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It's a sunny day in the park, still summer warm without being too hot. Families are out for picnic lunches and walks with the baby in the stroller, couples are sharing ice cream and laughter…all in all, it's a scene worthy of a happy painting.
These things never last in New York.
There's no warning when it happens. One moment, the stretch of grass is nearly empty, save for a baseball flying through the air from one person to another. The next, there's a flash of blue-white light, a glimpse of something louder and brighter on the other side, and half a dozen figures tumbling onto the ground of the park with the sounds of combat and the smell of guns and…lasers?
It doesn't take long for Spider-Man to arrive on the scene. It's one web catapult with a twhip twhip thwip on some of the larger trees before he falls to the ground in a trade marked hero pose, legs out to one side, hand on the ground, and other high and ready to fire some web shooters.
"I knew I shouldn't have watched Lost in Space last night," Spidey says to no one in particular. "I always have weird nightmares after fantasy science fiction night."
The sounds of combat in the middle of the Park would cause most New Yorkers to run away. At least the reasonable, sensible ones. Heroes are not count. Slade is not a hero, but he is not exactly a reasonable man either. A battle draws him in, instead.
He is hardly prepared for it, though. Daytime of a warm summer day in Central Park means he is wearing a comfortable charcoal suit and all he has is a handgun on a shoulder holster, under the light double breasted blazer. But he is curious to see who dares to bring war in the middle of New York.
Five men in what looks like some sort of paramilitary gear, carrying guns that definitely belong on the science fiction late night special more than in 1964. And one red-haired girl who seems to be their target, tumbling through the momentary portal to somewhere - somewhen - very different and landing in her own crouch as she takes in her surroundings.
It's not the first time Hope's been thrown through time, but it's definitely the first time for these men. And as the bright light behind them winks out, it's clear that, for the moment, there's no going back. Angry, they take aim on the girl in the grass, and Hope, instead of running for cover and endangering the civilians, runs toward them.
"Boys, boys boys," Spider-Man laments, shaking his head with disappointment. "Hasn't anyone ever told you how to treat a lady? What would your parents say?" He fires several webs towards one gun, while shooting several shots with his other webshooter to still another. With a mighty yank (A tug. Not, like, Mickey Mantle or something) he tries to liberate the pieces of laser metal from the nasty nasts.
Slade doesn't run straight into the skirmish. Because, well, not a hero. But he notes the gear of the men and the attitude of the redheaded girl. And… of course a kid in a colorful costume arrives right away. Spider-Man. That boy has bad press, but at least he seems very quick.
Perfectly fine for him. Spider-Man arrival makes for a good distraction. He can watch and perhaps acquire one those advanced-looking guns. Instead of charging in, he seeks cover and pulls his S&W Model 39. Just in case. Where are the cops anyway?
Well, there's one cop on the park beat in this area now. It's just that nothing in his NYPD training prepared him for people with laser guns. Or even Spider-Man, really. To be fair, Spider-Man was probably in diapers when this guy went through the academy. "Hey! Hey, uh. You can't do that here!" he calls toward the skirmish.
It's taken a moment for the people in the park to even register what's happened, but as beams of energy start to shoot across the grass, there's screaming and sudden panic, children snatched up by their parents in search of safety, lovers rushing for the trees.
Spider-Man's first attack sends two of the guns flying, to shouts of dismay from the men. Before they can act, Hope is in the middle of them, scooping up one of the guns on her way and clocking one of them across the face with it before firing it at the other.
"Sir!" one of the attackers shouts. "Sir, she's sent us- How are we going to get back?"
"Hey, hey, hey little lady! Ixnay on the illingkay? M'kay?!" Spider-Man says as he swings by and tries to rip the gun from Hope's hands. "Less with the kill shots and more with the telling us what in the world is going on. Okie-doke?"
And a gun lands just a few feet of him. Sometimes one is good, sometimes one is lucky. Slade considers that taking advantage of unexpected opportunities is part of the art of being a good mercenary, so he kicks the laser gun (or whatever it is) under the closer bushes, where it is unlikely it will draw attention until he can retrieve it.
Then he looks again into the fight. Five armed adult men are getting clobbered by two unarmed kids, one of which doesn't even seem to have special powers. Only in New York. And the guy whining about getting going back somewhere is a few yards ahead of him, looking to the wrong direction.
Opportunity. He steps ahead and aims a kick at the man's knee from behind, also trying to catch the arm holding the gun as he falls down, and pulling hard, probably dislocating it before the guy hits the ground. "Stay down," he growls, "whatever you were trying, it is over."
"It doesn't matter. For the good of all of us, we take her out!" One of the men is shouting to the man who questioned, his eyes going wide when Slade steps in to put him down. "Shit! She's got the big guy with her!"
Hope half-turns when Spider-Man takes the gun away. "They're trying to kill me!" she points out, just in time to throw an elbow into the nose of the next man who comes after her. "And the rest is way too complicated to explain right now, but you're going to break the time-stream if they stick around much long-"
Overhearing the leader's words, she looks toward the voice. "Nathan?" No, not quite. Just a different large, white-haired, one-eyed soldier sort.
Two are down now, and the other three are doubling down on their attacks, firing at Hope and now Spider-Man as he's in the way.
"Time stream?" Spider-Man exclaims with a tilted head of confusion. "Is that potty humor? If so, lady, we're not there yet." Oh snap, here come lasers. Cue leaping side, turning, trunk twisting, legs flailing, all in the name of trying not to get burned alive by that precious, precious light. "I'm good at understanding complicated things!" he adds for emphasis.
Slade squints his single eye when Hope seems to recognize him. But no, he is no 'Nathan'. The talk about time-stream is set aside for now. That is not the important bit. "Focus in the 'kill her' part, boy," he tells Spider-Man. Maybe with a touch of sarcasm.
That they are not shooting at him is almost insulting, but also convenient. It means he doesn't have to shoot at them first with a policeman watching.
Hope is less concerned about the lives of these people than Spider-Man is, which is why she uses one of the downed men as cover from the fire coming from the others. No apologies.
"Hey! Hey, weapons down!" shouts the police man once more, pulling a baton and waving it at the men, who are more intent than ever on taking out the girl.
"I'll explain when they're not shooting at me!" she shouts at Spider-Man. Motivation!
"Typical woman," Spider-Man says. "Typical woman who comes from some sort of light portal, I mean." Meanwhile he's sending volley after volley of web blasts at the faces of the men who are shooting at them, trying to blind them with science. I mean, cover their eyes with webbing.
Slade calmly steps out of the way of the barrage of badly aimed blasts, "then again, they don't seem able to hit the broad side of a barn," he comments unhelpfully. Spider-Man can take care of them, Slade is not going to interferer anymore, but if Hope is not getting arrested after this, he plans to ask her a few questions. Later.
"Seriously?" Hope peeks out from behind her cover long enough to give Spider-Man an indignant look, but with the men focused on Hope, they don't have much defense against his webs. Their eyes are blocked in short order, and once they can't see to shoot, Hope pops out from behind their downed comrade to bring them down with a few quick punches.
Panting, she looks back to Spider-Man, the police officer, and finally Slade - the last much more intently than the others. "They really don't belong here," she notes. "They're not from…now. And I don't know how to send them back."
"Well, if even for a split second, let's say that I believe what you just said. That doesn't mean someone needs to die," Spidey replies as he straightens. "Now or then right is right." He shrugs his shoulders. "Wrong is wrong."
Slade glances back at Hope, even as he is leaving. "You didn't try to kill them either," he points out. Obviously, if they can't be here, she should have killed them. Instead she disabled them with martial arts. He snorts and walks away.
Real policemen should be here soon. And he is not interesting in giving explanations. He has a funky beam gun to dissemble and study. Far more interesting.
Hope holds up her hands with a grimace. "Little bit short of weapons," she points out, though she's collecting the ones she can find. One, two, three, four…Hold on just a minute.
With four laser guns under her arms, she looks more than a little bit ridiculous as she jogs after Slade, even with the gold and green bodysuit and the post-apocalyptic cape thing going on. "Where'd you put the last one?"
Slade is a sneaky one for such a large guy. He returned to the bushes and picked up the last gun, and by the time Hope spots him, he is almost at the street, talking to someone through… a cellphone? No, of course not. It is a transistor walkie talkie. Cutting edge tech for 1964, really.
If he is surprised at seeing Hope trotting after him, he has a good poker face. He tosses the laser weapon and the walkie talkie to the rear seats of a large Pontiac and gestures the redhead to climb in as he slides into the driver seat.
If Hope had grown up in a normal time period, someone probably would have taught her not to get in cars with strange men. Instead, she grew up in a future where no one was to be trusted, which…apparently evens out to learning that sometimes you just have to do what you have to do. Hope eyes the car for a minute, grimacing, then reluctantly climbs in herself, keeping the remaining guns in her lap.
"I kind of have to destroy these," she notes once she's inside, glancing over her shoulder to the gun in the back. "I was serious about the time stream. These things aren't supposed to be invented for…" She looks out the window at the buildings, and despite her composure, there's still something wondering about it. "I'm gonna go with 'a while.' What year is it?"
"Fifty years, I recon, the micro-circuitry is remarkable," offers the white-haired man. "Welcome to 1964, August 13th." Apparently he does believe she might come from the future after examining the laser gun for a few seconds. "It is not important. I have seen better weapon technology in the hands of certain individuals such as Stark or Von Doom. If you wanted to keep the future unknown, those five men you left alive are a much better source of information for the authorities. You should have killed them, they will talk."
He car engine roars. Noisy and primitive compared with the internal combustion engines of the 21st Century. "Who are they?" He asks as he dives into the Manhattan traffic.
"They'll probably talk. And then they'll get to spend some time in a 1964 asylum, which they probably won't enjoy. Probably would have been kinder to kill them," Hope agrees, pushing three of the guns out of her lap and starting to disassemble the fourth as he drives. Her fingers are deft and purposeful - she knows what she's doing.
"They call themselves Purifiers," she explains. "They don't like mutants, so they especially don't like me. But they haven't had time travel tech before. So either someone's helped them out, or else it was a side effect of the mutant we were trying to help."
"You are underestimating S.H.I.E.L.D." points out Slade calmly. These Purifiers might end up in an asylum, but not before they tell the federals everything. So it might take them years to end up there.
"Ah, a mutant thing," murmurs the old man in response to Hope's explanations. He also seems to accept that one explanation with equanimity. He has two mutant children, so he is familiar with the issues.
It's the circuit boards that Hope goes for, snapping them and tucking the pieces away into her pocket. The rest of it is simple enough, unlikely to cause any terrible anomalies. "S.H.I.E.L.D.," she echoes, trading the gun in her lap for one of the ones on the floor. She's quicker this time, now that she knows where the pertinent bits are. "I'll keep that in mind."
She casts a sidelong look his way, eyes slightly narrowed as she takes his measure. "Is Reed Richards born yet?" It's hard to keep straight just how old old people are, after all.
"You should sell those weapons, if you have no way back, you are going to need money," mentions Slade, ever a practical man. "I'll take you to Mutant Town, no further unless you have something to offer in exchange." Which gives her about fifteen minutes if he wants to negotiate something.
But Mutant Town probably shouldn't exist this early Hope's timeline, that might clue the girl she might not even be in the right past!
"Yeah, I'm not selling weapons with this tech in them," Hope snorts, going about her business. "Break the whole future or something. Don't worry about me. I made it in this city when there was nothing but empty, broken buildings. Pretty sure I can manage when it's full of people who are so used to safety they don't know to run when there's shooting."
With the four guns in her lap disabled, she leans over the side of the seat to get the one in the back. "Who are you, anyhow?"
Slade grabs her wrist when Hope goes for the last gun. "That one is mine to learn from it, kid," he states. "Me? I am just a hunter and a businessman," if Hope doesn't try to grab the gun again. He gives her his card:
Slade Wilson
Safaris Unlimited
Box 392
Kitale, Kenya
There is also a phone number of New York at the other side. He has an office there.
"Bullcrap," Hope says, taking the card and giving the gun a long look. "I can't leave that intact. Even if you promised me that you wouldn't try to duplicate it, even if you promised to never use it, which I can tell you won't do, the fact that it's here at all could break things. So." She eyes him. "Are we gonna make it hard?"
"Not your choice," replies Slade. He is certainly not going to make promises he might not fulfill. The weapon is almost assuredly impossible to maintain, repair or copy even for the best gunsmiths and techies in his payroll. But he still wants to study it. There are always ideas and insights that might come up useful for his own customized guns, or perhaps a few decades in the future.
"If you want to make a fight out of it, you will lose," he glances at the redhead. "And I never lie," he adds, diving the vehicle a parking space. "You better leave now. Mutant Town is two city blocks south of here."