Post by Desperado on Jun 9, 2005 21:28:56 GMT -4
A fanfic I wrote about Desi. This is neither the Desi of this universe nor of Pyromane. This is the Desi of plot-production.
Disclaimer: I do not own Marvel or any of the characters portrayed in this fanfic, other than the one whom I have created. He’s all mine.
Note (please read): Before I begin, I must explain the character whom I have created and give his backstory a bit. Jacob Allan Merando was at one time a mutant with the ability to self-evolve, to adapt himself to repeated stimuli. Before he reached puberty, his body adapted itself within the limits of human capacity to his violent lifestyle, granting him a natural talent at fighting. Nowhere near as developed as someone such as Nick Fury, but he definitely had superior talent, about par with someone like Spider-man. Once puberty was reached, though, his powers accelerated and mutated into adapting his body beyond normal human capacity, and he eventually developed the ability to absorb and dissipate kinetic energy from most sources, which later developed into the absorption and conversion of kinetic energy into muscle density, granting him increased strength and resistance to injury from other sources, much in the way of Sebastien Shaw, only different in its own ways. After killing 35 people in a fit of anti-mutant-hysteria-induced rage, he went on the run, eventually being taken in by Professor Xavier, who sensed that, despite the man’s anger-issues, he had a good heart. He was made a part of the Second X-men team with Storm, Wolverine, and that lot, and fought with them on many occasions, taking the codename Desperado. One such occasion being the attack on Cassidy Keep by Black Tom and the Juggernaut. Since his powers gave him a sort of buffer against the Juggernaut’s amazing might, he was very helpful in keeping the other members of the team alive. That is, until the Juggernaut ripped his arm off and threw him off the cliff, where he would have plunged into the cliff had Storm not saved him. He became a bit despondent after that, and, at Wolverine’s attempts to get him out of his emotional slump, he responded, “Logan, I’ve always needed two arms. One to fight with and one to hold me back. Now that I’ve only got one, I can only use it for one or the other. And since my powers are way too dangerous for me to fight with and not hold back, I guess I’m just gonna have ta say goodbye.” With that, the troubled man left the X-men, only to be found by the mutant Apocalypse, who wad disguised as a robotics scientist and offered to give the man back his arm. However, there was a catch. Apocalypse’s arm infected Desi with a Techno-organic virus, in the hopes of using the man’s self-evolution powers to create a new type of robotic soldier for his army, one that could not only adapt itself to the enemy’s tactics but also have a constant power supply, as the virus would enhance Jacob’s absorption powers. This fanfic deals with the aftermath of that plan.
Peter Parker’s Spider Sense had alerted him to the mysterious figure that was leaping rooftops just below him. Even had the web-slinging superhero not had the enhanced senses, a being in a white duster and cowboy hat jumping rooftops would have still caught his attention. Also, the fact that a police chopper had had a spotlight on him before the figure had shot it down sort of helped out in the attention-grabbing department.
Spider-man had no idea just what type of pistol the man had used to take down the chopper, but he had done it with a single shot. A very impressive feat. As Peter swung above him, trying to get a lead on the man before dropping in on him, he couldn’t help but wonder just who or what this man was. More than likely was the “what” scenario, especially in New York City. Whatever he was, he was keeping a slight lead on Peter, another impressive feat. However, the Wall-crawler was gaining on him. A few more swings and...
Without warning, the man pointed his pistol directly at Parker without even glancing back and fired, taking out his webline and sending him toppling down to the roof below him. With a graceful double flip, he managed to land on his feet, assuming his usual all-fours stance. When he looked up, on the rooftop just across the alley, cold blue eyes stared back at him, a pistol gleaming white in the moonlight. The man fired, Peter’s Spider Sense alerting him to the bullet and giving him plenty of time to leap out of the way, only to have the white-cloaked man fire at him in mid-air with no time for Spider-man to give a snappy comeback, Peter’s Spider Sense alerting him once again but his agility not quite enough to dodge it completely, his suit getting torn at mid-ribcage and his skin getting grazed.
The man stopped firing, and Peter landed once again, this time getting the drop on the white-cloaked man by using a zipline to remove the man’s gun from his hand.
“OK, no more of that, thank you very much. I just got this suit back from the cleaner’s. Do you have any idea how much it costs to get this thing fixed?”
Before Peter had even finished his last sentence, the man started running, this time towards Peter, jumping easily over the alley and landing with one knee down only a few feet in front of Peter. Now Spider-man had a better look at the man who was causing all this attention grabbing. Long black hair, about shoulder length, piercing blue eyes, and underneath the white duster...a black and white suit in the same color pattern as Peter’s own red-and-blue suit, only without the webs and the spider. He was also wearing a golden belt, with two holsters on each...
Wait...
The man drew another pistol from the left holster and aimed it at Peter’s head. He noticed something odd about the man’s left hand. The right one was completely human at first appearance, but the left one was robotic.
“Oh, great, just what I need, a bullet in the head.”
All of a sudden, a flash of red-and-gold flew right in front of Spider-man, removing the white-clad man from his field of vision. Following the streak to his right, he saw a familiar and welcome face...err...suit of armor—Iron Man.
***
Tony Stark held the white-clad man what he thought was a tight grip, hovering over the street to make sure that the man wouldn’t think about breaking free.. However, without even blinking, the man broke free from Iron Man’s grasp and fell down towards the ground, about a twenty story drop. Tony jetted down after him, but the man was falling much faster than a normal human would. The man landed on the ground with a very loud crash, somehow staying on his feet and managing to crack the asphalt beneath him. An oncoming car was speeding toward him, and, before Tony had a chance to move him out of the way, it crashed into him. Literally, crashed into him. The car was totalled, but the man had not moved an inch from the collision.
Tony landed on the ground a few yards away from the crash site, followed shortly by Spider-man.
“Exactly what is he, now?” Tony asked.
“Not sure, all I know is he’s fast and he ripped my costume.”
“That’s why I wear armor.”
While they were talking, the man had removed himself from the remnants of the car and removed his duster, which was now very ripped. Tony watched as he turned towards them and assumed a fighting stance. Tony assumed an attack posture himself.
“You get the driver out of the car, I’ll hold him off.”
“Right.”
The man charged at the two of them, moving at an incredible pace. Just on a hunch, Tony used his suit’s onboard sensors to scan the man as he began defending himself from the man’s onslaught. He was surprised at the man’s strength, but not so much so when his scan came back to him. He threw the man against a nearby building, sending him through the wall and hopefully delaying him a bit.
His scan had come back with startling results. This “man” wasn’t a man at all, but a techno-organic android. And a powerful one at that. His power levels were quite high, almost as high as Iron Man’s suit. The android charged again, and Iron Man used his repulsor rays to repel him back again. Meanwhile, Spider-man had removed the driver from the car and handed him over to an Emergency Response man.
The android looked at Iron Man quizzically, or, more precisely, at Iron Man’s outstretched palms. Tony was ready for another assault. The android stood up, and stretched out his robotic palm, the contours of his palm changing right before Tony’s eyes, matching...matching Tony’s repulsor ray emitters.
A blast of green energy flowed from the android’s hand, sending Tony flying backwards into another building. “I can’t believe it,” he said. “He’s analyzed my technology and adapted it into his system. It would be remarkable if it weren’t trying to kill me.”
A webline appeared alongside the android’s head, with a flying Spider-man close behind it, a direct drop kick coming from the web-slinging hero to the android’s head. The android took the kick as if it were nothing, and Tony noticed a significant rise in its power level. It retaliated by grabbing Spider-man’s leg and flinging him towards Tony, who reacted immediately by catching the man.
“This doesn’t look good. It seems that it absorbed the force of your kick and used it to increase its power.”
“Oh, good, here I thought I was just getting weak.”
***
The Desperado stared at the two enemies coldly. Genetic scans showed that one was a metahuman, the other a normal human in a powerful armor suit. Simultaneous structural scans showed no outward flaws in the suit that could be exploited. Desperado was at a loss to discern the inner workings of the suit, though he had figured out the beams that he had been hit with. A strain even for his positronic brain, since he had not been able to absorb the beam and analyze it fully.
It didn’t help that his internal systems were undergoing a type of purge, attempting to remove all traces of the virus from itself. While it was doing this, his external systems were forced to do anything it could to protect him from being, well, destroyed.
Virus Elimination 92% complete.
***
“Why is it just standing there?” Iron Man asked.
“What, you think I know?” Peter responded. Admittedly, from what Iron Man had told him about this android, Peter could only guess that it simply responded to hostile stimuli in a defensive manner. It had probably perceived him, Iron Man, and the police chopper all as threats. That would answer why it was standing in a defensive posture awaiting the two of them to make a move. Now that Spider-man thought about it, the android had only attacked when the chopper had gotten near him, Peter himself had gotten close to him, and Iron Man had attacked him or looked like he was going to attack him.
“Don’t do anything. It’ll only attack if it thinks you’re threatening it.”
“Are you sure?” Iron Man asked.
“Pretty sure, considering we’ve just been standing here and it hasn’t done anything. All of a sudden, the android dropped its defensive stance completely and fell to the ground, apparently unconscious. Its eyes closed briefly, and it stood up.
“Where am I?” It said, looking around in confusion. It looked at Spider-man and Iron Man, and did a double take. “Spider-man? Iron Man? Holy son of a mongoose!”
“Well, that’s got to be a first for me,” Iron Man said.
***
Jacob had no idea how he had gotten to New York. The last thing he remembered was being in that scientist’s lab getting his new arm. He looked at his left arm. From the shoulder down it was completely robotic. But now, according to Iron Man, so was the rest of him. Somehow, he knew it as soon as he had woken up in New York. His mind was processing new information at such an incredible rate now. And his body was moving so smoothly.
“So let me get this straight. I’ve been running around New York being chased by the police and you two?” he asked. The last thing was the scientist grafting his arm onto him. It had been a stupid decision on his part to even accept the evil mutant’s help, but he had been so emotionally vulnerable at the time, even Apocalypse’s help was a welcome thing. He distinctly remembered the scientist, whose name he couldn’t remember, fusing the arm’s connections to his nerves, and then...
The virus invaded, permeating his entire being, attempting to take over him and make him a slave. Jacob’s mutant powers, however, would not give up the fight. When the virus reached and transformed his brain, Jacob’s powers retaliated, mutating the virus to enable Jacob full control over himself and retaining basically his soul, or at least everything that comprised such a commodity. Memories, emotions, personality. But the virus wasn’t completely destroyed in this manner, he needed time to purge it from his system completely. He broke out of the lab and made a hasty escape, his new android brain working overtime to figure out just how to pull it off.
His new positronic brain had created a backup log of the event, he simply needed something to trigger the memory.
Iron Man had left the scene, and Jacob and Spider-man had gone to a secluded area where they could talk in private. “Yep, pretty much,” Spider-man replied. “So, let me get this straight. You were a mutant with the X-men, then you lost your arm, then a robot guy made you a new arm, and you went nuts until about fifteen minutes ago?”
“To say it in your own words, yep, pretty much. But now I remember why I went nuts. My new arm,” he raised it up for emphasis, pausing a bit as he reflected on its new, shiny, yet grotesque appearance. It looked...sinister, “came fully packaged with adaptable technology, chrome finish, and a techno-organic virus which tried to turn me into some type of mindless slave robot drone. Lucky for me, my powers kicked in and prevented that from happening. Even though the virus was in my system, my brain,” he tapped himself on the temple, “was still mine, and I could still control my body. The thing is that my brain was kinda working on autopilot, suppressing my consciousness til the virus was completely out of my system. I guess it attacked you and Iron Man because it thought you were a threat to my existence.”
“I guessed as much,” the web-slinger replied. “So...now what’re you going to do? Go back to the X-men?”
“I can’t go back to them. Not under the circumstances by which I left.” He stopped and looked over the city with an awed expression. “That was a lot of big words for a piece of trailer park trash from Arizona.”
Spider-man snickered. “I guess there are some perks to having an android brain. You can get a lot of nerd babes to flock around you if you keep talking like that.”
“The term ‘nerd babe’ is an oxymoron.” Desi replied. He sighed. “New York, New York. So nice, they named it twice. Why not? I’m sure you and Iron Man and Daredevil and the Punisher and the Fantastic Four and the Avengers and, of course, the X-men could use some help protecting this city, though I doubt I’ll be very effective if Magneto ever comes back, what with the whole computer for a brain thing ‘n all.”
“He’ll hit you with an electromagnetic wave and you’ll start singing ‘Pomp and Circumstance.’”
“I wasn’t aware there were any words to ‘Pomp and Circumstance.’”
“You’ll make them up as you go.”
Desperado laughed. “What a great super-hero I’m gonna turn out to be. I can be taken out by a fridge magnet. Wouldn’t even have to be an evil fridge magnet.”
He looked out from their ledge, looking over the vast city that was New York. Thousands of immigrants had found a second chance within this city. Maybe now he could, too.
“You know,” Spider-man interjected, “I never did catch your name.”
“Desperado.”
“I mean your real name. Not like you’re wearing a mask right now.”
“My human...heh, mutant...name was Jacob, but since I’m no longer a mutant, I’m just the Desperado.” He stood up on the narrow ledge, drawing one of his twin pistols, which he now remembered stealing from that scientist’s lab (they had apparently been meant for him, anyway), flipping it several times in rapid succession in the manner of true gunhands, and aiming it over the city.
“If you think this country’s bad off now, just wait til I get through with it.”
Note (please read): Before I begin, I must explain the character whom I have created and give his backstory a bit. Jacob Allan Merando was at one time a mutant with the ability to self-evolve, to adapt himself to repeated stimuli. Before he reached puberty, his body adapted itself within the limits of human capacity to his violent lifestyle, granting him a natural talent at fighting. Nowhere near as developed as someone such as Nick Fury, but he definitely had superior talent, about par with someone like Spider-man. Once puberty was reached, though, his powers accelerated and mutated into adapting his body beyond normal human capacity, and he eventually developed the ability to absorb and dissipate kinetic energy from most sources, which later developed into the absorption and conversion of kinetic energy into muscle density, granting him increased strength and resistance to injury from other sources, much in the way of Sebastien Shaw, only different in its own ways. After killing 35 people in a fit of anti-mutant-hysteria-induced rage, he went on the run, eventually being taken in by Professor Xavier, who sensed that, despite the man’s anger-issues, he had a good heart. He was made a part of the Second X-men team with Storm, Wolverine, and that lot, and fought with them on many occasions, taking the codename Desperado. One such occasion being the attack on Cassidy Keep by Black Tom and the Juggernaut. Since his powers gave him a sort of buffer against the Juggernaut’s amazing might, he was very helpful in keeping the other members of the team alive. That is, until the Juggernaut ripped his arm off and threw him off the cliff, where he would have plunged into the cliff had Storm not saved him. He became a bit despondent after that, and, at Wolverine’s attempts to get him out of his emotional slump, he responded, “Logan, I’ve always needed two arms. One to fight with and one to hold me back. Now that I’ve only got one, I can only use it for one or the other. And since my powers are way too dangerous for me to fight with and not hold back, I guess I’m just gonna have ta say goodbye.” With that, the troubled man left the X-men, only to be found by the mutant Apocalypse, who wad disguised as a robotics scientist and offered to give the man back his arm. However, there was a catch. Apocalypse’s arm infected Desi with a Techno-organic virus, in the hopes of using the man’s self-evolution powers to create a new type of robotic soldier for his army, one that could not only adapt itself to the enemy’s tactics but also have a constant power supply, as the virus would enhance Jacob’s absorption powers. This fanfic deals with the aftermath of that plan.
Peter Parker’s Spider Sense had alerted him to the mysterious figure that was leaping rooftops just below him. Even had the web-slinging superhero not had the enhanced senses, a being in a white duster and cowboy hat jumping rooftops would have still caught his attention. Also, the fact that a police chopper had had a spotlight on him before the figure had shot it down sort of helped out in the attention-grabbing department.
Spider-man had no idea just what type of pistol the man had used to take down the chopper, but he had done it with a single shot. A very impressive feat. As Peter swung above him, trying to get a lead on the man before dropping in on him, he couldn’t help but wonder just who or what this man was. More than likely was the “what” scenario, especially in New York City. Whatever he was, he was keeping a slight lead on Peter, another impressive feat. However, the Wall-crawler was gaining on him. A few more swings and...
Without warning, the man pointed his pistol directly at Parker without even glancing back and fired, taking out his webline and sending him toppling down to the roof below him. With a graceful double flip, he managed to land on his feet, assuming his usual all-fours stance. When he looked up, on the rooftop just across the alley, cold blue eyes stared back at him, a pistol gleaming white in the moonlight. The man fired, Peter’s Spider Sense alerting him to the bullet and giving him plenty of time to leap out of the way, only to have the white-cloaked man fire at him in mid-air with no time for Spider-man to give a snappy comeback, Peter’s Spider Sense alerting him once again but his agility not quite enough to dodge it completely, his suit getting torn at mid-ribcage and his skin getting grazed.
The man stopped firing, and Peter landed once again, this time getting the drop on the white-cloaked man by using a zipline to remove the man’s gun from his hand.
“OK, no more of that, thank you very much. I just got this suit back from the cleaner’s. Do you have any idea how much it costs to get this thing fixed?”
Before Peter had even finished his last sentence, the man started running, this time towards Peter, jumping easily over the alley and landing with one knee down only a few feet in front of Peter. Now Spider-man had a better look at the man who was causing all this attention grabbing. Long black hair, about shoulder length, piercing blue eyes, and underneath the white duster...a black and white suit in the same color pattern as Peter’s own red-and-blue suit, only without the webs and the spider. He was also wearing a golden belt, with two holsters on each...
Wait...
The man drew another pistol from the left holster and aimed it at Peter’s head. He noticed something odd about the man’s left hand. The right one was completely human at first appearance, but the left one was robotic.
“Oh, great, just what I need, a bullet in the head.”
All of a sudden, a flash of red-and-gold flew right in front of Spider-man, removing the white-clad man from his field of vision. Following the streak to his right, he saw a familiar and welcome face...err...suit of armor—Iron Man.
***
Tony Stark held the white-clad man what he thought was a tight grip, hovering over the street to make sure that the man wouldn’t think about breaking free.. However, without even blinking, the man broke free from Iron Man’s grasp and fell down towards the ground, about a twenty story drop. Tony jetted down after him, but the man was falling much faster than a normal human would. The man landed on the ground with a very loud crash, somehow staying on his feet and managing to crack the asphalt beneath him. An oncoming car was speeding toward him, and, before Tony had a chance to move him out of the way, it crashed into him. Literally, crashed into him. The car was totalled, but the man had not moved an inch from the collision.
Tony landed on the ground a few yards away from the crash site, followed shortly by Spider-man.
“Exactly what is he, now?” Tony asked.
“Not sure, all I know is he’s fast and he ripped my costume.”
“That’s why I wear armor.”
While they were talking, the man had removed himself from the remnants of the car and removed his duster, which was now very ripped. Tony watched as he turned towards them and assumed a fighting stance. Tony assumed an attack posture himself.
“You get the driver out of the car, I’ll hold him off.”
“Right.”
The man charged at the two of them, moving at an incredible pace. Just on a hunch, Tony used his suit’s onboard sensors to scan the man as he began defending himself from the man’s onslaught. He was surprised at the man’s strength, but not so much so when his scan came back to him. He threw the man against a nearby building, sending him through the wall and hopefully delaying him a bit.
His scan had come back with startling results. This “man” wasn’t a man at all, but a techno-organic android. And a powerful one at that. His power levels were quite high, almost as high as Iron Man’s suit. The android charged again, and Iron Man used his repulsor rays to repel him back again. Meanwhile, Spider-man had removed the driver from the car and handed him over to an Emergency Response man.
The android looked at Iron Man quizzically, or, more precisely, at Iron Man’s outstretched palms. Tony was ready for another assault. The android stood up, and stretched out his robotic palm, the contours of his palm changing right before Tony’s eyes, matching...matching Tony’s repulsor ray emitters.
A blast of green energy flowed from the android’s hand, sending Tony flying backwards into another building. “I can’t believe it,” he said. “He’s analyzed my technology and adapted it into his system. It would be remarkable if it weren’t trying to kill me.”
A webline appeared alongside the android’s head, with a flying Spider-man close behind it, a direct drop kick coming from the web-slinging hero to the android’s head. The android took the kick as if it were nothing, and Tony noticed a significant rise in its power level. It retaliated by grabbing Spider-man’s leg and flinging him towards Tony, who reacted immediately by catching the man.
“This doesn’t look good. It seems that it absorbed the force of your kick and used it to increase its power.”
“Oh, good, here I thought I was just getting weak.”
***
The Desperado stared at the two enemies coldly. Genetic scans showed that one was a metahuman, the other a normal human in a powerful armor suit. Simultaneous structural scans showed no outward flaws in the suit that could be exploited. Desperado was at a loss to discern the inner workings of the suit, though he had figured out the beams that he had been hit with. A strain even for his positronic brain, since he had not been able to absorb the beam and analyze it fully.
It didn’t help that his internal systems were undergoing a type of purge, attempting to remove all traces of the virus from itself. While it was doing this, his external systems were forced to do anything it could to protect him from being, well, destroyed.
Virus Elimination 92% complete.
***
“Why is it just standing there?” Iron Man asked.
“What, you think I know?” Peter responded. Admittedly, from what Iron Man had told him about this android, Peter could only guess that it simply responded to hostile stimuli in a defensive manner. It had probably perceived him, Iron Man, and the police chopper all as threats. That would answer why it was standing in a defensive posture awaiting the two of them to make a move. Now that Spider-man thought about it, the android had only attacked when the chopper had gotten near him, Peter himself had gotten close to him, and Iron Man had attacked him or looked like he was going to attack him.
“Don’t do anything. It’ll only attack if it thinks you’re threatening it.”
“Are you sure?” Iron Man asked.
“Pretty sure, considering we’ve just been standing here and it hasn’t done anything. All of a sudden, the android dropped its defensive stance completely and fell to the ground, apparently unconscious. Its eyes closed briefly, and it stood up.
“Where am I?” It said, looking around in confusion. It looked at Spider-man and Iron Man, and did a double take. “Spider-man? Iron Man? Holy son of a mongoose!”
“Well, that’s got to be a first for me,” Iron Man said.
***
Jacob had no idea how he had gotten to New York. The last thing he remembered was being in that scientist’s lab getting his new arm. He looked at his left arm. From the shoulder down it was completely robotic. But now, according to Iron Man, so was the rest of him. Somehow, he knew it as soon as he had woken up in New York. His mind was processing new information at such an incredible rate now. And his body was moving so smoothly.
“So let me get this straight. I’ve been running around New York being chased by the police and you two?” he asked. The last thing was the scientist grafting his arm onto him. It had been a stupid decision on his part to even accept the evil mutant’s help, but he had been so emotionally vulnerable at the time, even Apocalypse’s help was a welcome thing. He distinctly remembered the scientist, whose name he couldn’t remember, fusing the arm’s connections to his nerves, and then...
The virus invaded, permeating his entire being, attempting to take over him and make him a slave. Jacob’s mutant powers, however, would not give up the fight. When the virus reached and transformed his brain, Jacob’s powers retaliated, mutating the virus to enable Jacob full control over himself and retaining basically his soul, or at least everything that comprised such a commodity. Memories, emotions, personality. But the virus wasn’t completely destroyed in this manner, he needed time to purge it from his system completely. He broke out of the lab and made a hasty escape, his new android brain working overtime to figure out just how to pull it off.
His new positronic brain had created a backup log of the event, he simply needed something to trigger the memory.
Iron Man had left the scene, and Jacob and Spider-man had gone to a secluded area where they could talk in private. “Yep, pretty much,” Spider-man replied. “So, let me get this straight. You were a mutant with the X-men, then you lost your arm, then a robot guy made you a new arm, and you went nuts until about fifteen minutes ago?”
“To say it in your own words, yep, pretty much. But now I remember why I went nuts. My new arm,” he raised it up for emphasis, pausing a bit as he reflected on its new, shiny, yet grotesque appearance. It looked...sinister, “came fully packaged with adaptable technology, chrome finish, and a techno-organic virus which tried to turn me into some type of mindless slave robot drone. Lucky for me, my powers kicked in and prevented that from happening. Even though the virus was in my system, my brain,” he tapped himself on the temple, “was still mine, and I could still control my body. The thing is that my brain was kinda working on autopilot, suppressing my consciousness til the virus was completely out of my system. I guess it attacked you and Iron Man because it thought you were a threat to my existence.”
“I guessed as much,” the web-slinger replied. “So...now what’re you going to do? Go back to the X-men?”
“I can’t go back to them. Not under the circumstances by which I left.” He stopped and looked over the city with an awed expression. “That was a lot of big words for a piece of trailer park trash from Arizona.”
Spider-man snickered. “I guess there are some perks to having an android brain. You can get a lot of nerd babes to flock around you if you keep talking like that.”
“The term ‘nerd babe’ is an oxymoron.” Desi replied. He sighed. “New York, New York. So nice, they named it twice. Why not? I’m sure you and Iron Man and Daredevil and the Punisher and the Fantastic Four and the Avengers and, of course, the X-men could use some help protecting this city, though I doubt I’ll be very effective if Magneto ever comes back, what with the whole computer for a brain thing ‘n all.”
“He’ll hit you with an electromagnetic wave and you’ll start singing ‘Pomp and Circumstance.’”
“I wasn’t aware there were any words to ‘Pomp and Circumstance.’”
“You’ll make them up as you go.”
Desperado laughed. “What a great super-hero I’m gonna turn out to be. I can be taken out by a fridge magnet. Wouldn’t even have to be an evil fridge magnet.”
He looked out from their ledge, looking over the vast city that was New York. Thousands of immigrants had found a second chance within this city. Maybe now he could, too.
“You know,” Spider-man interjected, “I never did catch your name.”
“Desperado.”
“I mean your real name. Not like you’re wearing a mask right now.”
“My human...heh, mutant...name was Jacob, but since I’m no longer a mutant, I’m just the Desperado.” He stood up on the narrow ledge, drawing one of his twin pistols, which he now remembered stealing from that scientist’s lab (they had apparently been meant for him, anyway), flipping it several times in rapid succession in the manner of true gunhands, and aiming it over the city.
“If you think this country’s bad off now, just wait til I get through with it.”
