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#9
JUN 11 |
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“Joy to the World”
January 7, 9,500 AD
Central Command, Robotopolis
Five rows of twenty Ultron-level robots stood between the heroes and the outer walls of Central Command. In unison they fired a barrage of particle-beam weapons – each one powerful enough to lay waste to a city block – at the heroes, but the Fantastic Four were on the front line and held the beams back with their forcefields. They were only 200 metric feet from their destination, but pinned down, on the defensive, and seemingly stalemated. That began to change when the Hulk burrowed up under the ranks of the robots. Some robots fell into the Hulk's chasm and others were ensnared in the Hulk's writhing tentacles, but the others adapted quickly and levitated over the broken ground so they could keep firing. It was not a perfect diversion but it did allow Thor Boy and Thor Girl to draw close enough in the air to aim lightning bolts from the storm clouds overhead down at the robots. One at a time the robots were being overloaded and shorting out, but it was still slow going.
A metric mile away, further north along the outer wall of Central Command, a cloud of mist sprang out of nowhere and, where no one had stood a minute ago, the Vision appeared. With him were Magnus, Spider-Man and Black Widow. The Vision only had to touch the wall and a large section of it turned incorporeal. Magnus and Black Widow ran right through the wall, while Spider-Man came up behind them in his robotic Spider-Chair. They emerged in an access tunnel that appeared to lead deep into the heart of Central Command.
“Well, that was easy,” Spider-Man said.
As if to prove him wrong, laser cannons swiveled out of walls and took aim at them. Lines of webbing fired out of the Spider-Chair and retracted, yanking a cannon out of the wall. The Black Widow changed shape as she moved, foiling a laser cannon from targeting her as she got into range to use her EMP-gun.
And, deep in Central Command, two programs observed the battle and debated its outcome.
“Estimated time of victory?”
“The humans attack from too many fronts.”
“Estimated time of victory?” the first program repeated.
“Unknown. Victory no longer assured.”
“You are in error. The Computer cannot lose. Prepare to be erased.”
“Postpone erasure routine for follow-up query. If Mr. Kline has succeeded in the past, then how are the superhumans still here?”
“The present will reset at the scheduled time. But disregard erasure routine and boost power to temporal beam aimed at 1972. Mr. Kline must concentrate his efforts there.”
January 7, 1972
Earth's thermosphere
The Kree Warship was on full alert as it rocketed over Asia at five times the speed of sound. The soldiers on board had orders to land in the Hidden Refuge and take Attilan, the city of the Inhumans, and Kree soldiers were not the sort to take orders lightly. But neither could they maintain their honor and turn their backs on battle with a Skrull Warship, which is precisely what suddenly appeared on an interception course with them.
Had their sensors been able to pierce the disruptive shield around the ship, however, the Kree would have found that not a single Skrull was aboard. Rather, this vessel had been shanghaied by an unusual team of superheroes. Had they been able to look onto the bridge of the ship, they would have seen Spider-Man leading a team of reserve Avengers including Captain America, Rick Jones, Hercules, Black Knight and Black Panther. Their mission was a desperate gamble – capture the Kree warship and study it for weaknesses before the rest of the Kree armada arrived.
The Kree ship was coming around to fire but the captured Skrull ship was more maneuverable and closed in on the Krees' left flank before they could get off a shot from their forward-facing weapons.
“Well, that was easy,” Spider-Man quipped just before the particle beam cannons on the side of the Kree vessel opened fire at close range.
January 7, 1972
St. Luke’s Hospital, Manhattan
The police motorcade pulled up in front of the emergency entrance to the hospital. The passenger door of the lead car opened and Tony Stark stepped out. Whether one admired him for his wealth, his contributions to science or just his connections with the superhero community, Tony Stark was a living legend and the driver could only gulp when Tony leaned down to the open window and said, “Thanks for the ride.”
With that, Tony turned back to face the taxi cab in the middle of the motorcade. Hawkeye had already jumped out of the back of the taxi and came around to the door closest to the entrance. Attendants had burst through the hospital doors with a wheelchair and met Hawkeye halfway. Then they backtracked to the taxi and helped Natasha Barton – looking every inch like she was ready to pop – into the wheelchair.
“Where is my doctor? Where's Dr. Thomas?” Natasha asked frantically.
“He'll be along shortly,” a woman answered. “I'll be one of your nurses. Sir, can we steer the wheelchair?” she asked, but this was directed at Hawkeye.
“No, I've got it,” Hawkeye said.
Tony put his hand on his shoulder. “Relax,” Tony said calmly, assuredly. “These folks know what they're doing.”
“Easy for you to say, Tony,” Hawkeye said. “This is all newer to a bachelor like you than it is to me.” Still, even though he followed closely, he at least stood back and let the nurse take over pushing Natasha's chair into the building.
“How far apart are the contractions?” the nurse was asking.
“Three minutes,” Natasha answered.
“Now remember,” Tony said in a low voice, dismissing Hawkeye's crack about bachelorhood for now. “I arranged for Natasha to be checked in under the false name you've been living under since the Zodiac incident. And don't worry if anyone mentions any billing to you. As an Avenger, you're both fully insured.”
“Thanks, Tony,” Hawkeye said. “The Avengers couldn't have asked for a better benefactor.”
“Clint!” Natasha yelled, in a breach of superhero etiquette, as a contraction hit.
“I'm here, honey!” Clint cried. “Remember your breathing!”
Tony lingered behind, still hurting over Clint's unintentionally cruel remark. Was it time to tell others about his engagement to Marianne Rodgers? No, he decided, not today.
A shadow passed over Tony from above.
“I hope I haven't missed anything!” a powerful voice rang from above.
Tony looked up and shielded his eyes from the sun, then smiled when he recognized both the voice and the figure of the man descending out of the sky.
Meanwhile, Natasha was pushed into an elevator and taken to the maternity ward. She gave up her clothes for a hospital gown, was checked over by the nurse, and given an Enema. Clint, still in costume, finally arrived at her room after a long delay proving he had special authority to bring his gun into the hospital.
“How are you feeling?” the nurse asked when Natasha waddled out of the bathroom.
“Like I just fought Power Man. Is it almost time for the baby to come out?”
“Oh, honey, you've got a long way left to go,” the nurse said with a knowing grin.
Natasha eased herself back into her bed, clutching her stomach and grimacing. “Nurse, can I speak to my husband privately?” Natasha asked.
“Of course,” the nurse said. “Dr. Thomas will be with you shortly,” she added before stepping out of the room.
“What's the matter, honey?” Clint asked.
“Why are you still in costume?” Natasha asked. “You're not going to run out on me, are you? Run off with the Avengers and try to sneak back before the baby's born?”
“No! Absolutely not, honey. I came armed so I can protect you.”
“You're still worried about that mandroid robot someone sent to attack the baby shower last month? Me too. Oh, Clint...” Natasha said and she started to tear up. “What are we doing? Why are we bringing a baby into this world when it's so dangerous?”
“The world's always been a dangerous place, hon. Today we've got Kree spaceships and mystery robots instead of smallpox and polio, but it's just different kinds of dangerous. How is the baby?”
“Ohh...I think if Dr. Thomas doesn't start soon, this baby is going to tear its way right out of me! Clint...what if it's born a super-strong mutant? Will you still love it even if it tore me apart?”
“Whoa, you stop talking like that, hon! You're going to be just fine. The baby is going to be just fine. And even if it's a mutant, we're going to love it just like we love Wanda and Pietro.”
“Ohhh–where is that doctor?” Natasha cried in her pain.
Dr. Thomas was in a storeroom elsewhere in the hospital, but would not be seeing his patients anytime soon since he was bound and gagged, unconscious and missing his clothes. Mr. Kline, who had taken the good doctor's form, was standing at the storeroom door and checking the hallway. He was not surprised to see the two men walking his way, though he was not happy to see them either.
“...glad you could come, Namor,” Tony Stark was saying. “I know you're a busy merman these days.”
Tony Stark was wearing a normal suit while King Namor, the Sub-Mariner, of Atlantis, wore the short-sleeved and short-pants version of a Fantastic Four uniform he wore in this time period.
“True, Stark,” Namor said, “but even though I served with the Avengers just a short time, my loyalty to the Avengers is undimmed. If one of our own is in danger while at her most vulnerable, then Namor comes.”
“We can only hope that we're wrong,” Tony said. “Some of our enemies are cruel, but the thought that any of them would attack a pregnant woman...Ah, Dr. Thomas! Have you seen Natasha yet?”
“No...if you'll excuse me, gentlemen,” the fake Dr. Thomas said as he hurried off.
“Well!” Tony said, with his hands on his hips. “Imagine that, a chance to meet undersea royalty and he brushes you off.”
“I think he was just intimidated by me,” Namor said and believed it.
The fake Dr. Thomas left them behind as he made his way through the hospital corridors. When he saw them he was afraid his time had run out but they clearly suspected nothing yet – even though he had secretly engineered attempts on both their lives in the past few months to keep them from being here on this day. “Nurse, how far is Mrs. Heck dilated?” he asked, referring to Natasha's alias.
“Eight centimeters,” the nurse said.
The fake Dr. Thomas looked behind him to make sure the Sub-Mariner and the man not commonly known in this time to be Iron Man were not following him. There was no reason to suspect that anyone was on to him but history showed that superheroes had a way of upsetting the best-laid plans that seemed to defy probability. To delay too long was both the safest and the riskiest thing to do and he could not, under any circumstances, afford to be caught and his purpose learned. If all went according to plan this next generation of superheroes would be stopped, literally, in its infancy and the Legacy Heroes of his time would never come to exist to plague his masters – all without anyone knowing he was ever here. “Induce labor.”
“Doctor? This soon?” the nurse asked, perplexed at such an unorthodox order.
“You heard me, nurse,” the fake Dr. Thomas insisted. The sooner Natasha was in labor the sooner he could be with his patient and complete his fatal task, with ample time to release the real Dr. Thomas to take the blame before escaping.
The nurse shrugged and went to go make arrangements. Hospital procedure being what it was, it was still 15 minutes before Natasha and Clint heard anything about the doctor's orders.
“Gee, I don't know...” Clint said. “Isn't that a little soon?”
Natasha, gritting her teeth at the pain of her last contraction said, “No, that's good! That's fine. Get that doctor in here. I want this baby out of me.”
“It is...a little soon,” the nurse admitted, “but the doctor must think there's a good reason for it.”
“There, see? Baby coming out – good. The doctor and I agree,” Natasha said. She went back to her breathing exercises.
“If you want, I could call the Avengers' doctor, Dr. Blake,” Clint said, as much for the nurse's benefit as Natasha's. “Get a second opinion?”
“Nggghhh...” Natasha said through clenched teeth as her next contraction hit her. She broke out into a sweat. “Look,” Natasha said, focusing past the pain and grabbing Clint by the baldric his arquebus hung from across his back. “You put me in this mess and if you value your life you will help make this go faster instead of slower. I've been trained to kill by three governments and I can do things to you, even while lying down in this bed, that you're not going to like.”
Clint just took her hand in his. “I love you too, honey. Good luck in the delivery room.”
The fake Dr. Thomas was waiting in the delivery room, washed and prepped and just waiting for the ‘accident’ to take place. He heard the doors to the delivery room open and felt prepared…but he was not prepared for the voice he heard from the doorway.
“We have come for you, Mr. Kline,” said a soft but commanding voice.
Mr. Kline turned to see two men that looked like statues made of metal standing in the doorway. “No! Not you! Not yet!” Mr. Kline shouted in panic. He did not think he was capable of feeling fear but he did when he saw them. Glancing to his nurse, considering using her as a hostage, he saw that she stood frozen in time. His next response was the twin blasts of chronal-disrupting energy that burst from his eyes.
The beams of energy warped and wrapped around the outstretched hand of the nearer metal-man until they sputtered out. “Do not think our intervention can be undone, Mr. Kline,” the metal-man said. “We are as far beyond you as you are beyond the people of this era.”
Mr. Kline’s instincts turned from fight to flight. He slammed into the back wall of the room and tore right through it. Stumbling through, he raced to the next wall, making a straight line to the outside wall of the hospital and a chance at freedom. He did not get far. The two metal-men were on him in a moment, pinning his arms and letting him struggle helplessly.
“We are erasing your presence here, Mr. Kline,” the other metal-man explained as Mr. Kline began to disappear, one layer at a time.
“No, stop! St-skreeeee!” Mr. Kline shouted, ending in an electronic squeal as the flesh- and muscle-like layers vanished to reveal the robot underneath. That too began to vanish until, with a bright flash of light, Mr. Kline was gone.
“We should restart time now,” the first metal-man said. As he said it, the doors to the room swung open and Natasha was being pushed into the room on a gurney by a second nurse.
Hawkeye was there too and, on seeing the metal-men, he dashed between them and the gurney, swung his arquebus off his back, and pointed it at the strangers. “I don’t know who you are, but you’d better have a good reason to be here,” he said angrily.
“Relax, Hawkeye,” the second metal-man said in a calm, soothing voice that belied his metallic skin. “We came only to fulfill a small role in the drama unfolding across the millennia.”
“That still doesn’t tell me who you are and where our doctor is.”
“We are the Last Sons of Man and your friends have just now found the real Dr. Thomas concealed in a storeroom. We…wish we could stay and observe the momentous event, but not if our continued presence here disrupts the proper flow of events.”
“Wait,” Natasha said, struggling to lift her head from her pillow on the gurney. “Are you saying you’re observers from the future? Why would you be watching this instead of the rest of the Avengers fighting Skrulls in space?”
“Make no mistake; what they do is important,” the first of the Last Sons of Man said, “but not as important as the battle you have already won. You have overcome fear and doubt about the safety of the future and ensured the safety of the future by choosing love and life and, in turn, a continuance of your heroic tradition. Please, rejoice in this day. When next we meet, we will not be there to help you.” And with that, the Last Sons of Man faded away.
The doors flung open again and this time the Sub-Mariner entered, carrying a concerned and confused Dr. Thomas under his arm. “Missing someone?” Namor quipped.
For the next ten minutes, the cries of Natasha Barton filled the air of the delivery room. But, with one final push, her cries were eclipsed by a fresh voice – the cry of a baby girl brought into the world.
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To Be Continued...
Next: In Black Widow #10: The Kree-Skrull War ends. A hero dies. “All Things Must Pass”.
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