nextgenerationmarvel

Joe hit the rooftop and rolled immediately to spread out the impact, glad that his reinforced boots absorbed the shock better than his old ones. He came up from the roll and kept running, his black trenchcoat moving behind him like a cape. The scents and sounds of New York were so familiar, so inviting that the cold night didn't seem foreboding at all. In fact, it was so inviting that he'd almost wished he'd come home sooner.

Soon, he'd have to stop by the mansion and see some of his other friends. Sammy brought him home but there were others who needed to know he was back. Now that he knew Bruce was running the Avengers, he had to pay his respects and find out where things stood between them. They'd last spoken a few years ago and the conversation hadn't ended well. Since then, it seemed that the Captain had taken a shine to Bruce and really liked him. Secretly, Joe had always wondered if his father wished he was more like his friend rather than a drifter, but Joe never brought it up because he wasn't sure he wanted to hear the answer.

A scream split the night air and Joe immediately adjusted his position due west, in the direction of the sound. One block over in a dark alley, three thugs had cornered a young woman and were making lewd gestures at her in concert with verbal description of what they'd like to do to her. Joe didn't like guys who harassed women and so he leaped down into the alley, coming up behind the group.

"Look guys, I'm gonna make this real simple. Let the nice lady go and I'll only break a hand, jaw or leg before you go to jail." Joe said, pointing at each man respectively as he indicated which limb they'd get broken.

"Make this a fight and all of you will spend six months in the hospital and THEN go to jail. Your choice." he said, turning slightly so that he wasn't facing any of them directly.

Two of the thugs chose to try circling him so that he couldn't get away while the third guy grabbed the woman and held a knife to her.

"And which super-chump are you supposed to be?" the thug asked.

Joe sighed and waited for them to attack.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Bruce was on his way back into the city, heading in the general direction of the Mansion. He'd flown down to New Jersey, to surprise his girlfriend, only to find the former power plant deserted. A quick cell call had revealed that Angel had been attacked and they'd gone to the hospital. Not wanting to feel like an intruder, especially with so much of the girl's friends and family there, he'd opted to head back to the Manhattan.

He cut a glowing streak across the sky, skimming a little low over some of the rooftops. Something in one of the alleys, however, caught his attention.

New local vigilante? He wasn't quite sure what was going on there... But he definitely didn't like the woman being grabbed thing.

He paused in his flight, high enough in the air that if they didn't look up, they wouldn't probably notice. Had to play this carefully...

The first guy screamed and came at Nomad with a wild punch. He was sloppy and undisciplined, though; Joe batted the arm aside even as the thug's momentum carried him forward.

He responded with a vicious elbow to the jaw that echoed with the satisfying sound of a wet crack in the alleyway. The thug fell down clutching his jaw and yelling something about it being broken.

"Jaw."

The second man was already coming at his back and managed to get two meaty arms wrapped around the young super-soldier. Joe drove the back of his head in the man's nose, once, twice, three times and felt the ruffian's arms loosen. Nomad quickly grasped his attacker's left arm and pulled, flipping him over his shoulder and onto the hard pavement.

Joe twisted once, twice and then pulled backward at the shoulder joint.

Crack, Crack, POP!

The second thug howled in anguish, clutching his shoulder.

"Arm."

And now Nomad turned to the last thug who held the knife on the woman. There was fear in the man's eyes, but he wasn't releasing his grip.

"Come any closer and she's dead! I swear I'll kill her!" he yelled.

Joe wished he had his dad's shield right now, but he didn't. What he did have was a knife, which he drew from inside his coat.

"If you hurt her, you're done. Let her go and we can settle this." Joe said. He didn't have any real way to get the guy to let her go but he hoped his dad's patented stare would get the man to doubt himself long enough to strike.

All right, he saw where this was going. He dropped out of the sky and fired a tightly focused, narrow blast of photonic energy from his hand, blasting the knife out of the guy's hand.

With his other hand, he put a bubble of solid energy around the woman. "I'd listen him," he said.

Joe saw the energy blast and then the energy bubble around the woman and looked up at the newcomer. Great, one of New York's other heroes decided to show up once things were handled.

The thug looked between Nomad and the other guy and backed up against the wall.

"Okay, I give up! Take me to jail, please!" he begged.

Joe walked over and punched him out, knocking him to the floor.

Then he looked up at the new guy...that he was starting to think he knew.

"I had it, you know. You didn't have to jump in. But thanks." he said.

"I could tell," he said, and meant it.

Okay, he definitely knew that voice and...

Bruce's eyes widened behind his mask.

"...Joe?"

Yeah, just like he thought.

"You wanna let the lady go so we can talk this out? By the way, it's Nomad now." he said.

"Oh, geeze, right," Bruce said, dissolving the force field. "You all right, miss?"

"I-I'm okay." she said, smiling at Bruce, then Joe. She waves at both of them and then leaves, pulling out her cellphone to call the cops.

Joe watches her go and then looks up at Bruce.

"I see you haven't lost your flair for making an entrance." he said with a smirk.

"How have you been?"

Bruce grinned. "Hey, you gotta some a sense of style in this game."

"I've had better stretches, but it mostly worked out in the end," he said.

"Good to hear. I heard you're leading the Avengers now. Congratulations, man. Good on you." Joe said.

"I would have called but...I lost my phone and most of the numbers I had. Yeah. How's the team?"

"Thanks, man," Bruce said. "Though some days, I'm not sure that's a congratulations job."

He shook his head ruefully. "Well, I had to force Vincent to take a leave of absence, I'm not entirely sure Marcus is going to stick around, and if I'd have been paying better attention, our fight against the Frost Giants probably wouldn't have gone quite so badly."

Joe didn't like the sound of that.

"Sounds like you've got some loose cannons on your team. Want some help with the evaluations? You need to know whose on your side and who isn't before you go into another major situation." Joe sad.

Bruce nodded. "I'd like that," he said. "I thought I had a pretty good head for this, but it's turned into herding cats."

"When should I stop by the mansion?" Joe asked, wondering for the first time who might be there and feeling a little wary suddenly.

"Whenever you've got the time," Bruce said. "Bit of a lull in the chaos right now."

"I've got time tonight if you do or I can stop by tomorrow." Joe said.

"It'll get better, Bruce. My dad said that you're a good leader. You'll make it out of this whole thing if you guys don't lose sight of the common people, like that woman we saved." he said.

"Tonight's good," Bruce agreed.

He nodded, smiling just a little at the by proxy praise. "We've gotten mostly involved with large scale stuff lately. Tend to forget about working on the street level."

"It's easy to do, man, but...those are the people we do it for at the end of the day. I'm not telling you how to do your job; it's just something that got drilled into me in the last few years." Joe told him.

"We can head there now, if you want. I've got nothin' else goin' on for the moment and, if New York is how I remember it, we've probably got some other costumes around here who can do some patrol too."

"I'll meet you there. Need to get my bike." Joe told him.

Edited 2012-11-09 05:11 (UTC)

Bruce nodded, and lifted a little off the ground. "Sounds good. I'll see you there."

Homecoming

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