Steve Rogers grunted and hung onto the support beam above him as the ship landed with a crash. He slammed the open button making the ramp lower into the wrecked ground, grabbed his shield, and charged out, Romanoff and Barton behind him.
Dust was already filling the air, rubble covering the ground, cars crashed, and sirens wailing. Steve glanced around, trying to gauge which direction the threat was coming from and quickly zeroed in—a wide intersection was apparently the best place for alien spaceships to fly at high speeds. He could see the Stark tower from here, explosions filling the air around it.
"We gotta get back up there!" He yelled back at Romanoff and Barton.
They sprinted through the chaos, around street corners, before drawing to a halt in front of a museum that blocked Stark tower from them. Slowly, Steve looked up and saw what seemed to be a hole in the sky, with aliens pouring through. Following its smaller counterparts, a huge, eel-like ship swam through the sky, straight towards them. It dipped low, knocking the head off the beautiful statue topping the museum.
"Stark," he called into him com, "You seeing this?"
"Seeing, still working on believing." Came Stark's voice. "Where's Banner? Has he shown up yet?"
"Banner?" Steve muttered, confused.
"Just keep me posted." Stark said shortly.
Steve dodged around a car and knelt down beside his two companions, who had taken cover behind a yellow cab.
Barton indicated a the street below the overpass they were on with his head. "We've got civilians trapped down here."
"Loki." Steve growled in response.
He squinted at the ship driven by the crazed god. It was blasting everything in its path, cars, shops, and most importantly, people. "They're fish in a barrel down there!"
A shot shattered the windshield of the cab next to his head, and he ducked as Romanoff stood and shot something out of his range of vision. Barton ducked across to an over turned cab, reaching for his arrows. Two aliens landed on a nearby car, effectively smashing it.
"We've got this." Romanoff told him fiercely. "It's good—go."
Steve looked across at Barton. "You think you can hold them off?"
"Captain," he said with humor, switching his arrows around, "it would be my genuine pleasure."
The man stood and shot over the top of the car, giving Steve a moment of cover. He could hear Romanoff shooting as well, as he sprinted for the edge of the overpass, hurtled the fencing, and landed in a roll on a stationary bus. A series of explosions followed him as he ran along the roof of the bus, finally catapulting himself off it as the whole thing exploded. Running full out down the ruined street, jumping over cars, dodging bullets and explosions, Steve couldn't help but think of a particular mission in the north of France when he'd missed the extraction and had to fight his way out of the small city. He forced those memories out of his mind and headed for what looked like a police barricade.
Landing on one of the police cars, he instructed the officers who looked to be high-ranking, "You need men in these buildings-" he pointed at three office buildings around them, "there are people inside who will be running straight into the line of fire. You take them to the basements, or the subway. You keep them off the streets!" He hesitated for a moment, mentally mapping the city. "And I need a perimeter as far back as 39th."
"Why the hell should I take orders from you?" demanded the chief.
Two shots went off, and an explosion sounded from the corner of the block. Steve spun around, standing up with his shield held at the ready. One of the Chitauri came flying at him, but he knocked it back easily, then turned to face another one to block a laser, before pushing it back and punching it away. He spun, knocking a head off, then tearing off and arm and kicking it into a building.
Breathing slightly, he looked at the policemen expectantly, who promptly turned and relayed his orders.
With a growl, he jumped off the car and dashed down an alley towards another street. He looked around, and started to listen to the chatter on his com. The street seemed, for a moment, to be deserted, with only a smoldering pile-up of cars at the far end of the street. The unearthly sound of alien engines drew his attention to the opposite end of the street, and from there, his gaze fell on a lone figure standing defiantly in the middle of the street, facing three of the smaller spacecrafts. Steve reacted immediately—he sprinted towards them and took a flying leap, knocking them into another alley. The aliens shot past.
"What the hell-" began the person, who was pinned underneath him. "...Captain America?"
It was a girl, no older than seventeen, with startlingly light eyes compared to her skin tone.
"Stay there!" He said, and turned back into the street to knock a ship out of the sky with his shield; it landed with a screeching crash on the pavement. The other two ships continued on, seemingly uncaring of this ship's fate.
Steve started as the sound of a series of explosions made its way up the street and he saw a huge herd of Chitauri on foot, charging towards him.
He was startled to find that the girl was standing resolutely next to him. "Get back!" He told her sharply.
"That's my goddam school there-" she indicated with her chin at the older building across from them, "my uncle worked himself to death to pay me in there. I'm not letting it get blown up—I can help!"
With a growl, Steve shoved her back towards the alley, saying, "I'll take care of it."
He ran at the Chitauri and began to fight, dodging blasts from their guns and swings from their arms. Stepping down on one's foot, he shoved it into the air, ripping it limb from body. He kicked the leg into his hand and swung it like a bat, taking off two heads, before jumping over a Chitauri that dove at him and using its head to spin and kick three others away.
A blast of purple fire from somewhere behind him hit the metal armor of a nearby Chitauri that had been making to shoot him, and knocked it back, frying its head. Steve glanced back in the direction the blast had come from, expecting to see one of Stark's devices, and instead seeing the girl, standing with her feet planted and eyes blazing.
"What the hell are you doing?" He bellowed as he twisted the gun out of the hands of an alien and shot it.
"Helping!" She yelled back.
He looked at her again, glanced away to block a punch, and looked back in awe once it registered that her hands seemed to be alive with the same purple flames. The girl drew back a burning hand as three of the creatures charged her and threw another purple blast, then another. One of them was thrown back while the other two were reduced to smoldering rubble.
"Okay…" Steve muttered to himself as he grabbed a Chitauri by the arm and swung it around, bludgeoning the heads of all his nearby attackers off, and forcing himself to acknowledge that there was a girl with fire coming from her hands behind him.
Tapping his com, he said as calmly as he could, "Hey guys… There's a kid that can throw fire over here. Is that normal?"
There was silence for a moment before Stark said, "About as common as an alien invasion." at the same Barton said, "Why would be normal?!"
"I don't know!" Steve snapped, stealing another gun and obliterating a handful of aliens, watching out of the corner of his eye as the girl blasted another group of armored aliens into rubble. "There's aliens invading New York—I don't know what's normal right now!"
"Well," said Romanoff's smooth voice, followed by a series of gunshots, "is whoever it is fighting for or against us?"
"She's blasting aliens to pieces—I thought it was Stark at first." Steve let out a sharp exhale as an alien managed to press him into the brick wall of a building, knocking his shield from his hand.
"Concentrate on the aliens that are currently streaming through a hole in the sky then!" came Stark's snarky voice.
There was a crashing noise, a wave of blinding heat, and Steve was able to slip from the Chitauri's grip. As he dove into yet another barrage of aliens he noted that it too collapsed into a heap of smoking remains.
He did a somersault under the blasts of many guns, snatched his shield back up and threw it with a spin so that it made a neat arch in front of him, cutting a handful of Chitauri in half at the waist.
A whooshing sound of displaced air announced the arrival of another ship—just as he raised his shield, it began to rain bullets down on him, and to his horror, the fire girl. But, instead of looking scared, her face was screwed up in rage, her wild curly hair seemed to crackle with energy, and the purple flames now reached her elbows, burning off her sleeves while leaving her skin unharmed.
"Not—my—goddamn—school!" She bellowed, punctuating each word with a blast of flame at the ship.
First the right, then the left engines exploded, and the ship tilted down, screeching horribly down the middle of the street. Steve, still in shock, casually stepped onto the sidewalk to avoid the crash.
For a moment, the only noises were the distant crashes and bangs of the attack closer to Stark tower, the settling of alien metal, and the ragged panting breaths of the girl.
"Holy shit." Said Steve, forgetting that he was talking to a kid.
The fire faded from her arms and she seemed to deflate. "I… I did that." She muttered, looking down at her hands.
With a tentative step forward, Steve said, "Can you do it again?"
She looked up at him, and he was once again struck by how light her eyes were, even from across the street.
"I don't know." She said earnestly.
"If you can," Steve glanced back at the now visibly damaged Stark tower, "you can protect more than just your school."
There was a rumbling noise, and another of the huge, eel-like ships swam through the portal. They both looked up at it in horror and awe.
"Hell…" he heard her say. "I'll try."
He tapped his com and listened to the conversation for a minute before saying, "This way."
Jogging towards the main fight with the girl running full out to keep up, Steve battled with his conscious; everything told him to make her stay back—she was a child, a girl—but then again that hadn't stopped Peggy, had it? They needed all the help they could get, and it wasn't as if the girl was unable to fight. Still, it grated on him that he was putting a child in such danger.
He turned a corner so fast he had to grab a dented sign post to swing around. Flinging his shield and knocking away three of the aliens, he glanced back at the girl, who was still catching up. Steve nodded at her and sprinted towards Romanoff and Barton, who were still fighting outside the museum. He jumped onto a pile of rubble, then over a car and landed in time to block a strike aimed at Barton. Bashing aliens back with his shield, he looked for the girl.
She was crouched behind the car he had vaulted, and now he could see the terror on her face. He roundhouse kicked one alien into another and glanced at her again. Her face was screwed up in concentration, and slowly, the purple flames were building in her palms.
Just as she stood and blasted two Chitauri to bits, a bolt of lightning, seemingly from nowhere, hit three of the aliens closer to Steve. He looked up in surprise a saw a figure falling from the sky. It was Thor—he landed in a crouch, leaning against a cab for support.
Steve stepped forward at once, as all the aliens in sight had been demolished.
"What's the story upstairs?" He asked.
"The power surrounding the Cube is impenetrable." Thor replied grimly.
"Thor's right," Stark said through the coms, "We've got to deal with these guys."
"How do we deal with this?" Asked Romanoff from behind him.
Setting his jaw and looking around, Steve said forcefully, "As a team."
"I have unfinished business with Loki." Thor interjected.
"Yeah?" Barton said sarcastically, "Well, get in line."
"Save it." Steve snapped, "Loki's gonna keep the fight focused on us, and that's what we need—without him these things could run wild. We got Stark up top; he's gonna need us t-"
There was the loud sputtering of a motorcycle and Steve looked over his shoulder to see Bruce Banner navigating the broken road slowly. The man pulled to a stop and the team ran over to him.
"So…" he said, gesturing around, "this all seems horrible."
Romanoff deadpanned immediately,"I've seen worse."
Banner looked at her oddly. "Sorry." Then he squinted past them and said, "I thought all the civilians would have cleared out?"
They all turned to look and saw the girl, standing awkwardly with her arms wrapped around herself.
"She can help," Steve said, directing the statement at the girl and Banner equally, "If she wants."
"You are the one who throws fire?" Asked Thor.
She looked down, but nodded.
"What are you called, fire-thrower?"
"Ana." She said quietly.
Steve nodded at her again, before tapping his com and saying, "He's here."
"Banner?" Stark asked quickly.
"Just like you said."
"Good," Grunted Stark, "Tell him to suit up—I'm bringing the party to you."
They all looked up as Iron Man shot around the corner of a building, followed by the huge ship, crashing into the corner of the building to turn.
Thor growled and gripped his hammer tightly, the girl let out a small gasp of horror, and Romanoff spoke in a deadpan, "I… I don't see how that's a party."
"Dr Banner," said Steve respectfully, "now might be a good time for you to get angry."
Banner turned towards the approaching ship, which was coasting close to the ground, smashing and crushing cars, buses, and trees.
"That's my secret, Captain," he said over his shoulder, "I'm always angry."
And with that, his shoulders rippled and stretched, and Banner turned into the Hulk. He took a few steps forward before driving his huge fist into the nose of the ship. The ship ground to a halt, slowly turning tail over head—it was going to fall directly onto them.
"Hold on!" Stark yelled through the com.
There was the familiar whistle of a missile flying through the air, and Steve saw it hit the exposed side of the ship. Romanoff crouched and covered her head, and Steve stood behind her, covering them both with his shield.
The ship exploded, scattering the outer armor of the ship across the road, and sending the head flying off the overpass. Aliens that had already disembarked bellowed in rage, and the Hulk roared in response.
Stark landed to Steve's left, and the team stood back-to-back, weapons at the ready.
"Uh… guys…" said Romanoff.
They looked back up at the portal, where one, two, three more motherships were descending from.
"Call it, captain." Stark said automatically, for once willing to listen to someone else.
"All right, listen up." Steve spoke slowly, thinking of a strategy. "Until we can close that portal, out priority is containment. Barton—I want you on that roof -" he indicated a tall office building, "-eyes on everything. Call out patterns and strays. Stark—you've got the perimeter—anything gets more than three blocks out, you turn it back, or you turn it to ash."
"Can you gimme a lift?" Barton asked.
"Right." Stark said carelessly, "Better clench up, Legolas."
Iron Man grabbed the back of Barton's shirt and propelled them into the air, aiming for the office building.
"Thor," Steve continued, looking at the huge man, "you gotta try to bottleneck that portal—slow 'em down. You got the lightning: light the bastards up."
The god swung his hammer, then let it lift him into the air. Steve turned to Romanoff next to him, then glanced around for the girl, who had tentatively moved closer to them as the others left.
"We stay here on the ground. We keep the fighting here. And Hulk…" the giant spun at his voice, growling, and he pointed up at the disembarked aliens, "... smash."
With a roar, the Hulk launched himself off the ground, landing on a building and obliterating aliens as her jumped around. He quickly exploded a ship, fell onto another one, and was out of sight.
Another wave of Chitauri fell on them, and Steve only partially watched as a cloud gathered around the tower, and lightning struck at the ships soaring through the portal. He didn't pay much attention to the com chatter, especially as he was quite busy blasting aliens with a stolen gun.
He did notice, however, that the aliens had now decided that the girl was a worthy target, and more and more of them were surrounding her. One of the larger ones managed to get past her blasts of fire and grab her around the waist. It lifted her into the air kicking and screaming, and seemed to examine her for a minute. Just as Steve broke through the rank of aliens between them, she swung a still flaming fist underhand, into a small gap in its armor, and struggled free as the alien staggered forward. She collapsed onto her hands and knees, flames disappearing.
Steve jumped over her, performing a spinning kick to the head of a Chitauri, landed, and spun his shield, sending the approaching wave flying back.
"Nice punch, kid." He gasped, checking to see if there was an immediate threat.
She nodded, completely out of breath.
He could see her thin arms shaking, and blood was dripping from a gash in her cheek, but somehow, she struggled to her feet, swaying slightly.
There was a grunt of pain from behind him, and the girl breathed, "... Help her!"
Romanoff was grappling with a Chitauri, legs wrapped around its shoulders. Steve ran, jumped off a car, and threw his shield, knocking it off her, before landing and catching it again off the rebound. The woman almost speared him with the weapon she'd stolen, but recognized him just in time. She too, had blood dripping down the side if her head, and was breathing heavily.
"Captain," she said seriously, "none of this is gonna mean a damn thing if we don't take out that portal."
Steve glanced up at the hole in the sky, where ships were still streaming through. "Our biggest guns couldn't touch it."
"Well," Romanoff looked around, eyes calculating. "maybe it's not about guns."
Steve frowned and shrugged slightly. "If you wanna get up there you're gonna need a ride."
She smirked. "I got a ride." with a shrug, she added, "Could use a boost though."
Catching her drift, Steve took a few steps back and shifted his shield on his arm. "You sure about this?"
Romanoff crouched across the road from him, a set look on her face. "Yeah. It's gonna be... fun."
And with that, she sprinted at a car, lept off it, planted her foot on his shield, and was catapulted effortlessly into the sky, directly at a overpassing Chitauri ship. She latched onto the end, and Steve couldn't help but grin a little as he saw her take out the gunner and then take control of the pilot.
The grin slipped off his face as a thin voice yelled, "Look out!" and the car next to him blew into pieces. His shield was raised instinctively, but his feet still slipped back an inch.
There was a gurgling roar, and he looked up to see yet another wave of Chitauri, armed with some form of blasters, crawling over cars and broken buildings. He sighed, and waited until they were at an achievable distance before launching himself into battle again. The girl was also fighting, throwing blasts that were more controlled than they had been when he'd first seen her do it, and seemed to have figured out her range. It was a situation he really hadn't expected to end out in when he woke up that morning: fighting aliens, back to back, with a teenage girl who could manipulate fire.
Stark swooped down, firing at the aliens around them before before landing and bouncing a laser off of Steve's shield, into a row of aliens. He shot back up into the sky with Romanoff who was (badly) piloting one of the smaller ships.
One of the mega ships was reeling wildly as Thor and Hulk battered at the top of it, and it finally landed across the intersection from him and the girl. Distracted, Steve didn't notice a Chitauri until it was pinning him down, spear to his throat. With a pained grunt, he heaved the beast off of him and delivered an ending kick to its head.
"Captain," Barton called through the com, "the bank on 42nd past Madison. They cornered a lotta civilians in there."
"I'm on it." Steve panted.
He set off at a sprint, aware that the girl was struggling to keep up. Glancing over his shoulder, he called, "Captive situation—I'll go in through a window—catch up and unlock all the side doors so the people can get out!"
He paused in front of the building, before taking a few steps back and taking a running leap at the second story window. Somersaulting through it, he dodged a swing from an alien, hit one with his shield, and took out one more with a well placed kick. Two aimed their guns at him, and he dove behind a heavy desk for cover.
Steve looked up to see a small square device that was making an odd humming sound and emitting a pulsing blue light. Two more blasts hit the desk, but Steve spun on his side so his back was braced against the wall and kicked the table into the two Chitauri. He was up and jumping over the desk before the remaining alien could get up. With a swift yank, he had it in a headlock, and easily chucked it over the balcony. The doors burst open directly below him, and he could only assume that the girl had managed to get past the two guards at the door.
"Everyone!"he called down, "Clear out!"
An alien caught him from behind and began pulling painfully at his mask and face. The device was starting to beep rapidly, pulsing faster as his mask was ripped off. Another got up from behind the desk, blaster at the ready, and Steve just managed to flip himself up at over the alien behind him, using its body as a shield for the shots from the other one. This alien crouched and pushed the now wildly beeping device at him. There was an explosion, and Steve felt himself being flung backwards, glass shattering around him, before he smashed into a car, shield painfully under him. Groaning, he lifted his head to see that the hostages had managed to get out into the alleys on either side and take cover.
There was a startled shriek, a crash, and a gasp of pain—the girl had been trying to fight the aliens still inside the building, and she'd been blasted from her position in the huge marble doorway into an overturned truck. The fire of her arms went out. Steve pushed himself to a kneeling positions and slid ungracefully off the roof of the car. An alien scooped her up and pinned her to the bus—she began thrashing madly, hitting the beast wherever she could reach, but it raised her slowly by her neck, and to Steve's horror, threw her at the ground. Her head snapped back into the ground with a sickening thud, and the people in the alley screamed. Bellowing, he threw his shield, taking the alien's head off, and dashed to the girl's side.
He had to wedge his fingers under her body, as she had created a dent in the ground from the force of the alien. Picking her up, he turned to the people in the alley and looked for a face that could lead. He landed on a tall woman who looked horrified but still seemed stoic, and locked eyes with her. "Get all the people to the subway—help the children first! Everyone needs to get under cover of some sort." One of the smaller ships spiraled down into the building across the street, as if to emphasize his point.
Turning away and tapping the com, he said, "The girl's down—I don't wanna leave her with other civilians though. Where should I take her?"
"Honestly?" grunted Barton, "Do you need to do this right now?" - he sighed - "I'd take her to a school or a smaller building."
"Yeah, okay-" Steve began, before catching sight of another two ships headed for the civilians now running down the sidewalk. "Oh fu-"
The girl groaned, and her eyelids fluttered.
"Right then," he muttered to himself, running across the street. "Stay—here." he told the girl, leaning her against the dumpster in a small alley.
Looking at the tall woman who was directing the other civilians towards the subway, he yelled, "Get everyone to safety!"
He jumped onto a car, then to a window sill, and hung off it. One of the alien ships soared past, and he lept onto it, knocking the gunner off and landing in one smooth motion. Remembering what Romanoff had done, he grabbed the pilot and steered the ship towards the pavement away from the civilians. As it hit the ground, he dove off, rolling to a stop and flinging his shield through the engine of the other ship. Catching his shield and making sure the second ship went down, he looked back at the civilians, some of whom had stopped to stare in awe.
"Go!" he yelled, brandishing his shield in the direction of the subway entrance.
With a final nod at the woman in charge, he picked his way back to the alley. The girl wasn't there.
"Fuck," he muttered under his breath.
There was a streak of blood where her head had lent against the dumpster, a pool at the bottom, and drag marks in the sodden newspapers covering the ground of the alleyway.
Well, Steve thought, she's alive.
His com crackled. "Cap! You gotta get over here—it's -" there was an explosion near Barton, "-you really gotta get over here."
Steve looked up at the thin strip of sky between the buildings—clear blue, and filled with invading ships. He took a deep breath, looked around at the alley again, memorizing it, and took off to finish the battle.