The homemade grill made from salvaged stone and scrap metal sent plumes of black smoke up into the air.
The rooftop of the Bed-Stuy apartment block was covered in deck chairs. Young children ran around with communal supervision.
"That tar's starting to become a problem again." One of Clint's neighbours said to him. Lifting his shoes, and showing a fair amount of the black muck sticking to the soles of his shoes.
"Add it to the list. How's that antenna I rigged up going for you, Mrs Phelps?" He called out to an older woman sitting in a deckchair.
She held up a thumb. The neighbour gave it a glance and saw the tangled mess of aluminum, coathangers, screen door cuttings, for some strange reason a bicycle wheel, and numerous arrows cobbled together which gave off more of a look of some kind of avante-garde art sculpture than any kind of functional transmission device. With a thought, he settled for wiping off the black tar on a loose brick.
"Good to hear, Mrs Phelps." Clint turned some steaks and a few of the more charred sausages.
"Mister Barton?" One of the kids pulled on the edge of his "Kiss the Cook" apron.
"Hmm..?""Momma told me not to normally bother you..."
"Good advice, kid." He turned some more meat, some of the more raw sausages spat juices. He winced away from the splash.
"But she also said that you fix the problems, if we really need any kind of help."
"Also true...""Well, I think this might be one of the problems that it's worth bothering you for." He tugged the edge of his apron again, in a gesture to get him to look.
Hawkeye turned and took in the whole vista.
"Well... Shit..."Portals riddled the sky. Over Manhattan he could see the Dominator ships that so threatened the world years ago. Distant portals depositing something impossibly far away to distinguish over Queens. Another nearby portal deposited a giant beast, that seemed to lope through the sky like some kind of lethargic dragon-worm... thing. The gentle sizzle of the meat was drowned out by a primal roar from some beast unseen further within the depths of inner Manhattan.
"Bump this to the front of the list?" The neighbour looked over his shoulder, taking a bite out of a chicken leg.
"This is going to take a Hell of a lot more arrows than just a simple antenna..."
H A W K E Y E
H A W K E Y E
HAWKEYE: EVENT TIE-IN #1 Chaos, A Bow and A Hell Of A Lot of Arrows
Hawkeye squinted to provide what little protection from the wind-sheer he could get as his Sky-Cycle cut it's path through the sky towards Manhattan. He suited up as fast as he could, donned the cowl, the tunic, the rest... and by the time he'd finished his neighbours had told him some powerhouse punk kid in a leatherjacket had beat all Hell out of the biggest threat he'd originally identified. The monstrous floating dragon-worm thing. So he decided instead to make his way across the East River to Manhattan. These Dominators had been a problem before. If they were truly back, it was unlikely their force would remain as small as it initially seemed to be.
Perhaps they'd found allies? It seemed strange, though that they hadn't yet come in force. Didn't seem like them to burn the element of surprise on such a small initial invasion force.
Still, wasn't Clint's place to understand the thinking of aliens.
Clint touched down in prime location, in front of a billboard on the top of
Howard Johnson's overlooking all of Times Square.
The ship touched down and the aliens alighted, assembling around some sort of leader figure shrouded in a cloak.
It's yellowed skin contrasting richly with a large red circle which adorned its forehead.
It screeched some form of battle speech for the soldiers under its command, each adorned with far smaller red circles, sharp teeth and large weapons. It's rhetoric must have been effective, though, as its troops seemed to be positively stirred as it contiuned to buoy their spirits with unintelligible screeching, whipping them up int a fervour with a crescendo of--
THWIPAn arrow with a specific metallic head imbedded itself in the middle of the red circle of the leader's head.
The soldiers all turned to see where it came from! Who dared to disrespect glorious leader with--!
"Wait for it!"Their leader suddenly let out an anguished screech, causing the soldiers to all turn back and gasp as their superior convulsed on the pavement, the latest victim to Hawkeye's taser arrow.
He called out from above the
Howard Johnson's.
"That's better. I didn't want you to get the level of disrespect out of context or anything. I didn't want you to think I was just trying to shut him up. No. I wanted to see him drop and twitch until he wet himself and his pretty green cloak."He nocked three arrows and launched them into the throng of alien invaders. Then another three. Then another.
"As for the rest of you... The M & M store's closed..." Another trio of arrows.
"We're not doing intergalactic tourists today. You're not missing anything..." More arrows.
"Letterman doesn't do his show anymore. So single file back in your ship..."From the corner of his eye he saw a familiar green heroine, and an unrecognised diminutive friend.
"Hey, Shulkie! Have at it. These guys are great! They come with bullseyes on their heads and everything..."
Cyberlad
Qia
Half Pint
Festive
mickilennial
AndyC
Sep
Roman
Rockette
Lord Wraith
