I WROTE THIS ON A WHIM, OKAY. COMPLETELY AND WITHOUT QUESTION. I was reading Iron Man fics and this idea just popped into my head and I couldn't get it to go away so I just said "fuck it" and gave birth to this piece of shit. There are probably a lot of plotholes, or just stupid things (idk if y'all will notice because I definitely did HAHAHA.) But, it seemed a waste not to put this up.

So, here it is, unbeta'd and only proofread once. By me.

Enjoy.

Prologue

After finding out that I could fly, and that a lot of other people could as well, apparently, not much could faze me anymore. That's what I thought, at least. But then a huge wormhole opened up in the sky and an army of aliens came racing into New York, and I didn't know what to think anymore.

I had already seen a lot , mainly because one: I was a delivery girl, and two: I could fly. There's not much that you can't see when you live under the radar and can fly. I had already heard about the shit-storm in Mexico a few months back, but this one was clearly much, much worse.

The people had been evacuated to the subways. They were scared. I wasn't, weirdly enough. I sat on the windowsill of an abandoned apartment building in 23rd street, eating the pizza that I was on my way to deliver when everything went down. It was delicious – extra cheese and mushrooms. I would have preferred no mushrooms, but I couldn't exactly be choosy. It may very well be the last pizza I ever ate.

Don't get me wrong. The Avengers had come, and even the N.Y.P.D. was helping out in killing the aliens, but things weren't looking too great. The streets were littered with the corpses of aliens, and even one of those giant whale-things that I had seen come through the wormhole, but more just kept coming.

That buff dude Thor seemed to be missing in action, and it had been a while since I'd seen the Hulk jumping around the place. Iron Man was up and kicking – I saw him zip down the street just a few minutes ago – but their land-bound friends were God knows where.

I had thought of going out there and helping out, once or twice, but that idea had always been squashed by the fact that I absolutely had no idea how to fight. Give me a gun and I'd probably waste the whole round shooting past the son of a bitch. Give me a knife and I'd cut myself (probably you too for giving me a knife in the first place.)

So yeah, going out there was a bad idea. I'd die within minutes, and I didn't want to add up to the Avengers' body count, which was already horrible enough as it was. They didn't deserve any more blood on their hands. They were trying. Meanwhile, I had finished the whole box of pizza and was massaging my tummy in satisfaction.

I wondered then: If the aliens took over New York, would they expand to other states? Other countries? Would there be a brand new group of superheroes in spandex that would try and stop the world from going to shit?

I really didn't want the world to end. Being able to fly was fun, but I actually didn't want to see death and devastation every time I looked down from my spot in the sky. That would just be plain depressing.

Deciding against throwing my empty pizza box at a passing alien, I leaned back and thought about what I would do if the Avengers did lose and the world was overtaken by aliens. I could move out of the planet, but there were a few flaws to that plan.

The first was I couldn't breathe in space. (I could always steal some stuff from NASA, but that seemed pretty farfetched.) The second was that I didn't exactly know my way across the galaxy. I mean, I could always wing it, but I was pretty sure that getting to one planet alone would take me years. Wasn't that always what the scientists said? Then there was the fact that I couldn't live without food or water.

Wow, why had I even considered this idea? There were so many things that could go wrong. I could have literally gone out there and died, although no one would really be left on Earth to care –

An altogether different sound reached my ears. I looked for the source and found it flying from the east. It was closing the distance pretty quickly, and it scared the shit out of me.

It was a nuke.

A fucking big one at that.

The government must have realized how much of a lost cause this battle was, and they decided to bomb the entire city. But they must know that there are still a bunch of people here. They would have made them leave the subways and move out of the city... right?

I was just about to jump off the building and check for myself when a familiar red and gold suit zipped into view.

I could only watch as Tony Stark intercepted the nuke and moved to carry the brunt of it on his back. Slowly, he adjusted its trajectory so that it was flying more upwards than down. I saw that they were heading straight for the wormhole directly above Stark Tower.

A small breath of astonishment escaped my lips as I caught on to just what he was planning with the nuke. He certainly wasn't Tony fucking Stark for nothing.

As he and the nuke disappeared past the wormhole, I thought about how the explosion would no doubt still affect us Earthlings. It would continue past the wormhole. But then I remembered that these were The Avengers. They knew what they needed to do. And like I said, he wasn't Tony fucking Stark for nothing.

I leaned back and waited for the inevitable fireworks to take place.

It came after a few seconds, sending a deafening roar through the wormhole that echoed all throughout Manhattan. A few scraps of alien metal flew through the portal, which I had just noticed was steadily growing smaller. Following a particularly large piece of debris was Iron Man himself. I sighed in relief, but my smile was soon replaced with a frown.

He was falling to the ground at an alarming speed. And he seemed to be passed out. And it was very clear that his repulsors were turned off.

"Shit," I said, again and again and again. "Shit, shit, shit!"

Iron Man was cool. I liked Iron Man. He could prove to be an egotistical ass sometimes on live television, but he still cared. That was probably the reason why I liked him so much.

With barely a second to think about it, I jumped off the windowsill and rocketed towards the rapidly falling Tony Stark.

I knew I couldn't very well catch him. That suit looked fucking heavy and I would probably break my spine trying to break his fall. So, as soon as I reached him, I grabbed his hand and tugged as hard as I could, fighting against the gravity that was trying to pull him down.

"Heavy motherfucker," I grunted as my muscles screamed in protest. Still, I was able to slow his fall, and I continued to lead us downwards at a steady pace until we were both safely on the ground. Well, he was lying on the concrete and I was panting over him, massaging my arms.

It was then that I remembered why I'd had to save him in the first place.

Uncertainly, I nudged his leg with my boot, hoping to wake him up. "Uh, Mr. Stark?" God, I sounded dumb. "Tony? You in there?"

Before I could say more, a series of heavy footsteps came running my way. More than just one pair, too. Looking up, my jaw dropped when I saw that it was Thor and Captain America. Following behind them was the massive, green figure of the Hulk. I was scared, but none of them paid me much thought.

I had half a mind to be pissed, but then Thor pulled Tony's mask off and I suddenly just felt very fucking stupid.

Wringing my wrists, I walked closer to them so that I could look at Iron Man's face as well. His eyes were closed. He looked peaceful. But goddammit, he wasn't supposed to be dead. What else had I saved him for? In a quiet voice, I asked, "Is he okay?"

"His arc reactor isn't working," Captain America – the Captain America – said.

Weirdly enough, I couldn't bring myself to fangirl about it. I had heard Tony mention the arc reactor before in one of his interviews before, but I couldn't bring to mind why it sounded so familiar.

Stupidly, I said, "Is he breathing?"

"Barely," said the Captain. "Come on, Stark."

Several tense beats of silence passed. I was slowly devolving into a panic.

Tony fucking Stark was dying and it may as well be my fault. I mean, I could have taken that nuke off his shoulders and carried it through the hole myself. How hard could it have been? And besides, I was expendable. I could die and no one would give two shits. But this was Tony fucking Stark, and –

I nearly jumped out of my skin when the Hulk let out a massive roar. It was a miracle I didn't shit myself. While the final strains of it were dying out, Tony's eyes flew open and a loud gasp escaped his lips. My shoulders sagged in relief, and I couldn't help the grin on my face. I had just saved Tony Stark.

Eat shit, mom.

"What the hell?" Tony said, glaring exasperatedly at the Hulk. "What just happened? Please tell me nobody kissed me."

His eyes were darting everywhere, as if expecting more aliens to pour in from the sky. Before long, his gaze landed on me. A self-satisfied smirk crept up my lips. It wasn't every day you could render Iron Man speechless.

"Goddammit, I must be dead," he muttered. "Really was banking on ending up downstairs though, but the view's definitely better up here... God, Pepper's gonna kill me."

I stared at Captain America questioningly. Was Stark always like this? I had heard he had an ego the size of Jupiter, but was he always so quick to brush things off? I mean, he had almost died.

Captain America just sighed. "You're not dead, Stark." He gestured to me. "This lady here saved your life."

"Saved my…?" Tony blinked. "You caught me?"

"Oh, well..." It took me a few moments to get my thoughts in order. I was pretty sure I looked like a gaping fish. "You were falling and I sort of just... slowed you down, I guess."

He was quiet for a while, just staring, before the answer finally came to him. "You can fly?"

"Sort of... Not like how you can fly though. It's more natural, I guess? Yeah, it's a gene. Recessive, because none of my parents could fly, or at least not that I know of."

I had to forcibly cut myself off. I was rambling again. I always rambled when I was nervous. It didn't help that Captain America was staring at me really hard.

"Does SHIELD know about you?" he asked.

What the hell was SHIELD? I was about to ask him that, no doubt risking more of my dignity, but Iron Man saved me from sacrificing too much of my pride.

"Of course Fury knows about her," he said. "I'm pretty sure he has records on everyone on the planet in that goddamned database of his."

Oh.

Oh shit.

It was all coming back to me.

Fury. Nick Fury. Director of SHIELD, AKA that secret government agency that kidnapped me and took me in for questioning a few years back. They had gotten footage of me flying past several country borders and breaking a few aviation laws, which I hadn't even known had existed until they pointed it out to me. After the routine questions – What is the extent of your abilities? How did you gain your powers? When did you find out you could fly? – they must have figured out that I wasn't really a threat. They let me go back to my apartment after making me promise to lay low and to not cause any trouble.

Now, standing in front of Iron Man, Captain America, and the Hulk, I had the darnest feeling that these people were going to make me go back to that facility.

I didn't want any trouble with SHIELD. I had been laying low. I hadn't broken any laws. In fact, I had just saved one of their assets. I didn't deserve to be taken in for questioning again.

Well, they were going to find me in one way or another. Why not give myself a head start, right?

Tony had taken to sitting up, and he was talking to the Captain about things that I couldn't bring myself to care about. The Hulk was sat down on the concrete and had his eyes closed, breathing deeply. It was probably one of the weirdest things I'd ever seen in my life.

"I really should get going," I said, a bit awkwardly. "Look, Mr. Stark, it was awesome to meet you and your suit in person. And thanks for saving the world, I guess... See you around?"

"Where are you off to in such a hurry?" He grinned. "We're gonna grab some shawarma."

"I'd really rather not."

Captain America stepped up this time. "You should come with us, grab a bite to eat and get your energy back. We could take you back to the Tower with us afterwards so you can call your folks or something."

As if they cared about my parents. I knew what it was he really wanted to happen once we got back to the Tower. He was going to rat me out to Director Fury and I was gonna have to answer all kinds of questions. Again.

Before any of them could say anything else, I shot off the ground and zipped out of there as fast as I could. I heard Tony trying to call me back, but he probably just wanted my number or something. Besides, I fucking hated shawarma.

And if he had really wanted me to stick around, he should have asked me my name first.

The next chapter will be up immediately and will contain an important A/N. Just FYI.