Marvel: Redux #0

"LOOK OUT!"

"Wha-"


BLAM!

The bullet tore through his flesh. Steve Rogers fell to the ground and America, regardless of which side they chose to support in the Civil War, fell to their knees.

"SNIPER!"

"AAAIIIIEEE!"

"GET OUT OF THE WAY!"

Sharon Carter, her heart feeling ripped in half as she saw Steve Rogers, Captain America, fall from the sniper's bullet ran forward.

BLAM!

She took her last breath.

"Sh-Sharon?," Captain America mumbled through blood stained lips as the crowd around him scrambled in a frenzy for safety trying to avoid what could be the mysterious assassin's next shot.

Her lifeless eyes stared at him, face to face. She had died taking the second bullet to save his life.

Captain America closed his eyes. All went black. Nothing would ever be the same again.

• Marvel: Redux #0
  "The Ripple Effect"
  Written by Craig DeBoard

"How is he?" Tony Stark asked walking into the sterile hospital room, and plopping down in a nearby chair.

"Same as the last six months. No change. Doctors still say he could wake from the coma anytime," the figure near the window said in cold tones as the sun shining in shadowed him from proper view.

"Bucky, listen we--"

"I don't want to hear it, Tony! This is your fault! Things were fine until you turned into some control freak. Was the world in danger constantly? Sure. Whether it was Galactus or Thanos or Magneto or whoever, there was always a threat. But there was always Steve Rogers too! And Sharon Carter! There were always people there to protect the world. And you decided to throw that all away because some C-list villain blew up a school?! Where were you when Genosha was devastated and countless were killed? Were were you when Frank Castle was shredding through entire families with an M-60? Where were you when when Dr. Doom--"

"Enough!" Tony yelled angry, tears welling up in his eyes.

The grief had been hard on Tony Stark. His adventures as Ironman with Captain America were the stuff of legend. They had become brothers-in-arms over the years. Tony didn't want any of this. He didn't want Sharon Carter to be dead. He didn't want Steve Rogers to be lying in a coma while every superhero out there waited not knowing what direction to go in.

The Registration Act was still in effect legally, but practically speaking, no one was enforcing it. Too much blood had been spilled already. It was just a matter of time before the bill was completely removed and the Act would be no more.

"How dare you," Tony said softly as he approached Bucky Barnes, the one time sidekick of Captain America, now known as the Winter Soldier, "How dare you judge me. Do you think I haven't done enough of that myself already? Do you think I don't know the horror that I've caused with all of this? It's all I can do every night to not go out and....to just..."

Tony fell to his knees weeping in sorrow.

Bucky stared at him silently, his face emotionless like stone.

"You have five minutes, Stark. After that you leave here, and never come back. You don't get to be here. Ever. Say goodbye to Steve and disappear before I find you," Bucky said. He then left the room, with Tony on his knees.


****

THWIPP!

The web fluid stuck to the brick wall. Spider-Man aimed again.

THWIPP!

"What's the point?" he said softly walking toward a garbage can and hopping onto it, in the dirty grime filled alley, "I should just toss the mask away, and forget all of this. Heroes aren't out heroing any more. Is heroing a word? I'm pretty sure it's a word. Villains aren't out villaining even. Is that a word?"

"Villaining is definitively, not a word," his companion said leaning against the wall across the alley from Spider-Man.

"See we've even lost our words," Spider-Man retorted.

Matt Murdock smiled slightly. There wasn't much that could make the fabled 'Man Without Fear' smiles these days. But Peter Parker's attempt at levity was always something that showed that maybe the world had a little hope left at least.

"I agree, we've lost a lot" Daredevil, Matt's alter-ego, said. "It's odd. For as long as I can remember there's been some lunatic with crazy armor or eye beams or wings or something trying to turn New York, hell, the world into their own private playground. The silence, as they say, is deafening," he finished.

"Aren't the witty one-liners supposed to be my gig, not the blind guy's?" Spider-Man asked.

"Not when you're doing such a bad job," Daredevil replied.

"Do you think things will ever--" Spider-Man started but was cut off.

"HELP!!!! IT'S RHINO!!!"

"Yep," Daredevil replied not needing to hear the rest of the question.


****

"Again!" Cyclops barked.

Scott Summers, leader of the X-Men, walked back and forth watching his students on the island of Utopia train with each other.

Things had been too quiet, for too long. Scott knew it was only a matter of time before something big came along. The failed assassination of Captain America and death of Sharon Carter had shocked the country.

"And the country is now coming out of that shell-shock," Emma Frost commenting as she approached Cyclops, finishing his thought.

"Which means things will be going back to the way they were before," Cyclops replied, out loud.

"With any luck, no. We've already lost too many of us between the destruction in Genosha and with the Decimation of the mutant population," Emma replied.


****

"We've already lost too many of us. Something has to change. I promise you, your sacrifice won't be in vain soldier," the man said walking away from the grave site of Sharon Carter.

"Nick, what you're planning is insane. The public thinks--"

"The public thinks I'm wanted. The public thinks I'm dead. The public thinks I'm a damn robot sometimes too, Natasha," Nick Fury said to the Black Widow as they walked from the grave site toward a black sedan parked nearby.

"Maybe it's time the public stops thinking and instead starts knowing something for once."

"You're insane," Widow said wrapping her arms gently around Nick Fury's neck, then softly kissing him.

He pulled her in closer. The two lovers knew if what they had planned, failed, it may possibly be the last secret embrace they would ever have.

Nick slowly pulled away and looked into Widow's eyes.

"Hail Hydra," he said smiling.

To Be Continued in all of the Marvel: Redux titles!!!