MC2 Mystery: Who are Freebooter's Parents?

 All we have ever learned from Freebooter's background is that he is named Brandon Cross and was a protégé of Hawkeye before American Dream. All we have is his name "Cross" to try and figure out who his parents are. I have confined myself to suspects that were around in 1998 when Tom DeFalco and Ron Frenz created Freebooter.  Let's round up the usual suspects: 

 

Darren Cross: Darren Cross was the head of Cross Technologies whose clashed with and supposedly died on Scott Lang's first Ant-Man outing in Marvel Premiere #47-48. If Darren is Freebooter's father, this would give him a history with Ant-Man as well as Hawkeye. 

Augustine Cross: Darren's son. He took over Cross Technologies after Darren supposedly died. He appeared in Iron Man #145 and was suspected for sending the Raiders sent against Iron Man, but was actually innocent. 

William Cross aka Crossfire: Darren's cousin. This is who I consider to be the most likely candidate to be Freebooter's father. He clashed with Hawkeye in Hawkeye's first miniseries and was defeated when he attempted to fire Hawkeye's own arrow at him, but lacked the strength to pull the bow back. Although, he was originally a foe of The Thing and Moon Knight, he began focusing on Hawkeye after his first defeat. Hawkeye and Captain America rescued Crossfire from his former henchmen, the Death Throws, when they broke him out of police custody to get payment for services rendered in Captain America #317 and Hawkeye fought Crossfire again in Avengers Spotlight #24-25 when Crossfire put a bounty on out on Hawkeye's arm. 

Given Hawkeye's history with Crossfire, he seems to be the most likely suspect to be Freebooter's father. Crossfire seems a lot like DC's Deathstroke. An ex-intelligence agent with one eye. Although Crossfire is not much of a fighter and relies on technology and lackeys and purposefully targets Hawkeye because he considers him the weakest hero. It would make sense for Brandon Cross wanting to redeem his family name and for Hawkeye to mentor someone in need of a good role model. Plus his child becoming a hero would be like Deathstroke's children, Jericho and Rose Wilson becoming heroes. 

This takes us to who Freebooter's mother may be. In the MC2, they almost always have to be an established character, so these are the two women I consider to be the most likely suspects. 

Bombshell: First appearing in the Hawkeye mini-series as a henchman of Crossfire, Bombshell was the only woman I ever saw around Crossfire, so that makes her a candidate. 

                                                                 

Shelia Danning: Shelia first appeared in Avengers #234 and last appeared in Hawkeye #1. Ostensibly the head of a public relations for Cross Technology where Hawkeye was a bodyguard, Shelia was a honey trap hired to distract Hawkeye from Crossfire's plans. When he found out his girlfriend never cared for him and tried to kill him, Hawkeye was devastated and was tempted to kill Shelia for her betrayal. However, by the end of the miniseries, he ended up eloping with Mockingbird. Shelia would be my personal choice to be Freebooter's mother. She does give off Terra (Tara Markov) vibes and that would make her a good match for Crossfire, a Deathstroke wannabe. 

 

                                                       

This doesn't explain why Freebooter took a on a costume meant to evoke the Swordsman. When Freebooter when to another dimension, he fought a version of himself called Swordsmaster, so is there a connection to the Dusquesne family as well? Mostly, I'll just chalk it up to Hawkeye being a protégé of The Swordsman and decided to model his protégé after his mentor. 

The Hawkeye miniseries, came out in 1983 and the Hawkeye and Mockingbird team-up was meant to evoke Green Arrow and Black Canary at DC. I thought with the scene of Hawkeye thinking Shelia was under mind control or it being a double when she betrayed him reminded me how Beast Boy (called Changeling then) thought Terra was putting on an act or was under hypnosis in Tales of the Teen Titans Annual #3, which was part of a storyline called The Judas Contract which has been adapted several times in media. I thought Mark Gruenwald was doing a tribute to The Judas Contract and keeping up the DC nods when I noticed that The Judas Contract storyline came out in 1984. Great minds must think alike.