Tracy Frost is contained within her panel, with walls on all four sides. She’s drawn in thick black pencil lines, accentuating her overly defined yet feminine arms, her muscular yet succulent thighs. Her humongous breasts are hardly holstered by the fire-engine-red swimsuit colored over them, and her nipples are so erect they look as if they are trying to burrow their way off of the page.
She’s at the beach, though no grains of sand are visible, only a smooth covering of beige beneath her flip flops. Over the ocean rests a sunset, pink clouds partially obscuring a fiery orange sun.
A puffy thought bubble rises from and floats above Tracy’s head containing the text: There’s no excuse for what I’ve done, but I’ve still got to find Steve. I should’ve told him months ago how I feel, but how do you admit weakness to your lover when he’s he Captain America?
Tracy had felt a distance building over the passing months, Steve always running off to lead the Avengers into action, as well as embarking on his own crusades to end the Red Skull’s reign of terror. So she’d asked him to take a break. At first he was chilly toward the idea, citing the importance of his work as an excuse to remain on duty. “Besides,” he’d told her, “if my enemies know I’m relaxing they’ll try to take me by surprise. I can’t just walk away.”
But Tracy eventually came up with a plan, one that worked perfectly. Sharon Carter, Steve’s longtime partner, gunned him down with blanks on the steps of the Federal Courthouse in New York City, where all could see. Enough fake bullets were fired to leave no doubt about his demise. After his phony funeral, Steve had colored his blonde hair brown, had the beginning stubble of a beard shaded in, and replaced his bright tights with black jeans and a T-shirt. Tracy couldn’t have been more pleased that he was out of the hero game.
But she didn’t know that he’d agreed to remain on-call at Avengers’ Tower, and his communication radio never stopped beeping. The Hulk went on rampage after rampage, Mister Fantastic had accidentally transported his entire family to the Negative Zone, Dr. Doom fired up his Latverian robot army. Steve ran to the rescue each time, tying a handkerchief around his face on his way out the door, leaving Tracy to await his return, alone.
I thought if I got him out of New York things would be different.
Trudging from panel to panel over the cooling sand, Tracy envisions their Fantasy Beach vacation going well. A split panel appears by the surf, depicting her and Steve walking hand in hand on the beach, then together beneath the covers of their hotel’s bed, his com radio silent all the while. Then the panel fades, because none of it had come to pass. Even on Fantasy Beach, the X-Men needed help foiling the abduction of the last mutant baby, the Punisher wasted mobsters twenty at a time, the calls kept coming and coming.
Tracy steps through to the next panel, a downsized square in the bottom right corner of the page, and comes upon Steve’s sodden, star-spangled self portrait towel clumped with sand. (He loathes self-indulgence, so Tracy bought it for him as a gag gift, though his sense of humor is so dry that he didn’t get the joke.) It’s in the same place he’d left it that morning, when he’d taken off to help Spider-Man take on the Rhino, and she’d taken off to . .
Ugh. I don’t want to think about it. But I can’t imagine it took Steve and Peter more than an hour to stomp the Rhino, and that was at daybreak. He’s got to be back.
In the next panel, a rectangle spanning the top of the page, the sun is erased, the sky is colored black and bespeckled with tiny flashing stars. Tracy hugs her body, the chilly night air making tiny, round goose bumps form on her extremities. She shakes and beats the sand from the towel and wraps it around herself. Although it’s damp and cool on her shoulders, it keeps the breeze from penetrating to her body. She then scans the beach. Only couples making out. But Steve’s close; he’s gotta be.
Tracy steps from the abandoned beach panel to the full page spread of the busy boardwalk. Shops line both sides of the page, awnings and marquees glow with florescent signs advertising gaudy merchandise–T shirts, hats, towels, key chains, beaded necklaces. The smell of bread dough and hot dogs fills the air, signaled with squiggly lines emitting from vendors’ carts. Shadows of people pass, some hand in hand, others one in front of the other. None of the silhouettes match Steve’s.
But two panels to the left is a comic shop with no display window called The Marvel Network. It’s little more than a hallway with a red neon spider symbol hooked on the front of its glass door.
Steve can’t help reading his comic to see if they depict his adventures accurately, which, according to him, they never do. He had to have at least popped in.
On the next panel Tracy swings the door open into a cow bell, and a bright blue ‘DING!’ spreads over her head. Then it slams closed behind her with a red ‘BOOM!’ She does not believe what she sees. The owner of the shop is an albino, drawn with thick, broad outlines. His white hair pokes out here and there beneath a crooked, brown wig. A smooth-edged dialogue bubble emerges from his mouth with the text, “Velcome,” sharply written, and Tracy immediately goes on guard.
I don’t believe it.
She had heard rumors about the Red Skull planting Nazi clones in every neighborhood across America to hunt for Steve, figuring his funeral a ruse. She didn’t believe them. But luckily she’s in love with a super soldier who prepares for anything, and he’d taught her long ago how to spot Nazis by detecting the slightest hint of German in their accents. This one has more than a hint.
“Hello,” she answers with her own dialogue bubble. She doesn’t see Steve so she acts natural, casually mills around the panels, peruses the walls lined with comics. Flipping through the first issue of ‘Spider-Man Blue,’ Tracy realizes, The super hero world has gotten so . . . serious. Heroes hardly wear tights anymore, or punch out giant evil creatures. They fight their emotions, struggle internally. Sigh. I wonder if anyone besides Steve even reads comics anymore.
She asks the owner, who’s a few panels to the right bagging and boarding new issues, “How’s business?”
He shrugs his shoulders.
“OK then,” she mumbles, the words in her dialogue bubble tiny and hard to read.
She stands the book back up in its place, and the owner turns to her quickly snapping, “You best neizer tear nor mangle zat! I’ve just put zis place back togezer.”
“I’m sorry. What happened?”
“Zat is nien your interest.”
“Oh but I am interested. I was thinking that you may be able to help me find someone?”
This guy would’ve called for reinforcements had he knowingly seen Steve. But even I don’t recognize him sometimes with the beard and street clothes. Anyway, I’ll find out if he was here.
Before she had met Steve, Tracy was on the verge of supervillaindom. She went by the name Ms. Maleficent, and her powers allowed her to infer what men wanted simply by looking at them, most men anyway. She coaxed them into revealing bank account numbers, internet passwords, filled her pockets while fulfilling their every desire. That was until Captain America had come along. Tracy couldn’t fight him off, his mind too clouded with intense longing for world peace and freedom to detect any selfish desires. But he felt that rehabilitation was far more fitting than incarceration, and Tracy fully embraced his support. (Who wouldn’t embrace the super hero community’s golden boy?) After years of super hero training, she changed her name to Ms. Magnificent and fought crime as only she knew how. Syndicate head Fat Tony Romano, bank jobber Phil Baroni, and Al ‘the Cocaine King’ Flapper all thought they were aligning with a beautiful villainess, but instead ended up behind bars. Tracy’s arrest record swelled, so much so that the Avengers took notice, and they offered her a position. But Steve had asked for her allegiance first, as his lover. She accepted, and hadn’t used her powers since . . . until that morning.
And now I’ve got to use them again. I’ve got to find Steve.
It’s not hard to tell what the owner wants. She lets the towel slip slightly off of her shoulders, her tanned upper back barely peeking out. The owner sets the comics down, his eyes fixate on her upper body, a look Tracy knows. She drops the towel further, uncovering another patch of skin, but not too much. Through years of practice, she knows how to use the full potential of her power, how to reveal herself slowly without waste. She continues, “So you think you could help me?”
His eyes lock onto her chest. “Tell me vwat you vant to know.”
“Did a man about 30 or so stop in here today?”
“A lot of dem. My business is not az it seems. It is not wit young children.”
Tracy lets the beginnings of her breasts peek out. The owner mumbles to himself, “. . . Incredible . . ”
Leaning in, Tracy says, “He’d be tall, six-foot two, about two hundred and forty pounds, all muscle.” When he doesn’t look like he knows, Tracy continues, “Bearded, black shirt and jeans.”
“Zee angry man!?” the owner spits. His head grows ten sizes, dwarfing his body. It splits off into its own circular panel with ragged black outlines, taking up an entire half page. His eyes tighten, his mien changes to one of menace, and he demands in big red block letters, “You know ze angry man!?”
This isn’t good.
Every power has limits, and Tracy knows hers. She pulls the towel back onto her shoulders and takes a sideways stance, readying herself for a fight. Though, she keeps her hands down to still appear peaceful. She asks, “Do you know which way he went?”
The owner’s head shrinks back down in proportion to his body, the brown toupee flails and flops on his crown as he jumps into Tracy’s panel. She braces for a blow, but the owner instead pulls a crumpled comic from his back pocket. His accent thickens in bold black letters, “Ze did zis and more! Ze come into ze shop like a nize man, calm and ready to buy. Zen he see zis, and he change. Zis face become filled wiz rage. Ze scream, scream like animal and begin to rip and tear at ze merchandize. I yell for him to stop, zat ze would have to pay! Ze did not listen, and ze take off down ze walk. Will you pay? I call ze police again!”
Tracy reaches inside of her bikini top and comes up with a roll of bills. She fans out three green rectangles and holds them out. “Sorry for the trouble. But let’s not involve the authorities again.”
The owner grabs the three singles greedily and shoves them into his pocket. He looks satisfied, but Tracy is not. Having paid for the merchandise, she grabs the comic. “I believe I own this now,” she says, then steps two panels toward the door. “So which way did he go?”
“Ze went off zat way.” He points a white finger toward the larger part of the boardwalk spread.
The cowbell ‘DING!’s Tracy’s exit, and she can feel the owner hoping that the towel will still somehow wriggle its way off.
Jerk! I’m glad we didn’t have to mix it up, but he’s the least of my worries. This isn’t like Steve at all. Which is bad, because if he’s not like him and I’m not like me, then who the hell are we?
She eyes the comic, and when she works the mangled cover back to flat she stops in her tracks. The title stretching across the top is ‘Ms. Magnificent.’
Oh my God! One of my back issues.
The cover spread is a full splash of Tracy in full Ms. Magnificent garb, red tights with a black mask ringing her eyes, concealing her true identity.
Why would Steve want to destroy me? Did he see me with Antonio? It’s not like we were careful, walking together on the boardwalk, back to his room. Anyone in town could have seen us.
Tracy makes her way to the nearby boardwalk bench panel and sits down. It’s dark all around, the stars blotted out with black. The only bits of color are the towel hanging over her shoulders and the crumpled comic in her lap.
When things got a little tough, I went right back to my old ways. Damn it! But I’m still going to come clean, find Steve and tell him the truth. I just hope we can start over.
Tracy doesn’t know where to continue her search, but Steve has to be close, the shop owner still burning hot. Above her head, in larger than normal thought bubbles, different settings flash. First a SHIELD safe house, directors briefing Steve on another mission, then the local police station, Steve with masked goons in each hand. But both disappear, because neither of those scenarios were likely.
Then the front entrance of a tavern appears, and the bubble pops. That’s it!
A Short Time Later . . .
Steve’s not a drinker, but he’d been particularly interested in this place.
The Legionnaires Club was built to resemble Thor’s Asgardian castle, constructed with gray brick, complete with spires and battlements. The scarred wooden sign above the door reads, “Drink With the Gods,” a cheap reproduction of Thor’s hammer emblazoned on it.
It used to be famous for its collection of super hero memorabilia–heroes’ old costumes and mystic weapons–as well as its super hero clientele. Old timers like Sargent Rock and Nick Fury used to drink their days away while reminiscing about battles past. Steve had always wanted to see it, though he never made the time to stop.
Tracy wraps her back issue inside of the towel and slings the small package over one shoulder, bearing only the skimpy bikini as she approaches the door.
If Steve’s not here, there’s got to be at least one guy who’s seen him, and I’ll make sure he tells me everything fast.
She tests the solid door’s handle. It’s heavy, drawn with thick oak and wide black hinges. She takes a deep breath into her lungs, then pulls.
There are only three people inside, and none of them are Steve. There’s a gray, wrinkled knot of a woman sweeping the floor, crooked black lines are on her cheeks, revealing both her age and her temperament. There’s a thin, half-shirted, twenty-something girl bartending, who is much too attractive to be drawn behind the dingy bar. And there’s a scruffy, older albino on a barstool, his white hair poking out of his mesh-backed trucker’s hat. He’s playing with a broken picture frame on top of the bar, picking it up and setting it down. He smiles at Tracy and says, “Welcum’,” and had Tracy not been trained she would not have detected the strain in his voice to make hard consonants sound softer, straining to cover his natural inflections. She knew what he was.
Uh! How many Nazis clones are there? This place is supposed to be hero friendly.
But it doesn’t even look like a safe place for heroes. The memorabilia isn’t really memorabilia at all; it’s more like a shoddy collection of play things. There’s a Marvel Heroes pinball machine, lights flashing, but the flippers ‘clunk’ morosely, like it’s on the verge of conking out. Vintage posters of Earth’s greatest champions line the walls, the Hulk’s jade face contorting into a scream, Spider-Man swinging into action on a freshly spun web. But they’re all old, films of gray dust shading them, and some of the glass within the frames have cracked. No old costumes. No weapons. No nothing.
Tracy ignores the greeting and crosses the linoleum-floored panels. She plops herself down on the stool nearest to the old man, and sets the towel down in a lump next to her.
He wants me so bad he’s almost drooling. I’ll just ask him about Steve and go.
But before she can, the bartender prompts, “You drinkin’, honey, ‘cause you look like you’re only old enough to be a Coca-Cola girl.”
The comment catches Tracy off guard, but she returns, “And you look like you’d be smart enough to be working someplace classier.”
“This may be a dump, but it’s usually a dump where guys keep their hands to themselves.” She eyes the dogged old man. He shrugs his shoulders, eyes on Tracy’s breasts, and says, “I have to or Ethel’d kill me. Believe you me, bikini queen, I’d like to.”
I can tell, believe me I can.
The gray-haired woman lay the dustpan to the floor, sweeping what looks like glass into it, and barks, “Anytime you feel frisky enough to chase something younger you go right ahead, Buster.”
He shrugs again, and there’s a brief second of silence before Tracy tells the bartender, “Diet Coke.”
The girl sprays the dark soda into a glass and slides it down the bar, “One whole dollar, Bikini Queen.”
Tracy digs into her bikini top and says, “Are you bitter toward everyone, or just patrons?”
“It’s as general a grudge as they come. I hate everyone equally.”
“With that attitude it’s no wonder this place is empty.” Tracy lay two green rectangles on the bar and continues, “That and false advertising. Isn’t this place supposed to be where all the heroes hang out and brag about their old stuff?”
“Used to be, back when there were heroes.”
“Well I was hoping to run into Captain America. Any of you seen him?”
The bartender cocks her head, and Buster cuts in with a chuckle. “Why, you just missed him. Isn’t that right, Jenny?”
“Here we go!” Jenny picks up a draft glass and starts wiping it down.
Finally.
“Oh did I?” Tracy asks. “Well where is he?”
“Don’t worry, Bikini Queen.” Ethel mutters from the kitchen panel, letting the glass and junk slide off of the dustpan into a paper bag with a ‘POOF’ cloud rising from it. “You won’t have to pry the story out of him. Buster can’t shut the hell up about it.”
“I can’t get enough of you either, honey.” He turns to Tracy. “Communication. The key to any healthy relationship. Hope you’re as happy as we are thirty years later.”
“Gee, me too. So about the Captain,” Tracy urges, directing her chest toward Buster.
He smiles and says, “A youn’ kid, ‘bout your age, brown hair and a beard came in about an hour or so ago.” Tracy becomes a constant nodder. “I bought him a drink and we started talkin’. He was calm for a spell, until he asked me why the place was near empty. I told him it was time to get rid of all those old costumes and junk, ‘cause that’s what it turned out to be. There ain’t no heroes no more, and I’m not sure if there ever were. They’re all getting in touch with their feelings now, not punchin’ anyone out. He told me that I was wrong, that Captain America still punched out Nazis and yadda yadda. He wouldn’t shut up about it, worked himself into a fluster.” Buster stands up, adjusts his cap and stiffens his pasty chin. He splits off into his own panel, a triangular one with thick white edging, almost popping free of the page. He says, “So I told him to grow up. Nobody comes into this place no more because real heroes in tights willin’ to fight ain’t around no more. Captain America is dead, and he’s goin’ to stay dead, because nobody needs him. So that boy stood right up and put up his fists.” Buster puts up his fists and mimics his protagonist’s movements. “He says, ‘I’m Captain America, and I’m alive and yadda yadda.’ Why I nearly busted a gut laughin,’ cause if anyone could spot Captain America, I could.”
“Of course,” says Tracy.
“So I told him he was crazy, and then he actually wanted me to fight. Me! An old man. Why, I wanted to, boy did I ever. I’d have shown him a thin’ or two. But by that time Jenny was already dialin’ the police, right, Jenny?”
“If that’s the way you want to tell it, Buster,” she says listlessly, drying another glass.
Buster shrugs and continues, “Then that sonofabitch yapped at me that I know nothin’ about what’s really goin on. He punched my picture and hightailed it.” Buster’s panel dissipates, melding back into the barroom spread as he sits back down. He pulls a lithograph from the broken frame, tiny speckles of glass fall to the bar. It’s a shot of the Captain in full blue garb running toward onlookers, shield in hand, leading the entire Marvel cast of heroes into battle.
“That’s some story,” Tracy says, and asks, “Did the cops catch up with that nut?”
“Not that I heard. Hope they do soon. He did a job on Klaus’s comic shop, too.”
His name was Klaus. Go figure.
Tracy stands up.
“Hey, whereya goin’ Bikini Queen?” Buster asks, meeting her eyes for the first time.
“I just remembered I have to be somewhere.” She tries to grab Steve’s towel, but it slips off of the stool to the floor. Captain America’s colors and muscles spread out across the tiles, her back issue a mess next to it.
Buster’s pasty lips stretch across their own separate, square, close-up panel as his southern accent stiffens into thick German. “You know him don’ you?” he accuses. “Yez, you do.”
Jenny drops a glass and runs for the phone. She tells Tracy to, “Stay right there.” Tracy also hears Ethel add something as she scoops up her things, but all she makes out is, “You better run, Bikini Queen, ‘cause . . .” before the old voice trails off as she races through three panels out the door.
Does everyone in this town constantly call the cops?
Tracy jogs down the boardwalk spread, The Legionnaires Club’s panel shrinking smaller and smaller behind her until it blinks out of sight. She holds on tight to her back issue and wraps the towel around herself again, only this time with the Captain America print turned toward her body. She tries to act naturally.
I’m the only one out here in a bikini and towel. The cops’ll nail me in about ten seconds. This is all so crazy. In the comics, this is where things would start making sense.
Tracy’s head pounds, lines emanate from her head. She fans herself with her comic, taking in more oxygen. The boardwalk appears much different as she moves quickly from panel to panel. The lights above the clubs still flash with life, but the glances of passing people seem more suspicious, like they all know.
In the distance she sees the flashing white neon of The Lotus Club, a place she wanted to avoid. She’d met Antonio there two nights ago, when Steve got called back to Avenger’s Tower for urgent undertakings. Tracy had refused to sit alone in a motel room another night.
Another big thought bubble rises from her aching head, showing Antonio grinding against her backside on the dance floor. He was so sexy and charming, and I was so mad at Steve. The bubble pops, and Tracy immediately tries to wish away her night at the Lotus, her ever meeting Antonio, then turns her attention back to the moment.
The Lotus Club’s red outline accentuates its brick facade against the darkness of its half-page panel. A mass of people mill around front, smoking and talking. Tracy considers an alternate route, but ultimately decides: Maybe it’s best I hide in plain sight? She holds the towel tight to her breast with one hand, the other holds her comic and pumps at her side. A few people trace her steps through the panels, and Tracy feels the men lusting for her, but doesn’t know if the women are ready to turn her in.
The club well behind, she turns the corner off of the boardwalk page into a duller, less populated one. But just when she thinks she’s out of sight, she sees a dialogue bubble appear in her panel, its tiny speaker in the distance. “Tracy Frost!” It’s not Steve. She picks up her pace, her flip flops clap against the pavement. The footsteps close in. “Tracy Frost!”
They’ve got me! There are no alleyways or side streets to duck into!
“Leave me alone, whoever you are! I have mace!” she lies, the dialogue bubble big, the letters blocked and red for intimidation.
But she feels a hand on her arm, and by pure instinct she whips her body around, swinging her clenched comic book and fist into the head of her pursuer. “I don’t know where Steve is and if you want him you’ll just have to . . . Antonio?”
“I never knew you were so violent,” Antonio confesses from the ground, the letters in his dialogue bubble slanted sharply, signifying his slight Italian accent.
“I’m sorry.”
“No need to apologize. Just let me get my head back on straight.”
Antonio straightens himself up, and Tracy tightens the towel around her. “Well, this is a little awkward,” she says. “Why are you chasing me?”
“I saw you by The Lotus,” he answers, raising his bushy eyebrows. The outline of his face is drawn in very thin, sleek pencil. His tight body is colored in with a pink button up and a pair of khaki chinos. He tells Tracy, “And I hear the authorities are looking for a male vandal, as well as his accomplice, a big chested girl in a bikini.” Great description, Buster and Jenny. Antonio tells her, “I want to help.”
And he does. He’s so caring, his thoughts linger only minutely on my body, while the bulk of them concentrate on seeing me happy. But . . .
“Why do you care? We just met, and frankly I think things between the two of us just spiraled out of control.”
The panel view shifts to a zoomed-in overhead shot of the two of them, Antonio’s face is toward the sky, Tracy is clenching her comic to her chest. “Out of control?” Antonio pleads. “Tracy, we made love. You felt that strongly for me. I feel that strongly for you too. I take care of you. If you spend your life waiting for Steve, what life have you?”
Christ, Antonio, Steve and I are only having problems. Which worries me the most, because if I still love him, and I cheated on him just because we hit a few bumps, then am I becoming again what I hate the most?
“Antonio, I love Steve, and I’m going to fight to keep him. The whole time you and I were together, I thought about how much I love him, and from now on I’m going to stand by him.” Or at least try the best I can.
“So you sleep with me to know you love someone else?”
She searches for an answer, but it turns out she doesn’t need one, because a police cruiser whips around the corner into their panel, red and blues flashing as it ‘Skreee!’s to a halt. The officer unrolls his window and shines a spotlight on them. “That you, Tony?”
“Turn the light off, Jimmy.”
The officer does, then gives Tracy a good going over.
“That’s not the chicklet we just got rung about, is it, Tony? The nutty Captain’s accomplice?”
Antonio turns to her with a harsh gaze, but even through it Tracy can read his true intentions, and they crush her. Antonio turns to Officer Jimmy and replies flatly, “Actually Jimmy, she is an old acquaintance, and you have halted our reacquainting.”
Antonio . . .
Officer Jimmy, his eyeballs jutting out from his round, chunky face, leers at Tracy, grinning. “The description matches. Towel. Red bikini. Tight body.”
Tracy rolls her eyes. Sometimes I hate my power. She lets her comic drop to the gray pavement, then she slips the towel off of her left breast. Officer Jimmy is instantly entranced.
Antonio gives a long look to Tracy’s body before continuing, “Can we discuss this later? I really want to get her into something more comfortable.”
“Tony, I don’t know if I can let this one slide.”
“Even for old time’s sake?”
Tracy lets the towel fall completely off of her top half.
Officer Jimmy’s pupils fill with the outline of Tracy’s torso, the red bikini growing larger with every hanging second. Without blinking his dialogue bubble fills with sharp letters, “. . . you owe me big time for this one, Tony.”
“We will settle at The Lotus when your shift is over.”
“Two hours doesn’t give you much time with Miss America over here.”
“It’ll give me enough.”
“Ha!” And with that Officer Jimmy drives out of the panel.
Tracy immediately lets Antonio know, “You didn’t have to do that. I don’t know if I would’ve.”
“I know,” he says, then turns around and steps out of their panel.
“Antonio wait.” She starts to cry, baby blue tear droplets form at the corners of her eyes. But without saying a word he disappears around the corner.
I just want to crawl into a hole and die.
The view shifts again, up and away from Tracy until she’s but a red speck in a colorless panel, her towel drooping to the ground, her comic at her feet. Then it zooms in once more, just enough to make out her body as she takes her first step away, dragging her towel behind her, leaving her comic there on the street, the only color in the darkness.
A Short Time Later . . .
Tracy’s eyes are still red and puffy as she closes the door behind her. The motel room panel is split in two, shaded a deep indigo. Every object appears black, even the towel as it slips off of Tracy’s back to the floor.
Loosening the straps of her top, she notices a shape in the far panel, on the bed. She also hears whimpering, yet sees no dialogue bubble. “Steve? Steve is that you?”
Steve’s voice is hoarse, muffled by the comforter he is balled beneath. “Yeah.”
“Where have you been?”
“Here.”
“I checked a while ago.”
It sounds like he’s winding up to sob, but he doesn’t. “I feel like I’ve been here for days.”
“Are you drunk?”
“No.”
“That’s right. You only had one before you left The Legionnaires.”
Steve throws the covers off and springs up to a sitting position. “You’ve been to The Legionnaires?”
There are still no dialogue bubbles above him, the words resound straight from his mouth.
“Steve, what’s happening?” His outline is thinner than usual, and it seems to be melting more with every passing second.
He bawls, his hands over his face. “I don’t know. Everything is changing.”
“Is it the Red Skull? Did he do this?”
“No.” Steve sits back against the headboard and wipes his eyes. His tears aren’t drops, but tiny rivulets down his cheeks.
Is this really happening? It’s so surreal.
“Steve, I don’t understand. Lately, I don’t understand anything.”
“That’s because I’ve been lying to you.”
“What do you mean?”
“I think you’d better sit down.”
Tracy pulls the stiff wooden chair out from under the table and sits. Steve tells her, “The Hulk, the Fantastic Four, the X-Men, they’ve always called upon me to help when things went wrong.”
“I know. You’re important Steve, and from now on–”
“Let me finish. It’s not the sixties anymore, Tracy. Dr. Doom and Loki and The Marauders have all let their hate for humanity go, and most other villains have followed. Reed, Peter, Thor, they don’t need my help. Nobody does. I’ve slowly become . . . irrelevant.” He takes a deep breath. “So I ask them to call me, to pretend they need me, so you’ll think I’m still important.”
Tracy couldn’t believe what she was hearing. Steve always told the truth, but right now he’s telling it about lying. Tracy feels like she is going crazy, her mind races, the lines above her head shoot out rapidly. She asks Steve, “. . . so where do you go all the time?”
“Mostly I just walk around, get fresh air, clear my head.”
“You just walk around?”
He nods.
“And you can’t take me with you?”
“I’m too embarrassed.”
“About what?”
“You hold such high standards for me, and I don’t want to let you down. Not that I thought you couldn’t handle it, that you’d go back to being Ms. Maleficent or something. But I’m scared, and I’ve never been scared before.” He runs his hand through his beard, the stubble no longer shaded in; rather, it’s pointed and furry.
Tracy hardly notices, her confusion turning to rage. “Then why am I on the run from the police and Nazis?”
Steve looks away from her panel; there is only the thinnest dividing line between his bare forearms and the comforter they rest upon. He confesses, “There are no more Nazis.”
Tracy tries to tell him, “Steve I saw–” but he cuts her off again with, “They’re still out there, but they no longer run underground genetic cleansing rings and designer drug cartels. They work at supermarkets, bars, car dealerships, even comic shops now that The Red Skull has disbanded them.” Steve’s lines are almost completely out of sight, and the panel around him starts fading as he goes on, “I used to be able to handle everything, anything. But this morning, when Spider-Man called, I walked up the boardwalk to kill some time. I came across one of your old comics in that shop, one of your old faces. I thought about how much things have changed, how long I’d been lying to you, how those Nazis, those icons of evil, were allowed to integrate themselves into everyday life. I got so angry, so hungry for the old days I just couldn’t handle it. I wanted to fight them all one more time, honor our memories by stomping their guts out. But when it came down to it, I couldn’t, because what Buster said is all true. The world doesn’t need me.”
Tracy feels betrayed in every way possible, her whole world is literally dissipating in front of her. The man she thought was everything good, the man she had always looked up to, the man she retired for, the man she loves is nothing but a fraud. She hadn’t used her powers on him since they’d fallen in love, but she does then. She reads his thoughts clearly, his mind no longer packed with impossible dreams of a worldwide utopia. He just wants to be loved, not conditionally for who he was, but unconditionally for who he’s becoming. And by her.
But the revelation is too much for Tracy. Her panel expands as she rises from the chair. Her body grows, her muscles strain, her mouth gapes, and she bursts out across the entirety of the page in big black letters, “AHHH!?” The words spread, and keep spreading as Tracy clenches her fists, her every ligament pulling tight.
A touch of his hero reflexes still intact, Steve bounds through the fading panel lines dividing them. He grabs Tracy by her forearms and says, “I’m only human.” And then, with no colorful burst of energy, no sudden fading, the panels instantly dissipate, and the room goes pitch black.
Tracy is scared. When Steve lets her go, she pats the wall until she finds the light switch. She flips it on she sees that she’s like Steve, blended into the lusterless, boundless world around her. Her bikini top is still red, but the color is dull and drab. Her hair is no longer one unit, but hundreds of strands.
“What happened to me?” she asks aloud, and when no dialogue bubble appears she is even more frightened. She looks at Steve and demands, “What happened to us?”
“I don’t know,” Steve says, looking into the palms of his hands. “But I don’t think there’s any going back.”
Tracy collapses to her knees, and Steve crouches down, rubs her shoulders. For the first time, Tracy notices the blood caked to his right hand, the jagged cut across his knuckles.
“It’ll heal,” says Steve.
“But it’ll scar,” says Tracy. “You shouldn’tve hit the picture.”
“Some things have to die to be reborn.”
Tracy thinks ‘Where did this Steve come from?’ but no thought bubble pops up, and its absence again frightens her. She tries to read Steve’s thoughts, to see if she has kept one last vestige of the old, bright world she once lived in. But she can read nothing. “I don’t know what’s happening. I don’t know if I can take this.”
Steve wraps himself around her. He says, “I know. I’m scared too. But we’ve been through worse, and we’ll face it together.” He leans back and holds her by the shoulders again. “But if there’s anything else you want to say, get it out now so we can move forward.”
Tracy sees for a second the natural leadership that made Steve the golden standard of heroism, why he was the original and only super soldier. She doesn’t need to read his thoughts to know that all he wants is the truth, and if she tells him about Antonio he’ll forgive her. Still, she admits, “Nothing.”
Steve pulls her close once more, and Tracy can only stare off over his shoulder, to the towel hanging over the back of the chair. It isn’t quite as bright as it used to be.
Next Issue: Tracy Frost: Maleficent or Magnificent!?
