Trek of the Avengers Chapter 1 Silver Bells
There were two things that still unnerved Steve Rogers about New York: the speed, and the noise. He'd been accustomed to constantly moving from one objective to the next at the speed of thought, and the roar of gunfire in his ears remained long after the battlefields of Europe fell behind, but this was civilian life. It should be calm, and gentle, and quiet.
But instead, it was all bustle and shouting and the screeching tires of automobiles stuck in traffic, and brightly coloured lights flashing all day and night. No wonder they called it 'the city that never sleeps'.
He felt a steadying hand on his arm. "Calm," whispered a low, female voice. He glanced to his side at Natasha Romanov, her red hair peeking out from beneath the woolly hat Clint had laughingly presented her with. "I know. The city's just too busy."
"What happened?" he asked. "There was always a fair bit of activity, but now it's just…so much."
"Technology happened," Clint Barton said, from Natasha's other side. "The computers used to break the codes during your war were the ancestors of the tech that makes businesses 24 hour operations. The bosses started asking more from their employees, and the corporate ladder was born. The corporations got the money, so they rule the roost." He sighed ruefully. "It's what Tony thrives on, though, so don't make any comments around him."
"At least he gave us pocket money," Natasha said.
"Hmm. The value of money's changed over the years," Steve mused.
Clint raised an eyebrow. "It's more that Tony gave us a lot of money, Cap."
"Oh? Roughly what could I get?"
Natasha smirked. "You wouldn't have much difficulty getting a fine diamond ring," she said.
"Dropping hints?" Clint laughed.
"I…I..." Steve spluttered. "I value you as a teammate and consider you a close friend, but…"
He was cut off by the assassins' laughter. "She's just teasing," assured Clint, winding an arm around her waist.
"Uh, okay," Steve said, a bit out of depth.
Sparing him further embarrassment, Natasha pulled them into a department store, and promptly abandoned them to look at jewellery. She caught up to them an hour later while they were looking at some gizmo. "I still don't get what it is," Steve said.
"I think it's like a Swiss army knife for making cocktails," Clint replied.
"Tony does like his drinks, doesn't he?" Steve mused. A shop assistant approached.
"May I help you, sirs, madam?" she asked.
"Does this come in red and gold?" Steve asked- lime green and brushed silver wasn't really Tony.
The assistant grinned. "Bit of an Iron Man fan, huh?"
As Steve flushed once again, Clint interjected. "Our friend's obsessed. Totally in love with the armour."
The girl laughed. "Oh yes, some people are like that," she acknowledged. "We don't stock any in those colours presently, but come back next week. Might have an extra charge, though."
"We can afford it," Clint told her.
Steve smiled. Christmas shopping like this was a new experience, but with Clint and Natasha, it was fun. They left the store, heading for another of Natasha's favourites. New York was still too noisy. From the streets, blaring horns and roaring engines. From the shops, repetitive Christmas music. In the background, the tinkle of silver bells.
'There are no seasons in space,' Jim Kirk mused, 'but the crew still manage to get over-excited about Christmas.' It was four years into his five-year mission and so far, every year he'd been caught off guard by exactly what his mostly human crew would do to celebrate. Even the growing diversity failed to slow the enthusiasm; Tellarites, Triexians, Sulamids, Caitians; all were dragged into the holiday festivities. Well, except Spock. Despite his protests that it was all "illogical", there was much debate on the inter-ship chat rooms as to whether or not he just couldn't cope with the raw emotion so freely exhibited.
Luckily, this meant he could leave Spock in charge while he enjoyed the parties.
Last year, someone had managed to get hold of a case of Romulan ale. No-one knew how, considering the stuff had had only been on the black market for a year and a half. It was a heady beverage, but Bones McCoy's morning-after headache cures proved only marginally effective. When a second case appeared for New Year's a week later, most of the senior staff resolved never to over-indulge again.
Spock resolved to never let Jim over-indulge again That was embarrassing…
Bones resolved to develop a better headache cure.
Scotty had come up with a policy of dedicated teetotallers (all volunteers) who were asked to ensure no-one had more than 2 ales, on the understanding that their permanent records were safe. Jim was sure half the women had only signed up in order to refuse him drinks. Bones told him he was being silly. Spock had raised an eyebrow and called his logic "clouded".
Still, that Deltan from Agro-Sciences had a certain look about her. And she seemed to be in charge of his drinks tonight. Probably Spock's doing.
Yes, his crew was eccentric. Last time anyone had transferred off, it was a very staid, very respectable astronav lieutenant who just couldn't cope with his colleagues' relentless joie de vivre. Poor lad only lasted three weeks; the final straw was after someone reformatted some old sci-fi movies, turned Rec Room 3 into a cinema, and prompted everyone to start quoting Star Wars.
His replacement, Lieutenant John Smith, brought a collection of pre-Millennium Dr Who, which proved to be very well received.
That was right before an admiral tried to make the Enterprise his flagship. The near-constant "reversal of the polarity of the neutron flow" soon dissuaded him. Spock was still dealing with the complaints of gross stupidity.
A strange crew, but his crew. They all passed muster at the end of the day, so who cared that they were unusual? Not he. From Spock and Bones wrangling at the top of the pyramid, to the crewman mounting hotplates on Scotty's engines to make Shrove Tuesday pancakes at the bottom, his crew- his people- were wonderfully diverse and uniquely talented. He'd give his life for any one of them in a second.
From the number of security men they got through, the feeling seemed to be mutual.
Right now, the crewmen acting as DJs were arguing over the proper definition of 'retro', 2230s or 2210s. And whether or not pre-WWIII music was fit for non-human ears. Oh, and it sounded like someone had found some silver bells.
The between-world void, the chasms between the branches of Yggdrasil, pulsated and oozed around the two travellers. Thor gripped the Tesseract tightly, his other hand starting to finger Mjolnir, his beloved hammer, both tool and weapon. The journey should have been virtually instantaneous; instead, they were meandering through nothingness.
"Thought you knew how to fly this thing" his passenger/prisoner Loki griped. Thor threw him a withering glare, but didn't answer. The thing flew itself; he just told it where to go.
They started to jerk. Loki's bound hands seemed to be slipping off his handle; Thor reached out, quick as a flash, and his free hand anchored the other Asgardian. He may be an insane, domineering murderer, but they were still brothers, and no-one deserved to be lost in the holes between worlds.
The Tesseract started to careen around; leaving Thor feeling like he'd been knocked out of the sky while whipping up a storm. The void filled with flashing lights, a psychedelic lightning storm across the whole spectrum.
Thor and Loki found themselves drawn to one of the lights, a constant blue-ish glow. As they were immersed in it, the cube bucked in their hands. Gravity seemed to restore itself, and they were falling out of the void, the light too bright to let them see what was ahead. And there was a soft tinkling, like tiny chiming silver bells.
AN: I have actually been working on this since January 2013, so the Marvel-verse is as it was then - no Iron Man 3, no Thor or Captain America 2, no Agents of SHIELD. So please don't start telling me I've done things wrong. Also, in case you haven't noticed, this is the old TV Star Trek, not the movie reboot of recent years.
Another interesting facet of this fic is that I decided to pick chapter titles before writing each chapter by method of putting my iTunes on Shuffle, and then using whichever song came up as the inspiration. So there will be virtual cookies to anyone who can work out exactly which song the title refers to. If you cheat and Google the title, you're only cheating yourself.
Regular readers: Also this week, two birds talk things out in Flashback, and a young vigilante goes about his business in Black and Red.
Next week: The beginning of the end in Family Ties, as the end of the arc fast approaches. The ongoing adventures of little lost birdie Red Robin and his friends, old and new, in Little Bird's Vengeance. And the first chapter of a zany new story, Love and Mayhem. Although this one's been giving me trouble for months, so I can't guarantee it'll be ready. If it isn't, I will provide the next installment of Death's Avenger instead.
Please, please, please review!
See you soon,
Katara