Chapter Text
I read up on Sunstroke when he escaped from prison, because I was determined to haul his ass back there.
There wasn't much on him. The file said his real name is "Sol Broadstroke." Riiiight. The same database thought I was "Mimi Schwartz" for years, so I'm not buying it. It didn't matter--this was the sort of guy who lived his gimmick. The whole time Sunstroke was incarcerated I don't think I ever saw him without his mask on, let alone using a normal name. He had no past, beyond tangling with the Avengers and the X-Men a time or two. His psych profile was one paragraph; there were ten pages about his power levels.
Under ideal conditions, Sunstroke could absorb enough power from the heat of the sun to incinerate the average person. But "ideal conditions" for him was the Mojave Desert, which was a few thousand miles away from Ryker's Island. So when he escaped he laid low, biding his time for a chance to slip out of New York. And that might have worked, if it wasn't for me.
I'm Melissa Gold, but most people call me Songbird. I was assigned to Ryker's as one of the administrators for the Thunderbolts, a project to rehabilitate superhuman offenders. The program went belly-up when the maximum-maximum security wing was totaled and several dozen bad guys managed to get away. Since then I've made it my business to find every penny-ante supervillain who broke out on my watch. And I'm pretty good at it, because I used to be a penny-ante supervillain.
I know what mistakes these losers will make because I've made them too. You break out of jail and you go right back to doing whatever got you in jail in the first place, because you think you just proved you can get away with it. But the heat's on, so you hole up in the nearest city and try to lay low. Trouble is, eventually something draws you back out of the woodwork. I used to try to contact my mother, and Sunstroke is addicted to tanning.
I don't know if it's vanity or if he just uses the UV rays to fuel his powers. What mattered to me was that he couldn't waltz into a spa during the day, wearing that costume of his. So it was only a matter of time before I found him breaking into the Brazilian Body Shop at 2:30 in the morning.
If I'd been all sneaky and stealthy like Moon Knight, then maybe I could have captured him before he knew I was there. But I'm not--my superpower is to make a lot of noise and turn that into bright pink things. So I burst into the building and screamed at the top of my lungs. I'm not sure Sunstroke recognized who was yelling at him until the sound of it encased him in a pink bubble.
"Songbird!?!" he shouted. Guess I can't blame him, because he couldn't do much else. "Pfah! You're too late, Thunderbolts!"
"There aren't any Thunderbolts," I told him, although I couldn't quite believe it myself, "not anymore. It's just me, and that's still more than you can handle!"
I couldn't read his expression under the mask, but he sounded confident. "We'll see about that!" As his costume began to glow, I started to realize I was too late. He'd already stored up the power he needed--maybe not enough to skip town, but plenty to kick my ass.
As the heat build up inside my sonic bubble, I could feel the air pressure rising, making it harder to maintain the force field. It's hard to describe. If it had been the Hulk in there, pounding away at random spots, I probably could have reinforced the bubble. But with the pressure applied in every direction, the feedback became unbearable, until the whole thing burst like a balloon. The sonic feedback knocked me off my feet and left Sunstroke with a clear path out of the building.
"Another time, female," he gloated like some villain in a pulp novel. As he ran out the door, he spread his arms to unfurl "wings" hanging from his sides. His powers let him create thermal updrafts beneath him, and in no time he was airborne like some giant flying squirrel.
"Right now, jabroni," I muttered as I picked myself up off the floor. I'm not called "Songbird" for nothing. It's tough to sing up a bubble strong enough to hold a supervillain, but wings sturdy enough to hold my weight are pretty easy. With a running start I was in flight, and closing in fast on my quarry.
Sunstroke couldn't match me in maneuverability, but he could generate enough heat to keep me from getting close to him. Of course, the hotter he got the brighter he became, and a big glowy guy in the middle of the night sky was bound to attract more superheroes. If I kept him in a standoff, he'd run out of options, which worried me because he might get desperate and try something stupid.
"I won't go back to prison!" he insisted. "You can't lock me up indoors, away from the sun! I'll kill you if I have to!"
I circled around, boxing him in while keeping my distance. The best he could do now was turn up the heat and try to cook me, but that would only work if he could get close enough. He seemed to realize he wasn't fast enough to catch me if I didn't let him. I tried to keep his attention on me, keep him distracted. "Last I looked, Sunstroke, the worst charges on your record were multiple escape attempts. Maybe it's not worth busting out to lead a life that'll just get you thrown back in..."
"Enough! Enough of your idiotic redemption lectures!" Before I knew it, he realized he had one way to outrun me--he folded up his wings and went into a nosedive.
I sat there in the air for at least a second, wondering how I'd been stupid enough to miss that. As I went after him, the answer came to me--I'm used to being in a team, creating openings for other people, expecting them to have my back. I'd been working that way most of my adult life, and I'd gotten pretty damn good at it. Maybe I'd forgotten how to go solo.
Sunstroke pulled up from his dive about twenty feet above the pavement, and he had to know he couldn't get away from me like that again. If I didn't stop him soon, he was going to start looking for someone to hurt, to give me something more important to worry about. I swooped down towards him as he glided into an intersection, thinking more about catching up to him than what he might try when I got there. So when he let off a flash of light, brighter than anything I've ever seen, I was completely unprepared.
I could hear cars honking and screeching into the curb, but I couldn't see a thing. I kept flying, though, and somehow I managed to collide with Sunstroke. At least, it sounded like him. "Unhand me, woman!" he blustered. In the commotion, he seemed to forget that he could have turned up the heat to get me loose. And that meant I had him.
I've been a superhero for a few years, but I've been a professional wrestler since I was nineteen. I met my trainer in prison, and she taught me every trick in the book. Especially the shoot holds you use when some mark tries to prove you're all fake. So while Sunstroke was telling himself he could easily overpower a woman half his size, I was rolling him over into a joint lock. It's kind of hard to describe--it's easier to do it than to tell you about it.
"Screaming" Mimi Schwartz, they called me. But I wasn't the one doing the screaming. Sunstroke can tell you all about it.
So there we were: Lying in the middle of the street, with me blind and wrapped around his back, and him crying like a three-year-old. I counted about five ways I could have been killed, and when I felt him warming up I thought of a couple more. So I wrenched the hold a little and bluffed him. "Pay real close attention, you son of a bitch! You might be able to fry me loose, but I guarantee you'll need shoulder surgery before that happens!"
He didn't buy it; I didn't expect him to. What little there was in his psych eval said he was pompous and arrogant about his abilities. I suppose if I had all the powers of the sun I wouldn't back down from some girl named after a sparrow. He had to be at least 100 degrees but I just clamped down tighter. "I'm not stupid, Sunstroke," I added. "I know you're good, I know you can kill me. But I'm not some Avenger that's gonna let you go so she go to her mansion and put out an APB on you while you escape. I'm an ex-con, I fight dirty when I have to, and you've pissed me off. You need to ask how far you'll go, because I'll go five steps further."
I started to wonder if I was losing feeling in my skin, but then I realized he was finally cooling down. I relaxed the hold, but I made sure he knew I still had the leverage. I was real quiet after that--no point in rubbing it in his face that he'd submitted, especially since I wasn't sure I could restrain him until the cops showed up.
Turns out I didn't have to wait long. At least, I think so--I lost track of time when my eyes were all screwed up. All I know is that I heard: "NYPD, ma'am. I'm gonna need you to stand down now."
"Lieutenant Stone?" Fortunately I never forget a voice. "Hope you brought Code: Blue, because I've got an arm-load of supervillain right here."
"We can take it from here," he assured me. After I turned Sunstroke loose and heard him being strapped into some sort of techno-restraints, he added, "I'll need you to answer a few questions...'Rogue,' isn't it?"
"Songbird," I corrected. This happens all the time.
"That's right...the Thunderbolts..." I knew he'd remember. After all, this is New York. I saved UN Headquarters from collapsing one time. Of course, before that I also aided and abetted the destruction of Four Freedoms Plaza. But I'm getting better.
"Don't sweat it, Hill Street Blues, I got this." I recognized that voice too, although I didn't know why I was hearing it. "Miss Gold and I have some business to discuss first."
"We do?" I asked.
"See, you don't know," he quipped, "because we haven't discussed it yet." Before I knew it he'd wrapped his arms around my waist, and I could hear the hum of ion engines. "I would let you carry me, but until your vision clears up I think I'd better drive." We were airborne in seconds.
By the time I could see anything, I had a pretty good view of the Manhattan skyline. I assume I was on the balcony of one of Tony Stark's penthouses. My first clue was that Iron Man was pouring me a drink. Except for his helmet, every chunk of that heavy armored suit was in place as he stomped over and carefully handed me a crystal flute that looked like it cost more than the hooch.
"Champagne?" I realized. "I thought you were a recovering alcoholic."
"You're a recovering supervillain," he deadpanned, "but you can walk by a bank without robbing it."
"Fair enough. Why are we--" I noticed he was staring at my scalp, and gave him the stink eye. "Why are we celebrating?"
"Fascinating," he muttered, like he was examining the streaks in my hair follicle by follicle. "No roots. I don't suppose the carpet matches the drapes..."
"Stark..."
"You are celebrating," he said, as if interrupting his own train of thought, "because I'm about to offer you a spot in the Avengers. I am celebrating because you're about to say yes."
"What makes you so sure?"
"Being sure of stuff is my whole deal," he grinned. "It kind of goes with the devil-may-care attitude, the experimental self-performed heart surgery, that sort of thing..."
I was already getting tired of his crap. "Fine, whatever...let's back up. Why are you even making this offer?"
"You're a bottom-line kind of girl," Iron Man smiled. "I want you to know I respect that a lot." He probably thought he looked like an irresistible playboy, and maybe if I was the centerfold he took me for, he might have. But to me he was the guy who sold used cars next door to my parents' trailer park. "Bottom line: Cap and I talked, and we decided the Avengers have to get bigger. To him that means an army and to me that means thinking outside the box. Either way we have to recruit people we never considered before...and people who said 'no' the last time."
"And the Avengers sent you to change my mind?"
"Well, I wanted Cap to handle it, but he didn't think you'd go for it."
"I'm surprised Hawkeye and Luke Cage didn't volunteer," I lied.
"Yeah, well, I don't know how they did things in the Thunderbirds or Thundercats or whatever it was, but in the big leagues things like this are on a need-to-know basis..."
Somehow I knew it. "They're your teammates, Stark, and you don't trust them any more than you trust me."
"Oh..." He sounded more...impressed than insulted. "I see what you did there. That was a ploy. Cute. But you've got it backwards--I'm their teammate, so they trust me to handle this stuff without bugging them about it."
"Well, I don't trust you," I shot back, and turned to fly away.
"But you trust Baron Zemo, is that it?" Now he sounded insulted. "Zemo and...and the rest. The Beetle. Moonstone. Really Big "A" Man? Um...Lion-O. Lady Penelope..."
I was through being polite. "I trusted the Thunderbolts to live up to my expectations--it wasn't a high hurdle, but they cleared it. I expected the Avengers to do better. You asked me to keep an eye on Zemo for you, and you used my intel to make a bad situation worse. You--"
"You mean that whole 'Cobalt Man' thing, right?" Like it was nothing to him. "That was only a trainwreck because--"
"I'm still talking!" I shouted. "You pulled your registration act gimmick and half the Avengers turned on you. Captain America turned. Hawkeye turned. Luke Cage turned. But they all work in your fancy tower now. I sided with you, let you remake the Thunderbolts in your image. So I get pumped full of electro-nanites and have the Green Goblin frog-marching me around the country until he orders the team to kill me. In the end, no more Thunderbolts, no more job. All I have to show for trusting Tony Stark is Tony Stark talking down to me while he asks for more favors."
"You're--you're missing the point." I was exasperating him. Good. This was the closest he'd come to dropping his smarmy "charm" act and shooting with me. "I'm not asking for anything, I'm doing you a favor. You got your ass burned? I'm here to kiss it and make it better."
"Excuse me?"
The glare I shot him made him rethink his choice of words. "Look, Candystripe, let's face facts. One: You don't like me. Fine. About two-thirds of the Avengers can't stand me either, but we make it work. Two: You're unemployed, and the only thing you're really good at is being a superhero. And I don't mean the whole Punisher thing where he pretends he isn't one. You wear flashy tights and fly around town clobbering bad guys with your voice--you're a superhero. Three: The only career paths for a superhero are 'join the Avengers, mooch off Stark' or 'whatever Tagak the Leopard Lord is up to these days.'"
"Then maybe I should be talking to him," I said, and climbed up onto the ledge.
"Songbird, wait!" He began to walk towards me, but I stepped further out and he realized I'd fly away immediately if he tried to stop me. "I've seen a lot of people play superhero, and the ones who go it alone usually don't make it. You need a support structure, to back you up with financing and guidance. It's the only way to make it work."
"No, it's the only way to make it work for you," I corrected. I spread out my arms, transformed my voice into wings, and took to the air. Before I left, I couldn't resist one last parting shot. "And Stark, you really need to work on that last part of the pitch, because it reminds me of the last time someone tried to recruit me for the Masters of Evil."
I spent the next hour soaring through Manhattan, feeling pretty good about the whole thing. I hadn't thought about how much I'd blamed Iron Man for all the crap I'd been through lately, and it was good to let it out. I suppose when I was with the T-bolts, I had to play nice with the Avengers, to set a good example for the real malcontents I worked with. I suddenly felt...free. I didn't have the Avengers and S.H.I.E.L.D. hanging over my head, there weren't any Thunderbolts for me to babysit, and I'd even collared the last guy who broke out of prison on my watch. From now on, I could do whatever I wanted.
Then I realized I had no idea what I wanted to do.
NEXT: Hawkguy