand open, just like Jackson had with the same dagger, using the other side of the edge. Holding it above Raven, her hand was layered with Jacksons' hand.

"I am the Bride."
"I am the Disciple."
The two said in unison.

"This is your prophet. Your avatar. She is the daughter of Darkness and she shall be your vessel. The hour is nigh, it is time for you to rise, Lord Trigon!" The two let their blood drip onto the rune they were standing on, its glow growing more violent and the entire room echoed with a deep, dark voice beckoning his return.

"Stop!" Raven begged, choking back tears but nobody heard her, for there was not a human among the crowd.

The dagger pierced her chest, to her very heart.

---

"You're dead, Raven." The voice spoke, it wasn't a taunt, there was no feeling at all involved in the words. It was a fact, final, and an ultimate one. Raven had no body to answer with, her body was currently being taken over by the worst evil she could imagine.

The voice echoed within her.
"Suffering has been your lot in life."

"It's not fair." The teenager complained, she had no body yet she spoke, she couldn't quite explain what this place was or how it felt because somehow, it felt like nothing yet everything at the same time.

"Is this heaven?" A part of her clinging to the teachings she had once learned as a child - long before she knew of her true heritage.

"Heaven is not available to you, daughter of darkness. Your very existence is an affront to the foundation of paradise."

"So, I'm just gone? Trigon is gonna steal my body and get to execute his plan? Bring an end to it all?

"Unless you choose to stop him, child. I am a being far more suited to ward off your father than you are - even than the mages that raised you were. For their teachings came from a part of me."

"How will you help? What do I have to sacrifice?" She wasn't a fool. Nobody, especially not beings of the cosmic magnitude, gave anything away for free.

"I ask for the same thing your father would. You to be my vessel and I shall hold him back. You will be my rider, and we shall bring the wicked to justice. Vengeance is my name, and you young witch are my champion."

Raven felt like she let out a sigh - a truly fascinating experience, given how she didn't have a body - She could feel her father's presence nearing. He was approaching and once he took hold of her now empty husk of a body, nothing could stop him. Not the Justice League and not the Sorcerer Supreme. Raven could feel the energy of this Vengeance. It was pure. Holy. Everything she wasn't. More importantly, she felt this presence to be as strong as her own father.

"I accept."

IN DREAMS
CHAPTER 3

New York
October, 1938

Captain Larry Belmont stepped into his apartment and slid off his coat. The smell of dinner cooking was just the thing he needed after a long hard day. Belmont shucked his blazer off and hung it up beside the coat. He walked through the apartment with his shoulder harness holster exposed.

“Daddy is that you?”

“It is,” said Belmont. “I’ll be there in a moment.”

Belmont retreated to the small room that acted as his study. He removed the gun and holster before locking them in the bottom desk drawer. Satisfied it was secure, he stepped into the kitchen. Dian was there, working on her famous Beef Wellington. Her boyfriend was also joining them for dinner. Belmont wasn’t sure what to make of him even after two years of Dian going steady with him. His pudgy face and glasses meant he would never be anything close to handsome. He was kind of a dullard, and yet had such a dry sense of humor one remark could make Belmont laugh for hours.

And he was rich. That was a big tally mark in the pro category for Belmont. He may have been a bit boring and taciturn, but Dian loved him. And he treated her right. That was pretty much enough for Belmont. And with some of the more… questionable men she had dated before, boring old Wesley Dodds was a safe choice for a potential husband.

“Captain Belmont,” said Dodds.

The two men shook hands as Dian gave Belmont a kiss on the cheek.

“Please, Wes,” Belmont waved a dismissive hand towards him. “Don’t call me captain. Sir… or Mr. Belmont will do.”

“How was work, Daddy?”

“Tedious,” Belmont grunted.

He sat down at the kitchen table beside Dodds and started to unloosen the knot on his tie.

“Me and half the damn taskforce spent twelve hours combing the Upper West Side for potential murders. There’s plenty in this goddamn city. A murderer in New York? It’s like looking for the right needle in a stack of needles. It’s my fault for listening to some goddamn crazy kook in a gasmask!”

“The Sandman?”

Dodds leaned forward. Belmont noticed the interest in his eyes. Dian was also listening intently as she pretended to put the finishing touches on dinner. The two of them were something of true crime junkies, especially when it came to Belmont’s dealings with the Sandman. But then again they were a lot like most of New York. The whole masked man of mystery fad was sweeping the city. There was the Sandman, the Crimson Avenger, Hourman, and that guy who ran around dressed like a fucking bullet. Guess what his name was? Bunch of lunatics who sold papers like hotcakes. And Belmont would never admit it aloud, but the Sandman had helped him out on a few cases from time to time. At least one of them had a use.

“Yeah,” said Belmont. “The Sandman said he had some kinda dream--”

“Vision,” said Dodds.

Dodds cleared his throat when he saw the annoyed look on Belmont’s face. Dian just turned back to the stove to start plating dinner.

“Anyway,” said Belmont. “He said he saw in some kinda dream that this Tarantula guy would be caught on the Upper West Side. It’s the closest thing we’ve had in this case in six months so we jumped on it. Plenty of crazies we interviewed but none panned out so it’s back to--”

Belmont stopped talking when the phone rang. He rose and walked to it while Dian and Dodds looked on. This time of night it would have only been for him and it would only be something urgent.

“Yeah? Yeah, operator, patch him through…. Phil, what’s going on? You’re shitting me. And… shit. Okay. I’m on my way back.”

Belmont hung up the phone and looked back at his daughter and her boyfriend.

“Can I get that dinner packed up? We may have a break in the case.”

“How so?” asked Dian.

“Patrol has reports of a girl getting nabbed by some unknown man off the street in… the Upper West Side. We’re running a dragnet through the neighborhood.”

Dodds shot up from the table with such a force he banged his knees against the table.

“Oh no!” He shouted. “I just remembered… I have an important client meeting tomorrow morning I need to prep for.”

Belmont raised an eyebrow as Dodds started to scramble for his coat. Dian also looked at Dodds with a scowl. Scatterbrain. That was one of the flaws Dodds had, now that Belmont remembered it. A complete and total scatterbrain.

“I’ve got to go.” Dodds had his hat in his hands and looking sheepishly at Dian. “I’ll phone you tomorrow.”

“I made all this Beef Wellington for nothing,” Dian sighed. “At the very least, Daddy, you could let me tag along to the dragnet.”

“Absolutely not,” Belmont and Dodds said in unison. The two men exchanged glances. At least they were on the same page about that.

“I have to go,” Dodds said as he rushed towards the door. “Good luck, Captain--”

“Don’t call me Captain--”

“And pleasant dreams, Dian.”

“What in the world do you see in him?” Belmont asked after Dodds had gone.

“A lot of things,” Dian said with a slight smile. “He’s smart, passionate… he’s… a dreamer.”

---

New York City
Now

“Look at all this shit.”

Patrolmen Santos and Richards walked through the apartment of the deceased Sanderson Hawkins. Detective Gold had sent them to check the place out after talking to Hawkins’ ex-wife. According to her the old man had no reason to off himself. Gold didn’t really believe her. Almost everyone who committed suicide left behind loved ones who refused to believe the truth. For Gold and the rest of the 19th Precinct this was strictly a CYA measure. Cover Your Ass. The landlord had let the two cops in, grumbling the whole time about how Hawkins was on the verge of being evicted and what the hell had he been thinking when he killed himself owing three months of rent.

They were expecting lushes last stop. Instead they found museum quality tidy. The little apartment was some kinda shrine. Filled wall to wall with posters, books, photos and trophies for some guy called...

“The Sandman,” said Santos. “Ain’t that the guy who fights Spider-Man?”

“See the age on some of this stuff, dummy,” said Richards. He waved a flashlight at a faded old poster of a man in a gasmask and fedora walking through a fog. “This is old as hell. Gotta be one of those masked guys from back during WW2.”

“Some of it looks like it’s missing,” said Santos. “Bits and pieces, here and there you know? Not like ransacked and burgled... just missing.”

Richards looked at an easy chair uncomfortably close to the television.

“I see a laptop charger… with no laptop.”

Santos’ flashlight fell on the glass display in the far corner.

“Big ass display… with nothing in it. Just a naked dummy. Again, nothing broken… but stuff missing.”

“Eh, nothing suspicious.” Richard shrugged. “Let’s let the good detective there’s a lot of weird shit, but nothing worth looking into.”

---

Back at his apartment, Wesley Dodds tried to operate Sandy’s laptop as best as he could. He squinted against the bright screen and dragged a weathered finger across the touchpad. It was hard to believe but a long, long time ago he had been on the cutting edge of technology when he’d bought a computer for Dodds Manufacturing. Of course that computer had weighed half a ton and would take up half of Wesley’s current apartment if it were here today. Looking down at this thing suddenly made him remember how old he truly was.

In the corner of his apartment was a duffle bag he’d taken from Sandy’s with… a few select items in them. Wesley remembered the last conversation he’d had with Sandy and suddenly felt ashamed. He’d told Sandy to just throw the costume and everything in his sad little apartment out. He’d been angry then. Angry at Sandy, angry at his life, even angry at God. The boy just happened to be an outlet for that anger. He paused what he was going and took a deep breath. He couldn’t let the past effect his future now. Not when he had something at stake.

Despite being so much younger than Wesley, Sandy had still been an elderly man. And his computer was not very secure. Wesley easily found his emails and began to search through them. He found several correspondents with different people over items and prices. He thought back to the missing items in Sandy’s collection. One email chain caught his attention. It was long and had multiple back and forths every day up until a week ago. He clicked on it and began to read.

“Oh, my god,” he said aloud. “...Sandy… what kind of mess had you gotten yourself into?”

_{Location: The Daily Bugle Offices - New York City}

Gamma World Tie-In #1.01: Two Jobs

---

"What are you expecting, Parker? These shots look almost identical to ones you've already given me years ago. It'd be cheaper just to run one of the photos I've already paid you for and get an intern to just fix the colors in photoshop." Jameson ripped the usb from his desktop and whipped it with force back at Peter, who instinctively reached up to catch it before it struck him in the nose. The grizzled editor removed the cigar from his lips to puff out a large cloud of smoke, turning his gaze to the intern working on a small laptop on the couch in the corner of the office. "Robbie, search the August 2018 catalog and pull the one I want. And make sure to correct the black parts of the suit to blue... I don't need those Reddit trolls slamming us for using an outdated photo."

Robbie raised a timid hand as his voice shook. "Um... sir... which one from August..." Without so much as a word of response, Jameson whistled and snapped his fingers before pointing to the door. The intern got the hint and quickly shuffled out of the office. Peter stared in disbelief at the usb in his hand.

"There's got to be something in here that you can use, sir." Peter felt his pocket buzz as his phone got a notification.

"Parker, I've been buying photos off of you for... what... 5 years?"

"10." His phone buzzed again.

"10? I thought there was another guy before you."

"No, that was Brock. He was after I-" A third buzz.

Jameson slammed his palm on the table before pointing at Peter, shutting up the freelancer immediately. "That's not the point. The point is, I expect more from you. You come back here with something that'll knock my socks off. Now get out of my office before I replace you with a drone sporting a dollar store haircut. And answer your damn phone, it's distracting."

Peter grit his teeth as he slipped out of the office, pulling out his phone to see a large SHIELD logo lighting up his screen. His eyebrows raised and his jaw slacked as he tapped the logo, and a map of his immediate surroundings was pulled up. A building three blocks away was pinned, and Peter tapped a small green checkmark in the bottom right corner. He knew he had 5 minutes to get over there... but he could easily make it in 3. He quickly waltzed into the stairwell, barely waiting for the door to slam behind him as he tossed his bag into a corner and pulled his t-shirt over his head to reveal his skin-tight suit underneath his clothes. It only took him a few moments to remove his street clothes and secure his mask and gloves. He zipped up to the top of the stairwell and peeked his head out of the roof access door, making sure no one was taking a smoke break. Seeing that he was clear, Spider-Man buckled his backpack around his abdomen and fired two weblines against the building next door. He pulled back swiftly to launch himself forward into an aerial roll, effortlessly handspringing off the edge of the adjacent rooftop at an angle to soar over the streets below.

Peter swung with ease to the designated rooftop, stretching his arms back and swinging them forward to clap as he waited a few moments for the quinjet to arrive. After less than a minute, Peter felt his muscles tense as the aircraft had suddenly dropped its cloaking device and hovered above Spider-Man. He quickly jumped up into the open hatch near the rear of the aircraft, instinctively making his way towards a jump seat along the wall before putting on a headset and strapping himself in. "You're early, Kelso. Miss me that much?"

The SHIELD pilot shook her head, flipping a couple switches as she prepared the aircraft for takeoff. "Director Rogers wants you to report to Dr. Banner at Gamma Base. He will debrief you on arrival."

Peter leaned back in his seat, yawning as the weight of another night with little rest was finally hitting him. "Let me know when we're there, Kelso. I need a beauty nap."

"Sleep tight, webhead."

GAMMA BASE // NEVADA

Bruce sat overlooking the terminal, screens all over as the drone drifted lazily over Las Vegas. Running a comprehensive series of scans that his team was pouring over. The team of five, six if you included Bruce himself, all had their own expertise and were all handpicked by Bruce. With final approval by the Director, who at the time had been Director Fury. Jennifer wasn't technically a member of hsi team, and had a lot more freedom than Bruce. S.H.I.E.L.D just advised that she spend the most of her time out of the public eye, the Hulk had done a lot of damage over the years. A lot of good, but people rarely remembered the good.

Shaking himself out of his own head he focused on the task ahead.

"Are we picking up anything different?"

"I'm picking up weird electrical signals from around the city. They form a perfect circle-" That was Daman Veteri, a molecular engineer to rival Hank Pym.

"-it seems centre on the Gamma spike that Veronica first picked up on. We've pinpointed it to the Strat Hotel, the upper floors are just radiating Gamma Energy." That was Randall Jessup, expert in renewable energy. Bruce had followed his work closely, the two of them had been working on a way to utilise Gamma Energy as a clean endless energy source.

Bruce nodded. Whatever was going on here it wasn't going to be good, in the time since they first picked up the energy signature it had more than doubled and it didn't seem to show any signs of slowing down. If it continued to escalate then it would rival the spike of Gamma that had resorted in the creation of the Hulk when the Gamma Bomb went off. Pushing his glasses up he rubbed the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger. He couldn't really afford to wait for Parker to get here, to give him all the details and move on. The arrival of Cho just added an extra complication.

"Okay. This can't wait, Daman and Randall grab your-" Before he could even finish his sentence he watched in horror as in a flash there was a burst of green as a dome slowly formed around the Strat Hotel, before expanding out slowly encompassing everything. The drone fizzled and sparked as the field past over it, the signal died just as they could see people tearing at their skin and bursting out of their clothes. Mutating and changing into Gamma Monsters. "-Everyone grab your gear-" He turned to Doctor McGowan. "Call whoever you need too, call Director Rogers, the President, Chairman. Whoever. This is my site, nobody is to go into that dome without my say so. Everyone needs to keep their distance, the last thing we need is this escalating or these new Gamma Mutates getting out and causing havoc."

He grabbed his satchel, pausing for a second to keep his heart rate under control. Just your fight or flight response Bruce. Keep it calm. The world needs Bruce Banner, Gamma Expert right now. Not the Hulk. He looked over at his suit of armour, it was built to try and siphon off extra Gamma energy to stop him going on a rampage as well as administer sedatives. So far the Hulk hadn't tried to rip it off once, he looked silly in it as Banner but when he Hulked out it expanded with him till it fit perfectly.

Better put it on Bruce. Just incase. "I'll catch up with you all topside, get Jennifer briefed and ready and someone find out where Parker is and tell his pilot we have a Code Green."

Stately Wayne Manor
Gym, Southeast Wing
9:26 PM

"In a statement regarding the near-catastrophic crash of the Lexcorp shuttle Lillian and it's apparent rescue by Superman, President Ellis attributed the launch's success to CEO Lex Luthor's drive and talent while speaking on the death of Justice Hartw---"

"Change."

"---made headlines today, as The Boy Of Steel's overabundance in dealings with the opposite sex has been called into question by parental advisory boards across the---"

"Change."

"---despite leaving no casualties, Freeze's attack on Wayne Biotech was nevertheless considered ruthless, with eyewitnesses describing the notorious criminal's motive as one of technological theft. It was thanks to the interference of the GCPD, Chief Renee Montoya tells GCN News, that the employees of the prestigious science center were rescued in---"

"Change."

"---other news, fourteen members of Temple Fugate's grand larceny outfit were arrested in the early morning hours following a supposed clash with The Batman. The perpetrators were said to be strung upside down via cable, just north of the entrance to the Industrial Bank Of Gotham, their alleged target in just the latest of a daring series of robberies hitting the Financial District. Fugate, known for his acts of time-themed felonies under the alias of The Clock King, remains at large after escaping from Arkham Asylum earlier in---"

"Off."



Practically every grain of sand within the leather bag flew wildly out of place, as billionaire Bruce Wayne threw concentrated hits at it in succession. His determination rose with every blow, causing the bag to swing out even further on it's suspended chain. Bruce been training around the grounds of Wayne Manor for close to three hours, having taken a six mile jog not long upon awakening from a mid-afternoon nap, following that up with push-ups, crunches, lunges, squats, and deadlifts of over 450 to 500 pounds. His body felt like it was on fire, but everything about his routine seemed to echo the exact same result: nothing had changed. Despite his momentary loss of strength while foiling the heist on IBG, Wayne seemed to be healthier than ever, with no apparent need to compensate for his age or the sheer amount of physical duress he'd been put under over the years. It all felt as effortless as it did when he was ten years younger, which was part of what was worrying him. Feeling the slowness that naturally came with age would at least partially explain what had happened last night, giving him a logical conclusion to go with and a clear course of correction.

But he felt more alive today than he did when he was thirty. Even now, he could recall the thrill that washed over him whenever he first donned the cape and cowl. That group of muggers that were threatening Leslie Thompkins' free clinic at gunpoint in Park Row. Their fear upon getting their first glimpse of him - the very first glimpse that anyone, aside from ever-loyal Alfred, had gotten of The Batman - and the sense that something about the outfit had struck a nerve with what had only theoretically been a superstitious, cowardly lot before that night. He remembered the feeling being intoxicating, like a drug that had both enhanced his senses and tore away at any lingering doubts that he'd maintained from his early failed attempts at vigilantism. It was the greatest feeling in the world. As though apart of him had been unchained after years of trauma and aimless direction had beaten it back into the darkest corners of his soul.

Now things were so much different. Being Batman hadn't been a thrill for Bruce for many years, despite his continued necessity in carrying out the mission. He learned early on that Gotham's contingent of criminals weren't apart of any game that he'd been playing, that the stakes were considerably higher than he ever could have imagined. So like with any drug taken for too long, Bruce eventually found himself sobering up. He began treating the responsibility of becoming Gotham's protector as what it was: a greater calling, perhaps even a great baptism by fire, rain, and blood. There was almost a spiritual need to continue the work that had kept him going, night after night, for the last fifteen years.

Last night had been the first time that he could remember that need waning, even for an instant. Watching that young man slip out of his grasp so easily, plunging towards the streets so fast that he could barely react in time to save him - it would have been the end of him in so many ways. Even taking a life by accident wouldn't have been an acceptable loss, so the idea that he could falter in such a crucial manner had stuck itself to the forefront of his mind. Even on the drive home, with The Batmobile's speedometer reaching 300 MPH, he'd felt... numb. Traumatized, in all likelihood, by the idea that he wasn't good enough to carry on anymore.

With a final lunge forwards, Bruce struck the bag so hard that it hit the ceiling of the gym. A few scattered pieces of plaster came falling to the ground like grains of salt, signaling that it was time for him to rest. But Wayne merely stared, discontent, at his own reflection in the mirror ahead of him. He saw the face of a man that was tired, even if he didn't feel it. He noticed the gray streaks in his hair that had begun to form along his temples. He caught a glimpse of the crow's feet that were forming around his eyes, even as he toweled down the enormous amount of sweat around his face. And most evidently of all, the amount of scars that ran down so many parts of his body. Some fully calloused over, others still in the midst of healing. His inner-self may have felt as beastly as ever, but his outer-self was starting to crack. And he didn't know what he could possibly do about it.

Throwing the towel around his shoulders, Bruce walked across the gym and exited into the long hallway that led him past the massive dining hall, the kitchen, the armory, and the entrance to the greenhouse. His heart was still regulating itself, but it hadn't reached the point of any extreme duress like it had the previous night. His breathing was steady. His ears weren't ready to pop from the altitude of the building; rather, all he could hear was an almost deafening silence. It was something that he still hadn't quite gotten used to after losing Alfred - the idea that at any given time, the elder British statesman wasn't awaiting him with either a remedy for his current ailments or some sage words of wisdom. All that was left in the butler's wake was a chamber of echoed beats, originating entirely from Bruce's footsteps.

Cassandra was the only one living with him now, and her room was on the second floor, on the other side of the house. Even if he went to check in, he'd wager she was already gone for the night. Despite being largely mute, the girl had a sense of solitude that made itself readily apparent. But she knew the risks just as well as she knew the rules: do not engage with any of Arkham or Blackgate's regulars without accompaniment. Do not make yourself known if you don't have to. And never kill, even if that's all your mind is telling you to do. Cassandra was troubled with the latter burden from years of conditioning by her twisted father, but Bruce was confident that there was a sense of good in her that was stronger than anything so morbid. It was why he had gone to convince Barbara to allow the girl to take up the long-abandoned mantle of Batgirl in the first place, and why she ultimately allowed it: an obvious spark of hope in there that couldn't be ignored.

As for the others, they had all left the nest. Dick had been on his own for years, having built an entirely new life for himself in Blüdhaven. He was a respected cop and an incredibly formidable force as Nightwing, single-handedly being the reason that one city could sleep at night. Bruce's enormous pride in him was only overridden by his sense of worry - something that all fathers had to go through. But he ultimately knew that of all of the men, women, and children that he'd trained, Dick was the least of his concerns. They talked once a week and were on much better terms than before Alfred passed. It was as if losing him had given them an excuse to finally hash out their differences and become the true father and son unit that had been lacking since Dick's graduation from the role of Robin.

Jason... was an entirely different story. Even after learning of his miraculous return from the Lazarus Pits, it seemed as if the news with him just got worse with every development. From trying to strike out on his own as the vengeful Red Hood, leaving plenty of bodies in his wake, to his internment at Arkham and the slaughter that he'd committed there. Bruce couldn't put into words how much he hated what Jason had become, but never once did he square the blame on Jason himself. Rather, he was the one that felt responsible. If he'd been a better father, there was a higher likelihood that when the earthquake hit Gotham and the family was stretched thin, Robin would have never ran off in defiance and tried to take on The Joker by himself. In truth, Bruce felt entirely lost as to what he could do to make things right.

The same could also be said of Damian. Despite training the boy under Dick's supervision and guidance, too much of his only biological offspring's mother and grandfather still reigned in his approach to everything. It had gotten them into plenty of heated arguments, not to mention more than a few reconsiderations of even allowing him to join in on this line of work. Bruce and Dick eventually realized that what he needed was a team's structure to work within, as it would force him to grow up among a group of his peers and learn the respect that was lacking from him within the team in Gotham. But there had been no communication since Damian left. Bruce had tried, but he guessed that the boy simply wasn't ready to accept that his father hadn't shuffled him off to be someone else's problem. And Bruce wondered when it came down to it, with Alfred being too bitter of a burden for him to carry ontop of his responsibilities as a mentor and a father, if Damian was right.

Then there was Tim. Despite having to work hard to earn his place as Robin, Tim had excelled in every part of his role to a point that still astonished Bruce. An excellent detective, a brilliant technological mind, Red Robin was arguably as much of a force for good in Gotham as The Batman was at this point. He'd moved out of the mansion two years prior, but his endless nights of work ever since had not gone unnoticed. If anything, Tim was a prime example of how a son could surpass his father in many ways. Bruce had learned to trust in his own instincts whenever Tim first came to him to become the new Robin, and his instincts told him only one thing: that the young man was destined for greatness. Tim had yet to let him down for even a moment.

The others, such as Barbara, Duke, Stephanie, Luke, Kate, Helena, and Jean-Paul had never been his children, though Wayne cared for them each all the same. They were his extended family. Never having roles that owed Bruce their loyalty, they hadn't lived under his roof and were never forced to adhere to any of his rules, unless they were unlucky enough to break them. That had gotten him into plenty of clashes with Helena and Jean-Paul, specifically, both of whom didn't value the sanctity of life nearly as much as the rest did. But they had repented and changed their ways, earning themselves a second chance - though it was a tough road to get there. But they managed to overcome their demons, largely thanks to the help of Barbara's skills as a therapist.

It was all a little overwhelming for Bruce to consider. Some relationships seemed stronger than ever, while others were in desperate need of mending before it was too late. And that's what worried Wayne more than anything else, at the end of it - the idea that if his age was truly catching up with him and he'd eventually have to give up the cowl, that he would be forced to enter retirement without having accomplished building the bridges in his life that led to a legacy he could be proud of. The Batman wasn't simply a symbol for the innocents of Gotham to rally behind anymore. It was also a statement on the lives he'd been able to touch along the way, the souls that took it upon themselves to continue the fight, either directly under his guidance or otherwise. To have nearly let that thief fall to his death would have been an affront to that statement, and more than anything else, Wayne wanted to know why it almost happened.

Entering the library after that long walk of contemplation, Wayne grabbed a shirt and quickly began to button it up. There were some forensic files that he had yet to examine in The Batcave, either as a favor to one of his colleagues in The Justice League or as part of an ongoing case in Gotham. The Clock King was hardly the only one still at large, despite his best efforts, and Wayne knew that he had to put together the clues as to any of their whereabouts before he could embark on a proper search through the criminal database to see which threats needed to be taken off the board.

But before he could lift the false Shakespeare bust and scan his thumbprint to open the entrance to The Batcave, a rotary telephone in the corner of the room suddenly flashed to life with a crimson emergency beacon. Bruce's eyebrow raised, noting the timing of this particular call in conjunction with his plans. Evidently, Commissioner Gordon had other plans for him tonight. No matter, he thought to himself, as he briskly paced over to the phone, removed the glass dome over it, and picked up the receiver, holding it to his ear.

"Jim. I take it there's an emergency? I didn't see the signal."

"That's just it, Batman. You're about to. I'm calling because we need you to come down to the station as soon as you can. There's... a visitor here for you, among a few other developments that I need to touch base with you on."

A visitor?

"Can this visitor wait?"

"Christ. Can this visitor wait..."

The annoyance in Gordon's voice indicated that not to be an option. Whoever it was, they must have been important enough for the Commissioner to feel the need to forewarn him that the Bat-Signal was about to be lit.

"I'm on my way now."

---

Steve Rogers, better known to the world at large as Captain America, was a legend. This fact was indisputable. What was equally as indisputable was that despite his immense respect for Rogers, as the two had come across one another in the field a great many number of times before - through their alliances in The Justice League and The Avengers, respectively - was that Batman couldn't have asked for a worse time to receive a visit from an outsider to Gotham. As he watched from the adjacent gargoyle as Rogers leaned against the side of the gigantic, still-lit lamp emblazoned with his own insignia, The Dark Knight considered all of the reasonable possibilities for why Rogers needed to see him. Because in all likelihood, it wasn't for anything good. These types of meetings never really were.

Regardless, it wasn't long before The Caped Crusader had swallowed his pride and made his way over to the GCPD roof. Quietly, of course, to the point that Rogers hadn't noticed him take position on a perch directly above him. Still as stoic and unwavering as ever, Captain America wasn't likely to be taken too off guard by this approach. But he had to realize something. This was Gotham City - and in Gotham, there was only one authority that had to be recognized whenever that signal was lit.

"Captain."

Rogers spun around, immediately catching the eye of the silhouette in shadow above.



"You're a long way from the Triskelion."

Steve turned as he heard Bruce speak. He shouldn't have been surprised that he had decided to sneak up on him rather than just walk up. He was the Bat for a reason. "Actually I tend to go by Director these days." Steve smiled at the Batman, he didn't exactly expect one in return but he had followed the Bruces career with great interest overt he years. From the Urban Legend to member of the Justice League, the two had worked together on a variety of different cases and while their ideologies differed, Steve firmly believed that the core that drove them was the same, and it all boiled down to the fact that they didn't like bullies.

"It may be a long way from the Triskellion but I feel that if I had shown up in the Helicarrier it may have raised a few eyebrows. We've got enough of a crimewave without S.H.I.E.L.D panicking every two-bit crook and gangster that roams Gotham. I heard about your takedown by the way, nicely done. Your boys and girls are doing well too."

He chuckled good naturedly. All he was doing was putting off the issue, and all that was going to do was piss-off Bruce.

"Waller is stonewalling me on the evidence gathered when they found Furys car, and she seems to be keeping all her files on the matter analog so I can't access them remotely. I'm clutching at straws here, I was wondering if you'd take a look at the photos and let me know what you think?

Mercury Square, Upper West Side
Central City, Kansas, USA



Thunder roars over the steel and glass canyons of Central City's financial district, the handful of bank headquarters and corporate office towers the only real concentration of actual high-rises in the city. Above the offices of the old Central City Citizen, the sky is black, and a hard heavy rain pulverizes the grass in Mercury Square to a muddy mess. The rain is so hard, in fact, that it's almost impossible to see more than a few feet into it.

Not twenty yards away, it's bright and sunny out, the air maybe just a bit parched from a long late summer afternoon.

Lines of squad cars have cordoned off the area, a small army of officers with weapons at the ready for whatever is going on inside that storm. Behind them, armored cars with SWAT team officers idle, ready to roll in and engage directly.

Beams of cerulean and flares of red-orange dance with bolts of cloud-to-ground lightning, matched with another ear-splitting crack of thunder. The men and women of the CCPD each swore an oath to serve and protect the people of this city, but every one of them knows that if they get the order to advance, they're walking into a massacre.

Lucky for them, that order's not gonna come today.

The run from the CCPD forensics lab to downtown is a bit of an annoying one, since the city was never really planned to grow to its current size. So instead of lots of nice neat rows like you'd get in a New York or a Metropolis, it's a knot of ramps and cloverleafs on and off the highways, streets and avenues intersecting at ungodly angles, and no real main through-line to connect one end of the city to the other. Moving at my fastest "city speeds"-- that is, as fast as I can move without worrying about shattering glass and ripping up pavement everywhere I go-- it takes me a whole four and a half seconds to cover the distance.

If I ever remember to attend a city council meeting, I'll make sure to lodge a complaint about how long it takes to get around town.



As lightning crashes, I arrive on the scene, making my presence known by sprinting right through the CCPD barricade, slowing down just enough that they can see me break through the police line tape like the finish line of a marathon.



I really wish someone could have gotten a picture of that; I just know it looked awesome.

"Sorry I'm late," I say as I turn with a shrug, the sonic boom that accompanies my arrival honestly kind of pathetic after the massive thundercracks coming from the heart of the storm. "You know how traffic is this time of day."

The officers vary between giving me an annoyed stink-eye and sighing with relief, before I charge in to the wall of rain. The ground is muddy enough that I accidentally skid a good twenty feet before coming to a stop in the middle of Mercury Square.

"Heya fellas!" I call out over the continuous roar of the heavy rain. "Y'know, I'm normally not a fan of surprise parties, but if you went through all the effort to break out of prison and stage this get-together for little old me, then what the heck, let's do this! The six of you, against the one and only, the FLLLLLLLASH!!!!"

I puff my chest out, hands on my hips in the same sort of heroic pose I've seen Superman do a hundred times, before I deliver the follow-up.

"And if you think I drew out the name too much, don't worry," I continue, "it's just so I can hand each one of you an L today!"

The rain continues to pour.

A stoplight creaks in the wind.

Other than that....nothing.

"Oh come on, that was a good one!" I protest, all the while trying to see through the thick sheets of rain to where they might be. "I mean, if you're not going to play along and banter back with me, then this isn't going to be any fun for anyo--"



"Bingo," I smirk to myself as a pencil-thin ray of cerulean lances through the air towards me, and time slows to a crawl. Those all-too-familiar arcs of yellow dance across my body as I skim just a tad into the Speed Force, a barely-known facet of extradimensional reality that warps space and time, among any number of other screwy things. And it's a good thing I tap into it when I do, because that thin ray of blue is millimeters from hitting me square between the eyes.

Leonard Snart, alias Captain Cold, and the de facto leader of the Rogues. He's the only one of them who resembles a "professional" criminal, a former bounty hunter before deciding there was more money on the other side of the law. His gimmick is built around his Cold Gun, which is some kind of "anti-laser," in that it somehow slows down the particles of anything it hits to Absolute Zero, freezing them cold instead of heating them up. He's a hell of a shot with it, too, and usually comes up with all sorts of creative ways to angle his beams or freeze the area around me to negate my speed advantage.

By shooting straight at me, though, all he's done is give away his position.

Casually side-stepping the tip of the Cold Gun's ray, I start to follow the beam through the rain, weaving around the raindrops that had been frozen into spear-point in its wake, working my way to its point of origin.

"Lenny, Lenny, Lenny," I shake my head with a tsk, "you just couldn't--"

I cut my banter short when I realize that Cold isn't going to be annoyed by it.

Because Cold isn't there.

There's just a....a ripple in the air. And the Cold Gun ray is leaping out of that ripple, like a pencil pushed through a sheet of paper.

"....huh....." I say as the beam collides with a tree, freezing the entire thing solid in an instant.

"Is something wrong, Flash?" I hear the voice of Dr. Wells, the director of Central City's branch of S.T.A.R. Labs, in the earpiece built into my cowl. On top of being the guy kind enough to design my suits, Wells and his team are usually in my ear providing vital intel.

"Don't know if it's wrong," I answer as I watch the ripple fade away, "But it's definitely weird. Captain Cold just took a shot at me, but uhhh, he's not here. There's some kind of--"



The ground beneath my feet ripples, then erupts into a geyser of superheated plasma. I throw myself a safe distance from the blast, and as I tuck into a roll and come up, I find myself bobbing and juking around a resulting shower of fireballs.

"And it's getting better," I tell the S.T.A.R. Labs team as an orb of plasma detonates to my right, scattering shrapnel hotter than the surface of the sun in my direction. I put a safe distance between myself and the debris, then have to do it again to avoid another molten geyser. "This has gotta be Heat Wave's schtick...."

That would be Mick Rory, a pyromaniac who wields an arsenal of incredibly nasty plasma projectors, and likes to make me play "the floor is lava" for real.

Well, like I said, it would be Mick Rory.....but apparently he's not here. Again, as another molten fissure in the ground vomits up orange liquid death, I see that same ripple in the air.

"Okay, forget 'weird.' Something's definitely wrong here," I remark, more to myself than to Wells and his team. "No Heat Wave, no Cold, and despite this lovely weather being pretty obviously the work of our friend Mark, I'll bet we're not gonna find Weather Wizard here either."

"We're trying to scan the area," Dr. Wells assures me. "We've got one of our satellites over the area, and --zzzshhhhh--ew sensor drones en route. If there's --zzzzttt-- trace of spatial distortion from, say, a wormhole, or trace radiation from Zeta Beams or Bo--zzzttt-- or other teleportation technology, we'll be able to hone in on it and find its location."

"Well, ah, emphasis on the word trying" Cisco chimes in. "We're --zzzsshhh--ting a lot of electromagnetic interference from the storm, and --zzzzttshhh--- thing's filling the area with chaff."

"You're starting to break up," I tell them, tapping my earpiece. "What kind of chaff are we--"



Right in front of my face, the air ripples, and what looks like an old-timey cartoon bomb floats in the air for a split-second before bursting. Tucking into a tight roll to avoid the explosive debris, I'm surprised to see the area filled not with gunpowder and shards of iron, but with clouds of shiny metallic glitter.

"Of course," I grumble. "Glitter bombs from the Trickster. I'll bet good money that it's getting spread on the wind thanks to Weather Wizard, and making a makeshift Faraday cage around the site. We might lose comms before too much longer. Means it's going to be just them and me in--"



A trio of glowing disks emerge from more ripples in the air, one in front of me, and one on either side. With a deadly singing hum, they quite literally slice through the air, the blades so impossibly thin they can actually carve electrons off of atoms.

I say "disks," but they only look like that to someone who perceives the world at normal speed. I, on the other hand, can see them for exactly what they are, the spinning blades in their distinct bent shape a dead giveaway.

"Aaaand there he is," I say as they curve and whirl around me, "can't have the Rogues without good old Captain Boomerang."

George "Digger" Harkness, a smash-and-grab bank robber with a ridiculous gimmick, who somehow managed to make himself properly dangerous. Once he figured out that he'd fare better by stealing exotic tech instead of jewelry and cash, Boomer made a pretty useful arsenal for himself. Hypersonic boomerangs, explosive boomerangs, sensor boomerangs, invisible boomerangs, big boomerangs that shoot out dozens of smaller boomerangs. He even made a giant rocket-powered boomerang and, uh, strapped me to it to try and launch me into space once.

I'll say this for the guy: he's committed to his act.

These, though, are his standard-issue razor boomerangs: incredibly lethal, but only if he manages to hit you with them. And without some major trickery up his sleeve, those things don't have a chance of hitting me.

"Okay, guys," I call out, casually sidestepping boomerangs any time one gets close, and hoping they can hear me from whatever control center they're doing this from, "I'll admit, using your powers to attack me remotely is pretty cute. Downright impressive, even. I didn't think you had enough brain cells between you to come up with something like this. But, of course, there's a pretty big fundamental flaw in this little thunder-dome of yours."

Another boomerang whizzes towards me, right at neck level. I bend down to mock tying my shoe as it passes harmlessly overhead.

"In order for me to fall for this trap," I continue as I stretch my legs, once again just barely avoiding a razor-sharp projectile, "I have to stay in the trap. So if you don't mind, I'm gonna go ahead and bust out of here, figure out this deal from the outside, then track you down and send you back to Iron Heights."

I put on a burst of speed, leaving Digger's boomerangs in the dust before--



I run headlong into myself, the kinetic energy from speeding forward now hurling me backward just as fast, and I go tumbling into the dirt.

"Flash, l--*tzzzt*--out for--"

"Mirror Master, right," I groan as I start to pick myself up. "Should've figured. He's walled off the area, so I can't get out without getting bounced back in."

"Hang on, Fl--*zzzzttt*--getting a hold of K--*ZZZZZZZSSSSHHHH*--ee if we can g--*ZSHHHHHHTTTTTT*"

The comms go completely to static as Weather Wizard's storm intensifies.

"Oh man," I mutter to myself and get ready to run, "This is really gonna suck."

More ripples in the air.

Another Cold Beam in front of me.

Another heat geyser behind me.

More boomerangs zooming around me.

Poison-tipped jacks from Trickster suddenly litter across the ground.

Each time one goes wide, they bounce off of an instant Mirror to redirect it right towards me.













It's all I can do to stay ahead of the combined assault, tapping deeper and deeper into the Speed Force to duck and weave my way through the Gauntlet. Even with time at a near standstill, they fill the air and the ground with so much deadly crap that I'm having to twist and turn, duck and jump, squeeze through tight gaps and stop dead short to avoid running into something that will take my face off.

Eventually, though, they start to funnel me in, start closing off my options. Fire on one side, ice on the other, lightning ripping up the ground behind me, and boomerangs nipping at my heels like a pack of wolves running down a deer.

"Oh crap, oh crap, ohcrapohcrapohcrapoh--wait, nuhh--" is what I manage to sputter as another ripple of air appears directly in front of me, and I have no choice but to run right into it. And I don't get burned, or frozen, or sliced to bits.

Instead, I hear....flute music?

As the soothing tunes fill my ears, my senses start to dull. Everything gets....heavy, slow. Comfortable, even.

Like I could just lie down and take a nap. That actually sounds....pretty great.

"Whuh--hang on..." my rational, alarmed brain protests as waves of comfort and sleepiness wash over me. "Is...izzat..._{Pied Piper? Since when wuzee partuvv....of...th...}"

I let out a loud yawn, and the Speed Force starts to drain from my body.

Beams of Cold bounce back and forth between Mirrors, creating a cage around me that's starting to grow tighter and tighter.

The ground is starting to warm up again, meaning that it's about to erupt into another geyser of lava.

Stink bombs filled with nerve gas scatter all around me.

A dozen atom-sharp boomerangs all whizz towards their target.

And in the clouds above, a charge is gathering for a bolt of lightning that will fry me to a crisp.

But right now....all I want to do....is sleep it all off.

"_{..if...anyunn hearsszis...}" I blearily slur over the Justice League communicator as the last bits of my consciousness start to fade to black. "_{...stay....outta the storm....issaa....issa trap....}"

Then sleep takes me.

S1- SENSATION & WONDER

X-MEN #0 - Sole Survivor

New York City, New York -- 10 Years Ago

---

Tens of thousands of voices called out to Charles Xavier’s mind from the city and its chaos -- but the dread and wonder that percolated into his mind from the fading and awestruck below yielded to the psychic tenor permeating the alien vessel.

He felt it first beneath the mansion. When in tune with Cerebro, the X-Men’s pionic amplifier, Xavier is able to read minds and detect mutants the world over. And, it seems, able to catch alien whispers at the edge of space, raised as if in song and yet leadened with grief. He tried to do as he had done before, for countless new X-Men, to extend his mind and swaddle the precocious presence, assuring it that he was a friend. Yet, their spacecraft rebuffed every angle of his psychic approach; allowing thoughts to escape but never intrude… Perhaps he would have better luck reaching out on the inside.

As the invasion of the Dominators raged, the main body of Xavier’s X-Men met the enemy alongside Superman and Wonder Woman, cutting swathes out of their forces in laser bursts of mutant mastery. His students fighting alongside Earth’s Mightiest Heroes. On any other day, it was a dream come true; today, a means to get him in touch with something more.

The alien ship apparated around Charles in a purple crack of smoke and sulfur as Nightcrawler teleported him aboard alongside Wolverine. They were his X-Men, his students, his friends, and he had taken them into the belly of the beast.

The three X-Men stood in one of the open sores in the ship’s armor, exposed to the fading light by S.H.I.E.L.D’s artillery barrage. The hallway before them was moist and pliant underfoot, letting the wheels of Charles’ chair sink into it with a steady squelch. The walls were sheer, brutalist in their design, polished to a reflective sheen.

In them, Xavier’s occipital lobe stitches together the haphazard images of Dominator thought. Callous shadows honed to an edge seemed to jump across the wall, Dominators one and all polluting the mindscape with their foul dreams of conquest. Yet, shimmering in the darkness were splashes of green, in notation that Charles did not understand. His psyche leaped to it, as psychic noise filled him; a song. Xavier’s mind worked, untangling the script before him. No longer strange script, but emerald musical notes. It was low and sad, crooning jazz for an audience of one.

“Professor… Do you feel that?” Nightcrawler asked. Charles’ pupil returned him to the moment. Nightcrawler was a mass of blue fur, at present all standing on its end, “ach… it is like a weight in the air.”

“Feelin’ it too… lil’ like gettin’ a mind blast from Jeannie,” Wolverine reported. He stood fast, with a tension that started in his forearms and radiated up his whole body.

“Could it be the Dominators?”

“Not smelling any ‘nators in this section, Fuzzball...” Wolverine reported. Claws long as lawnmower blades leapt from his fists, “but there’s somethin’ else here. An’ close.”

It was closer than the other X-Men could understand. The music in Charles’ head was overpowering his X-Men’s voices, no longer truly a song but a wail. He pushed against it with a broadcast of his own, not of words, but feelings.

He sent how he felt aboard the Dominator’s ship -- the weight of their attack in his heart, and the spare hope of finding a kindred spirit in the darkness.

Then, it is his heart the day his marriage unfurled, without any of its circumstance or bitterness, but the loss. The knowledge that he could never look at her the same way again -- the thought that he wouldn’t see her again.

The song in Xavier’s head comes to a halt. There is no language shared between them, but the other makes themselves clear with feelings of their own. The loss of their world, the rust red sand and stones of a home in ruin, their own family dragged away by Dominators. Then, the fury of their vengeance, swimming incorporeal through the decks, the boil of Dominator minds beneath their psi-blasts. And finally, the knowledge that it was too late.

|We come in search of allies,| Xavier thinks, leaning into the other’s feelings, relying on their established psychic rapport to communicate his meaning. |You have lost much, friend.|

|I have lost as your world will lose,| the presence responded, |as countless others will.| The presence was calm as its word entered Charles’ head, flowing in like water, yet steeled and solid against all comers.

|They will be defeated,| Xavier thought, passing his memories from the ground -- Superman in a whirl of color around the ship, his X-Men meeting Dominator forces on the ground with abandon, and Batman’s plane hanging in the sky.

|And they will not stop.| The other’s thought booms in Xavier’s mind. Again Xavier was in the red sands of a place that felt like home, surrounded by droves of his green-skinned countrymen, satisfied with the knowledge the day was won. A smoldering Dominator ship has folded upon itself, lying a broken wreck some miles away from his settlement. But the sky darkens with each new ship leaping into the sky.

|Then we know what must be done.| Xavier’s expression darkened.

“You are needed below, Kurt. Go,” he said to Nightcrawler.

“It’s dangerous, mein freund. X-Men stick together. Perhaps I should-” Xavier only looked at the other X-Man for a second.

Nightcrawler shot straight up.

“Ja, Professor…” Kurt said, eyes glossed over. The air split with a ‘BAMF’ and he was gone.

“Chuck?” Wolverine’s eyes were on him instantly. The angle of his claws cast the sunlight against Charles. “What was that?”

Charles reached out to him, easing Wolverine’s repulsion with his intrusion into Kurt’s mind, massaging his consciousness into acceptance.

“Only what is necessary.” Charles said. Wolverine swayed and nodded dully.

From the wall, the presence in Charles’ mind took corporeal form. It was shaped like a man, sliding through the wall as naturally as a human might breathe. It was several heads taller than Charles or Wolverine, and as green as the Dominator’s blood. It’s head was almost insectoid, but flesh instead of chitin, trailing off into a point at its tip. Two glossed, red eyes stared at Wolverine.

|Your man hungers for violence.| He still does not speak, beaming his thoughts into Charles’ head.

|Is it not useful, in times like these?| Xavier thought. The alien’s acknowledgement of his statement flared in his mind.

|I would know your name, human.| The alien’s gaze shifted to Charles.

|Charles and Logan| Professor Xavier thought, |of Earth.|

|I am called J’onn J’onzz, of Mars.|

“What’s the play, Charlie?” Wolverine was coming around. His eyes and senses passed the martian without recognition.

There was no doubt in Xavier’s mind. Every Dominator he had scanned came up the same. Petulant, warlike animals with no will but to destroy and conquer… And J’onn’s experiences only confirmed it. No Dominators could be allowed to escape. If word of Earth reached their homeworld, it would only be a matter of time until they returned. Then, it was a simple calculus.

“Simple, Logan,” Charles said, “we’re going to exterminate the Dominators.”

White House Press Briefing Room

The gathered members of the White House press corps checked their phones and watches yet again as they waited for the press secretary. He was late. Very late. What was supposed to be a 9AM daily briefing had been delayed until now it was 9:45 and here they were, still waiting.

“I’m here, folks!” Jimmy Olsen announced.

He walked up to the podium and adjusted his bowtie.

“Sorry about that I was just… _{what’s something normal government people do?} Yes, I was... crunching some numbers, yeah. With the budget department. That's it. Let’s get started, shall we?”

Hands across the room shot up. Most every reputable news outlet had a seat reserved in the briefing room. The big networks and newspapers got prime real estate up front, and the further back it went the smaller and stranger the publications got. Jimmy believed Tiger Beat and Canoe Builders Quarterly shared the last seat in the back.

“Okay, Brenda from… GNN I think...?”

“Does President Ellis truly hate America? WHEN WE WILL LEARN ABOUT HIS MARXIST SOVIET MAOIST AGENDA?!”

“No, you’re from the “Calvin ‘Mussolini’ Ellis is A Communist” youtube channel… how do you keep getting here? Someone get her outta here -- Next! Snapper Carr, yeah you’re GNN.”

A man in a checkered blazer stood and tried to talk over the noise of Secret Service agents escorting Brenda from the room as she shouted "pogrom" over and over again.

“Jimmy, any updates on President Ellis’ Supreme Court nomination?”

“He’s meeting with senators today to hear out their concerns and get their advice. I’m sure he will announce his choice soon. This is something the administration wants to take its time with. Guys like us come and go, Snap, Supreme Court Justices are here to stay. We want to make sure we have the best jurist who represents this current administration, and one who can be a future ally to forthcoming presidents. Who else? Umm… Hey, Cat Grant Daily Planet, now I know that face.”

Jimmy licked his fingers and rubbed his eyebrows with the now wet fingers. He made a face as he realized his hands were still covered in chalk.

“Sup?”

“You’re still Superman’s pal, right?”

“Of course,” said Jimmy.

He realized he hadn’t been around the big blue in quite a while. Their last outing was… last year? Yeah, that was it. An alien named Vostar gave Jimmy a literal Midas touch for seemingly no reason. It was cool and all… until Jimmy realized he couldn’t eat gold food… or drink water as soon as it turned solid gold. And the ladies? Oh, boy... that was a weird night. Luckily Superman helped him out thanks to a quick trip to Ft. Superman, and an even quicker battle of wits with Vostar. That was last fall just before the election kicked into high gear. This stretch had been the longest Jimmy had gone without interacting with Superman since, well since Jimmy had gotten his start as an intern at the Planet.

“Your pal just tore up the Baltimore city harbor fighting the Atomic Skull,” said Grant.” Care to comment?”

“He has a pretty strong right jab,” replied Jimmy. “It’s been known to level supervillains and buildings alike.”

Jimmy’s flippant mood evaporated when he saw Cat’s annoyed look.

“Twenty people went to the hospital,” she said. “I don’t think it’s a joking matter, Jimmy.”

“And how many went to the morgue, Cat?” Jimmy shot back. “None? That’s because of Superman. Property can be fixed, buildings renovated. But human life can’t be replaced.”

“What’s the administration’s stance on Superman being an unregistered superhuman?”

“You seem to have a theme today, Cat,” Jimmy said with a chuckle. He noticed nobody else in the room laughed. He cleared his throat. “Umm… so. Superman is not registered, true, but the VRA is a UN resolution the federal government has yet to formally adopt. But I will say this: fifteen years of unimpeachable service to this planet, let alone this nation, had kinda bought the guy some slack. That's all I'll say about that. Next? You in the back.”

“Jamie Nelson, Tiger Beat. If… the administration was a boy band, who would be the heartthrob, who would be the bad boy, who would be the cute one, who would be the shy one, and who would be the older brother?”

“I’ll take the third part first.”

Jimmy put his elbows on the podium and put his face in his hands.

“Well, the cute one, that would obviously be me that's an easy question. Bad boy? Well that has to be the SecDef. He’s a bit rough around the edges, a lifelong career as a Marine will make you a badass by default, don't look him in the eye if you can help it. Now when you get to the shy one that brings up a real issue---”

---

The Roosevelt Room

Calvin, Pete, and Attorney General Irons had a working lunch with members of the Senate Judiciary Committee to discuss Calvin’s upcoming Supreme Court nomination. At Calvin’s orders White House staff prepared a simple lunch of cold cuts and potato chips. His predecessor was big on flaunting the grand opulence of the office and never passed up an opportunity to cater every meal with the finest, and most expensive, food possible. He wanted to go the other way with it. By the look on Senator Byrne's face Calvin's move gave them mixed feelings. And that was okay with him.

He’d been hailed by experts as one of the ultimate outsiders in American politics when he joined the 2020 race. They had no idea how right they were, he thought a the time. A journalist and political activist with zero practical political experience and zero party affiliation, Calvin Ellis had managed to connect with the apathetic American people and inspired something they hadn’t had in a long time: hope.

And that didn’t sit well with a lot of people in Washington, including some of the very senators here in the Roosevelt Room. They were all professional politicians with decades of public service under their belts. Many of them had presidential aspirations of their own. That was why Calvin and the rest of his inner circle had to be very careful with the advice they received from the senators here today. Who knew what angles they would be playing, where their allegiances truly aligned, and what they could gain by steering him in one particular direction.

“So we’re down to three,” Calvin said between sandwich bites. “All with pros and cons.”

“I like Judge Harrison,” said Senator Vance. “Almost twenty years on the federal appeals court and a very moderate track record.”

“He’s too old, though,” said John Henry Irons. “Judge Harrison will be seventy-three next year. We want a justice who will be a fixture on the court for a few decades and not just some short-term rental.”

“What do you think, Joe?” asked Calvin.

All eyes fell on Senator Joe Siegel. If Calvin had any sort of political inspiration, it would be the senior senator from Wisconsin. Siegel had fought the good fight for over forty years across various elected positions both at the state and federal level. He was as close to a principled politician as the world would ever see, to his detriment a lot of times. In a lot of ways he and Calvin were similar. They didn’t play the political game the way everyone else wanted them to. But it seemed to be working out for both of them. Siegel was now halfway through his third time in the Senate and recently elected minority leader. If the midterms were kind to his party he may end up majority leader. And if the Ellis administration could have a friendly majority leader that would go a long way to helping their agenda.

“Harrison is a safe pick,” said Siegel. “He’s your compromise candidate. Edge will let his nomination get out of committee, the vote will be mostly along party lines… but with Harrison’s moderate history you’ll have votes across the aisle and get him confirmed. Like AG Irons says, he’s a short-term justice though.”

“I like Justice Woods,” said Senator Byrnes. “He’s been chief justice of the Virginia Supreme Court for six years now. Relatively young for such a high position, in his mid-fifties. His past opinions indicate he’s an advocate of a Living Constitution.”

“I have a bad feeling about him,” said Pete Ross. “The Virginia court is technically an elected office. We did research into his early days as a judge and he was very much a strict originalist in his opinions, like Judge Hartwell was. I wonder if he gets into a lifetime position will he reveal his true colors?”

“My favorite is Judge Glastonberry,” said Calvin.

“Of course,” said Siegel. “The one that’ll be the most trouble to get through the Senate.”

“Should we list all the reasons,” asked Senator Vance. “There’s no way Morgan Edge will approve of a black woman from Oregon, a black woman with an appellate record so radical, it’s slightly to the left of Trotsky.”

“She’s the best candidate,” said Siegel. “But her confirmation hearing will be drawn out into something this town hasn’t seen in a long time. I can promise you, Mr. President, it will be a street fight played out across the halls of Congress. Edge will fight tooth and nail to see it go down in flames.”

“Yeah,” Calvin said with a grin. “But I like the idea of her on the court for the next twenty plus years.”

“This is where you make the decision, Mr. President,” said Irons. “Do we go practical, safe, realistic… or do we swung for the fences?”

Calvin looked over at Siegel. The two men shared a long look. There was something in the senators eyes, a mischievous twinkle that said it all. Calvin leaned back in his chair and put hands behind his head.

“Cal,” said Pete. “If you try to push Glastonberry through and Edge defeats it, it’ll bring your political capital down. You’ll have to retreat with your tail between your legs and offer up someone like Harrison as a consolation. It will hurt us for the rest of your term and beyond. When it comes to 2024, it’ll be one of the many things you can be attacked on.”

He barely heard Pete’s warning. His thoughts were on the earlier fight with Atomic Skull, and the night before as he flew around the world helping so many people in need. As Superman he could do anything he wanted. But as President Ellis? It seemed he was locked in to rules, structure, and playing the political game. He looked up at the ceiling and muttered something.

“What was that?” asked Senator Byrnes.

He looked back down at the group and smiled. “‘What the hell is the presidency for?’ It’s what LBJ said when he was told supporting Civil Rights might endanger his chances of reelection. We have this office, we have allies, and we have the people.”

Calvin stood up from his seat.

“We’ll worry about 2024 when it gets here. I want to do what I can to change the world right now. Let’s do what's right, street fights be damned.”

Steve turned as he heard Bruce speak. He shouldn't have been surprised that he had decided to sneak up on him rather than just walk up. He was the Bat for a reason. "Actually I tend to go by Director these days." Steve smiled at the Batman, he didn't exactly expect one in return but he had followed the Bruces career with great interest overt he years. From the Urban Legend to member of the Justice League, the two had worked together on a variety of different cases and while their ideologies differed, Steve firmly believed that the core that drove them was the same, and it all boiled down to the fact that they didn't like bullies.

"It may be a long way from the Triskellion but I feel that if I had shown up in the Helicarrier it may have raised a few eyebrows. We've got enough of a crimewave without S.H.I.E.L.D panicking every two-bit crook and gangster that roams Gotham. I heard about your takedown by the way, nicely done. Your boys and girls are doing well too."

He chuckled good naturedly. All he was doing was putting off the issue, and all that was going to do was piss-off Bruce.

"Waller is stonewalling me on the evidence gathered when they found Furys car, and she seems to be keeping all her files on the matter analog so I can't access them remotely. I'm clutching at straws here, I was wondering if you'd take a look at the photos and let me know what you think?

Fury. Of course.

While the general public wasn't exactly privy to the inner-workings of a global peacekeeping organization on the level of S.H.I.E.L.D., former Director Nick Fury's disappearance and subsequent missing person's status had been the talk of the intelligence community for some time. Batman knew this because he'd made it his prerogative to know such information, starting from nearly the beginning whenever the FBI, CIA, and individuals like Fury and Amanda Waller had begun intercepting the GCPD's investigation into what exactly left multiple criminals in Gotham hospitalized on a nightly basis, claiming that some inhuman creature with wings, fangs, and claws had been the perpetrator. The Dark Knight had seen fit to establish contacts within all of the major organizations, whether through solving a cold case in exchange for an agreement to share whatever they knew, or hacking into some of the most secure servers on the planet to extract the information manually.

It was a tactic that had nearly acquired more trouble than it was worth, but Nick Fury - despite being legendarily considered one of the most paranoid men in the world - had actually respected this approach. Batman knew this because Fury himself had turned up at Wayne Manor years ago, more or less confirming, in so many words, that despite knowing the identity of Gotham's infamous masked vigilante, he was content to keep that information to himself - as long as The Batman never fell out of line. So far, that agreement had been mutually beneficial. Even if neither man completely trusted eachother, there had been a sense of respect. Much in the same vein as Batman's working relationship with Captain Rogers.

It was for that reason alone that The Caped Crusader leaped off of his perch, cape spread, and gently landed infront of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s current director, his cloak draping over the entirety of his frame as he stood upright. For a moment, Batman remained silent - before extending his hand in a manner that indicated he'd be willing to honor Rogers' request.

"If Waller doesn't want you to investigate this, that usually means it needs to be investigated. Give me whatever you have."

"If Waller doesn't want you to investigate this, that usually means it needs to be investigated. Give me whatever you have."

Steve reached to his back pocket and pulled out a small smartphone. He still couldn't get over the fact that this tiny device had more computing power than anything that had existed back when he had gotten the serum. The level of progress made by the world was staggering. He scrolled through the phone as he spoke. "Everything I have is on here, which isn't a lot. All I know is he was investigating reports of Hydra deploying the Winter Soldier out of Sokovia. I've sent Romanoff to see if she can dig up more on that end."

Pulling up the photos he handed the phone over to Bruce. "As first on the scene we handled all the crime scene photos, before Waller muscled her way in and convinced the UN that since it happened on US soil that ARGUS should handle the investigation."

He pulled out his old notepad, flicking through the pages until he found the notes he was looking for. "From what we gathered on the scene, and this is all unconfirmed as we never got to keep the physical evidence. We estimated that there were three shooters, other than Fury. Scuff marks and a blood trail indicated they went north from the car however no other traffic cameras in the area seemed to witness anything untoward." Steve pointed to with his free hand to the phone. "All these notes are in there, I just prefer old fashioned pen and paper."

Steve chuckled to himself. "Except when Waller uses it to keep me from investigating our missing person.

---

Damian mused silently as he dropped his rucksack in his room. It was exactly as he left it, though he didn’t expect any differences. The dust gathered on the windows overlooking the manor’s courtyard was particularly telling, but with Pennyworth long passed who was going to take care of it? Did his father dismiss the maids or were they relegated to other duties?

The thirteen-year-old swiped his hand against the window, looking at the amount of dust before looking downward.

“It would have been enjoyable to learn more from you.” Damian uttered, turning away from the window and closing the door behind him.

Pennyworth had been the first person Damian had met when he arrived in Gotham and despite the glibness in every comment directed at his person there was a sense of warmth. A sensibility of genuineness and loyalty. He hadn’t sensed it then, but it did not take long for Damian to see it. There was no one like that in the League. His own mother wasn’t even such a person who held traits. His mother was only loyal to herself and the mantle of The Demon. Perhaps it was in seeing that was why he resisted going back. Every attempt. His mother, grandfather, aunt… they all tried to pull and tug him like a puppet for their own needs and wants. They wanted an heir they could contort and control for their ideal vision of the world.

Damian narrowed his eyes as he moved down the corridor. Pennyworth was old and life took him when he needed to remain. As he predicted his father shirked important matters in his grief. Had he listened to him when the body was still warm they could have saved him.

“Father, if his presence is needed, you could simply use the pi—”

Of course his father rejected such a tool despite it being the only reason Todd had survived. Accused him of ignorance. No. Damian full well knew what kind of rot the Lazarus Pit wielded, but unlike his father he believed it could be controlled. The only obstacle in using it for benevolent uses was the assassins who guarded and manipulated the magic that surged through it. If they used it now, however, the body was a year dead, there were simply too many intangibles that would prove difficult to control. Who knows what would come back if Damian took a spade to Pennyworth’s grave. He could already hear the complaints from everyone of him even considering the idea. All of them were too afraid of studying magic beyond a glance. The occult was a tool like any other weapon in their arsenal and weapons are ineffective if one was afraid to master it.

Such ways of thinking was why they were afraid of him. Why Drake thought he was dangerous. Why his father was troubled by what he “could” become.

Unfounded fears. In the mere months after meeting his father he had contained his rawest instincts as an assassin to appease the nature of The Bat. He combated his conditioning to kill. He reduced several martial arts he knew to being worthless endeavors and suppressed aspects of himself that were unappealing. Damian had done so while his mother tried unrelentingly to use him as a pawn to manipulate or destroy the mission his father devoted himself to. A plan that had never worked yet he was marginalized and discarded at every waking moment. The only person who even gave him the slightest shadow of the doubt in this family was Grayson of all people. Heretic had almost killed Damian and instead of Damian now being able to stand shoulder-to-shoulder all he received was scorn.

What would it take to be trusted by everyone?

Damian sighed grumpily as he moved forward toward the clock—toward the Batcave.

His father sent him away to the Titans as a punishment. Months ago. Grayson excused the decision, too. Emotional Intelligence. Teamwork. All the usual buzzwords. Damian didn’t buy it. The facts told a very different story. Every Robin or Batgirl that served with the Titans had done so on their own initiative. Damian was the only one that needed to be “assigned”. How was he and his father supposed to work together efficiently if they hadn’t seen each other for months? What was that going to do to effective crime coverage in Gotham? What if his father needed him and he wasn’t there? How could he earn trust across the stupid country?

Such questions were why he was back in Gotham now. The Titans could handle themselves in his absence.


Almost immediately all of the thirteen-year-old's worries ended as the cold air of the cave touched his skin. A smile formed on Damian's lips.

He was home.

IN DREAMS
CHAPTER 4

New York City
1991

“Wes?... Wes? You listening?”

Wesley Dodds looked up from his coffee at Sandy. The two were at a diner not far from Wesley’s apartment in Lenox Hill. In the six months since Dian’s death they’d met for breakfast about once a week. It was ostensibly to give Wesley some much needed company and he was grateful for the time spent catching up with his nephew and former sidekick. They sort of lost touch over the years. They might see one another once every six months and at holidays, but that was it. But the more time Wesley spent with Sandy the more he realized the man he had become wasn’t necessarily someone Wesley… really liked. He talked about nothing but money non-stop and how well he was doing and how he and Frankie screwed like rabbits still after nearly twenty years of marriage. In a lot of ways Sandy was still that little boy on the rooftops with Wes. He hadn't grown up or past the so-called "glory days." Wes also sensed Sandy had some ulterior motive lurking in the back of their meetings. He just hadn't brought it out.

“Sorry… I was just lost in thought.”

“I’m telling you, Wes, these conventions I attend are where it’s at.”

Sandy put his fork down on the now empty plate and gestured towards Wesley with his hands.

“There’s a big demand for the old heroes like us. People are paying twenty bucks a pop for a signed autograph, more for some goofy photo wit you. You remember Bulletman? He wears that silly helmet and poses with people, sixty dollars a piece. It’s a great way to make money and to get you out of the house. The first Sandman was one of the original masked men, you got fans out there who want to see you, Wes…”

Sandy looked around to make sure there was nobody eavesdropping before he whispered.

“And the women… don’t get me started on the women.”

Wesley put a hand on his forehead and sighed as he rubbed his face.

“You Aunt Dian has been dead less than a year. And aren't you and Frankie happily married?”

“You were together fifty years,” Sandy said softly. “You could use some strange… I know I do from time to time.”

“Okay, I’m done.”

Wesley put some money on the table for the tab and began to leave. Sandy grabbed his arm, but Wesley shook it off as he left the diner and stepped out into the New York morning. Fall was just beginning to settle in here in mid-September. Wesley could feel tears forming in his eyes. He tried to blink them away.

“Uncle Wes,” Sandy said as he came out. “What’s wrong?”

Wesley could feel months of repressed feelings sitting on his chest: His anger at Dian’s passing, his misery at watching her slowly waste away from breast cancer, all the empty words of condolences from friends and family, his guilt over outliving her, and now his newfound anger at Sandy and… whatever the hell this fat, greedy man in front of him had done to his nephew.

“Do you know why I became the Sandman?” Wesley asked softly. “Not for the money, or the recognition, or for the p-p-pussy.” Sandy looked as if Wesley had started speaking in tongues. Later, Wesley would look back and realize it was the first time he had ever used any kind of profanity around Sandy in a fifty year friendship.

“I did it because of the dreams,” he said, tears now running down his face. “They used to haunt my every sleeping moment, Sandy, and I lived out the dreams and did what I did to help people, to save people who would have died if I hadn’t intervened. I’m not some little worm who rode someone’s coattails like you. That whole sad little apartment with all that junk? That’s because of me and what I did. Your sad little crumb of celebrity? It’s because of me. You’re the second Sandman, you would be nothing -- nothing! -- if not for your aunt and myself. And you just toss her memory aside like that? Like she's just... some fucking wad of gum you're done chewing? You know what you need to toss? All that bullshit that’s cluttering your apartment. Take all those memories of a life that was never truly yours to start with and throw it away. Because I don't want it, and you sure as hell haven't earned any of it. Fuck you, Sandy.”

Wesley turned away and stormed off as fast as he could. The outburst had been so sudden and without warning Sandy had just stood there in shock. Wesley had seen the hurt in Sandy’s eyes as the words flew from his mouth. He’d broken something in his nephew’s heart. Good, Wesley had thought at the time. Let him see how it feels. Let him see how he likes when the one thing he cherishes most in this world is ripped away from him. Neither man knew it, but it would be the last time they would see each other alive. Wesley Dodd’s last words to his nephew, sidekick, and successor -- the closest thing he ever had to a son -- was “Fuck you, Sandy.”

---

Brooklyn
Now

Wesley stood on the edge of the sidewalk and craned his neck high to see just how large the U-Store-It facility actually was. It looked to be seventeen stories by his own estimation. The Red Hook address was listed several times in Sandy’s computer and among his email correspondence as a meeting spot. Wesley tried to use one of his many maps of New York to find out what was there, but he quickly realized his last updated map of the city was from 1988. The city had changed so much in that time. He’d used Sandy’s laptop to do an internet search and found a garish neon orange tinted sight that advertised U-Store-It’s premier Brooklyn facility, one of the largest ones among the company’s 8,000 locations across the country.

The lobby of the facility contained broken down boxes for sale along with plenty of other packing supplies for sale and carts for rent. A bored looking clerk sat behind a desk and clacked on computer keys. He barely gave Wesley a passing glance as he approached the desk.

“Yes, sir?”

Wesley had his driver’s license out. His still valid driver’s license. He'd just gotten it renewed two years ago and it was due to be renewed in 2025 when he would be… 117.

“Can you tell me which unit here is registered under Wesley Dodds.”

It was Sandy’s idea of a clever joke, thought Wesley. He’d discovered the registration information and keys to the storage unit inside a packet in Sandy’s nightstand. The nightstand was locked. but the lock was far easier than the one that kept the front door secured. It took Wesley all of thirty seconds to pop it open.

The clerk tapped on a few more keys and squinted at the screen.

“Looks like… you’re listed as owner or authorized user on all the units on the seventeenth floor. All sixteen 10x30’s.”

“To the seventeenth floor it is.”

Wesley rode the large freight elevator up to the top, because he had been right and that was as high as the building went, with a sense of foreboding. Sixteen 10x30s? That was a lot of space. What exactly was Sandy storing in all of those units? And he had found only one key. He hoped he could get into at least one of the units up on seventeen. The door slid open and he stepped out into a well lit concrete hallway with eight metal roll-up doors on both sides going down the corridor. Cylinder locks kept each door secure. Wesley stepped to the first lock and tried the key. They key undid the small lock and popped it out of the socket on the door. He put it back in place and went to the next door. It also unlocked that door. He went down the hallway and found that each lock worked for the key.

“Master key,” he said to himself.

A quick scan of the floor revealed no cameras. The facility advertised itself as being open 24/7 and with security cameras. That must have just been for the building’s access points… or cameras were exempt from seeing what went on up here. Wesley went back to the first lock and undid it. He let the heavy little nub fall into his pocket before rolling the door open.

The space was mainly empty. He saw scattered carboard boxes scattered around the floor. What drew his eye was the bed in the center of the room. A fairly cheap queen-sized bedframe with a mattress that looked to be urine stained. He walked closer and stopped. The stains on the mattress were too dark for urine. He got close enough to confirm that it was indeed bloodstains on the mattress before he crouched. Wesley cursed as his knees popped like gunshots when he bent down. There were straps tucked underneath the bedframe that perfectly aligned with each limb on a human body when it was spread-eagle on the bed. He stood up, more knee pops, and started to examine the boxes. In one he found whips, chains, and a variety of sex toys. Some of the toys were so elaborate he couldn’t even really work out how they functioned… but he could give it his best guess.

It was more of the same in just about every other box except one. In that one he found masks. There was a leather gimp mask, a domino mask, and… other masks that were more specific. A cat mask that was a poor imitation of Wildcat’s, a helmet meant to be Bulletman’s pointy helmet, and…

A gasmask. Not of the same quality as the one his father had taken to war. But still… a gasmask just like the one the Sandman had worn. Wesley felt sweat on his forehead. He wiped it off and quickly retreated. He locked the unit and began to move on to the others. They were each replicas of the first. Same shoddy beds, the rest carrying a variety of bodily fluid stains, same toys, and almost the same collection of masks.

“Find what you needed?” the clerk asked once Wesley was back down in the lobby. He furrowed his brow when he saw the flushed look on Wesley’s face. “Do you need something to drink? Have a seat?”

“I’m fine,” said Wesley. “I do have just one more question. Those units I’m registered for… who else has their names on them?”

“Let’s see…”

Another quick computer search resulted in five names along with his own.

“Well besides you there’s an… Alan Scott, Ted Grant, Rex Tyler,, Terry Sloane, and Dinah Drake.”

“Thank you,” Wesley managed to say. “That’s… that’s all I needed.”

He licked his dry lips and started back out of the facility with his hands in his pockets. A picture was beginning to form on what kind of life Sandy was living up until the time of his murder. He couldn’t quite get it into focus. For that… he would need help.

Fogwell's Gym
Hell's Kitchen, New York

_{the rain pitter patter pitter patters as a rainstorm, a torrential downpour, the hardest weve had all year runsoff through the shoddy insulation around the windows}

My lungs flap frivolously as I feel my bird chest exploding. For just a moment, I take a single breath, stretching for the rafters encased in darkness, save for the dim streetlight at the windows edge, before being whisked away by the rhythm of the bag’s shallow gasps. I know what I’m doing. I hear the sound of my own heavyweight hands jogging up and down every inch of faded yellow leather, sinking into the soft spots, my shoulder recoiling against the tougher clusters. But I can’t really picture it. I don’t know what it looks like to throw a punch firsthand. These greasy muscles of mine barely feel like my own. When I’m like this, it feels like I’m sitting on my own father’s shoulders, like I’m listening to him beat this thing down. And that’s how it’s always felt.

_{the rain pitter patter pitter patters as a semi truck rolls by as a pair of men are saturated in the curbside spray}

Barreling forward, I grab the heap in a bear hug, feeling the five o'clock shadow on my neck scratch against the seam as all two hundred pounds of blind fury take it for a ride. I hear something inside the bag click and clap as I land behind it, the chain suspending it squealing like a schoolgirl. It doesn't matter. Nothing here matters. I'm here to hit it until one of us collapses and all I have to keep myself off the ground are my own two feet. As the minutes roll on, I taste the air that I've already exhaled. My shoes don't hug the mat the same way they did before it was covered in sweat.

_{the rain pitter patter pitter patters as a defeated man stomps in soggy sneakers when hed rather be at home}

And then I slip. It's been happening more lately. I'm not the young buck I was when I started. There's no wise old janitor around to beat me until I get back on my feet. No stupid old fool to tell me to stop hitting the bags and start hitting the books. I hit the ground. And I remember that this extremely used body isn't my father's. I never saw him this tired. Then I'm up again. Panting and drinking liter after liter waiting for my head to stop feeling lighter.

_{the rain pitter patter pitter patters an old man swears as ssssstip the rain clips and creeps in through the front door}

"Excuse me, Mister Matthew Murdock," said a quivering voice, that of an experienced career criminal, "I apologize for the disturbance." Keys, loose change, a cell phone. No gun in his pocket.

"The gym's closed, Turk. Or did somebody leave the lights on for me? I never can tell," I lied, and the slumbering halogen bulbs declined to buzz a word to the contrary.

"I know, sir. I have something important for you. Mr. Fisk said you'd be here."

"Huh, well isn't that interesting. I appreciate the gesture but the anniversary of my first time refusing to represent him isn't until next week."

"No, nothing like that, Mr. Murdock. He says he has something he needs you to look after."

"Mr. Barrett, your employer seems either to have confused me for someone else or has misconstrued the nature of our relationship for one more amicable. I'd imagine that's a troublesome habit in his line of work, not that I'm alleging he is presently anything more than a paragon of civility."

"He said you'd say something like that. But I'm gonna plead the fifth here and let your keepsake speak for itself." He turns his back, "Take care of yourself Mr Murdock."

_{the rain pitter patter pitter patters against the glass as a younger mans feet fall against the floor}

When the door shuts, I hear the yawn of a much slighter man, higher pitched and pubescent. By now, I've caught my breath. I've underestimated Turk before and it made for what arguably might be the worst day of my life. Arguably. Somehow I suspect that the time when I was nine years old, blind, impoverished and constantly physically bullied was probably technically the best time in my life. So, now standing upright, dismissing my exhaustion, I slink over to the newcomer.

"Hello there, and who might you be?" I ask, catching a whiff of cologne.

"Samuel Fisk?" he asked, youthfully, over notes of sea breeze and raspberry, probably too much raspberry. "My grandpa says you're family?"

"And your grandfather is Wilson Fisk?"

"Yes, sir. He said I could stay with you since his apartments were in upheaval. I'd hate to intrude," his voice cracked. "I'm sure he could get me a hotel until my parents can pick me up."

"Samuel, as far as I know, Mr. Fisk and I have no blood relation but I'd hate to think that he'd have anything less than your best interests at heart. I know Vanessa's passing crushed him and I'd hate to add to that. Don't worry. There's no need to get a hotel. You can stay in my apartment. I don't have a television or anything but I'm sure we can sort this out and have you taken care of." My jaw tingles when I taste a note of thyme. Then it hits me. It's the cheap cologne that the Fixer used to wear: Alessandro Della Cucina, defender of the people of the kitchen. Message received.

---

Matt's Apartment
Hell's Kitchen, New York

"You're pretty strong, Mister Murdock but Turk says you're a lawyer. If you weren't blind, do you think you'd be a boxer?"

"Maybe, who knows? I might be a lot of things. I've never really thought about it," I say as we cross the threshold into my apartment. "Make yourself at home. What's mine is yours, just as long as you remember to put things back where you got them. I might look smart with these glasses but they're just for looks. I could never cut it as a detective."

"Thank you, Mister Murdock. Have you had dinner yet? I can cook you something if you'd like."

"I'm alright, Samuel, really. I appreciate the offer but don't worry about me. I'll likely be busy for the rest of the evening trying to get in touch with your grandfather. Do you have any idea what actually happened this evening or what your original plans were?"

"Well, I've been spending the week at grandfather's penthouse and decided to go to see a game but halfway through, Mister Barrett arrived with grandfather's handkerchief, telling me that I had to go stay with a relative because his properties were in upheaval. He took my cell phone, broke it, and walked me down to the gym where you were practicing for the last hour. I don't know what's happening with my grandfather but I'm every bit as concerned as you are."

I'd say that the first order of business is to get in contact with Samuel's parents but if he's with me, a "relative", then I'm fairly confident in assuming that they've been compromised. The ball's in my court. I don't know what's happening but I'm going to find out. I get the feeling that this is no time for phone calls or paperwork. Look out Wilson, here comes Daredevil.

---