Space Crocodiles
They run through the rubble, dodging more explosions and blasts, vaulting over debris and cars. Rogers looks to a section of road up ahead, where it seems a large group of aliens are targeting. He leaps up onto the back of a car, bounding up to the roof, jumping to a chunk of building, and soars over into the street. Jessica grits her teeth, pursing her lips, wondering what the hell she's gotten herself into, but she follows behind him.
There are two more people, a man and woman - wearing plain black suits, rather than anything like Rogers' costume - fighting off the group of aliens. The woman has an alien's weapon, and the man has-
"Is that a bow and arrow?" Jessica snaps, expression contorted in disbelief.
The man's face is hard with concentration, but he scowls defensively at her, swinging his weapon to shoot an arrow past her head, embedding itself into the face of an alien coming up behind her.
She looks round at him again, one eyebrow furrowed, the other lifting, giving him a confused smirk. "Uh, okay."
She spots movement in her peripheral vision, a couple of aliens advancing on the two newcomers from behind. Jessica stomps to the overturned taxi between the humans and aliens and kicks her foot out, slamming it into the taxi to send it scraping across the ground into the aliens. The one on the right is blasted in the chest by the redheaded woman, and the one on the left gets an arrow in the head.
Jessica's head swivels on her neck when she hears something cracking and zapping, eyes finding lightning piercing three aliens by Rogers. She follows the fork of lightning into the air, watching as a man with strange armour, a red cape, flowing blonde hair, and a hammer in his grip, stumbles a landing where the aliens had been before he fried them.
This is definitely massively different to Jessica's normal.
Rogers walks to the hunky hammer man, taking a moment to adjust his shield. "What's the story upstairs?" Rogers asks.
Jessica hangs back from them all, regarding them with guarded confusion. The man and woman with the least ridiculous outfits walk past her, moving further along the street. The road is littered with small fires, destroyed vehicles, and chunks of rubble from the surrounding buildings. Dust and ash hangs in the air, explosions echoing in the distance, the frightened cries of civilians bouncing off the emptying buildings towards her, and Jess scowls at the horror of it all. Under her rage, confusion, regret, and reluctance, there is a part of her that is truly horrified by the fact that humans really aren't alone in the universe, and their new visitors aren't the least bit friendly.
"The power surrounding the cube is impenetrable," the hammer man replies, his voice deep and accented.
A cluster of aliens fly past overhead, and the two men look up into the air. The redheaded woman looks over at them.
"How do we do this?" she asks.
"As a team," Rogers replies instantly.
Jessica scoffs quietly to herself, pulling her lips into her mouth and looking away to hide her amusement. The man doesn't realise how ridiculous he looks, and how it makes everything he says hilarious.
"I have unfinished business with Loki," hammer-man says.
Jessica crosses her arms over her chest, kicking a small chunk of rubble across the ground, nearly rolling her eyes at the fact that someone is called Loki. The people she's got herself caught up with are the weirdest she's ever come across, and she's a P.I., dealing with all kinds of weird and horrible.
"Yeah, well, get in line," the bow and arrow man retorts.
"Save it," Rogers says, walking towards him. "Loki's gonna keep the fight focused on us, and that's what we need. Without him, these things could run wild."
Jessica watches the others as they all turn to face Rogers, lining up in front of him, establishing him as their leader.
"We get Stark up top, he's gonna need us-" Rogers begins, but he cuts off, looking behind him as a dishevelled man drives up on a shitty motorcycle.
The four weirdos move to greet the man and Jessica sighs, her head dropping back, glaring up into the sky. Maybe she should just wander off and do her own thing, but now that there's several people here, she knows it's probably best to just work with them, especially when there seems to be some sort of plan going on in the background of the battle.
She drops her chin to her chest, her arms falling back to her sides, and reluctantly moves to walk towards the forming group, eyeing up this new arrival who really doesn't seem threatening in the slightest.
"So," he says in greeting. "This all seems horrible."
Jessica's head tilts - there's something about him that's ringing a bell in her memory. His eyes meet hers as she trails along behind the other four and he frowns, mouth moving, but the redheaded woman speaks and distracts his attention.
"I've seen worse," she says, and there's something in her voice that makes Jessica frown, eyes narrowing, wondering at the implication.
"Sorry," the man replies.
"No, we could use.. a little worse," the woman assures.
"What the hell?" Jessica mutters to herself, mouth twisting in utter bewilderment.
Hammer-man turns to face her side-on, frowning at her, clearly having heard her. "Who are you?" he asks, tilting his hammer towards her.
"None of your business, blondie," she retorts.
The redhead glances at Jessica, gesturing a hand lazily as she looks to hammer-man. "She was one of the potential recruits for the team," the woman says.
Jessica crosses her arms again. "So, this is that stupid team Fury talked about," she grunts, kicking herself for ending up doing what he wanted.
To be fair, she's doing it for very different reasons than he had predicted. And, also, she isn't actually doing exactly what he wanted, because she's not joining the team, nor is she interested still. She's just going to be present alongside the team, beating the shit out of the asshole aliens who have destroyed her office and work.
"Stark, we got him," Rogers says, fingers pressed to his head again. They've all obviously got earpieces in to stay connected during the battle - just another difference to prove that she's not a part of the team. "Just like you said."
Jessica watches the five teammates turn their gazes to the sky and she follows their eyes, squinting, the corner of her mouth pulling into her cheek as she sighs through her nose. She wishes she had just taken her whiskey bottle and went where the police were directing her, that way she'd not be surrounded by costumed nerds and she'd still have a goddamn drink in her hand.
And she wouldn't be watching Stark's Iron Man suit soaring round a corner towards them, flying up the street with the immense, armoured, space-whale taking out the corner of the building as it chases after him.
"Aw, crap," Jessica mutters, regret creasing her forehead.
"I-I don't see how that's a party," the redheaded woman says.
Stark flies low to the ground, encouraging the space-whale - which kind of looks more like a crocodile, now that it's slithering through the air towards her - downwards, its underside crashing through abandoned cars and buses and trucks, churning the tarmac of the road.
And the team just stands there. Jessica's lips part, eyes widening in irritated disbelief, eyebrows lifting into her hairline.
The new arrival turns to face the space-crocodile, walking forwards on his own, and Jessica tosses her disbelieving look around her, hands lifting into the air in utter confusion and shock at the scene.
"Dr Banner," Rogers calls, and Jessica freezes, eyes narrowing through her bewildered expression, gaze fixed on Banner's purple shirt. "Now might be a really good time for you to get angry."
"Jesus christ," Jessica groans quietly, hands slapping to her hips. The guy is Doctor Bruce Banner. The Bruce Banner.
"That's my secret, Captain," Banner replies, glancing over his shoulder at them nonchalantly, as if there isn't a humongous alien monster surging along the ground towards him. "I'm always angry."
He turns back to the monster, his body suddenly bulging and expanding, his skin turning green, his clothes ripping and tearing and falling away from his body, and Jessica gapes as the Hulk turns and slams a giant green fist into the space-crocodile's nose, denting its armour, halting its movements, his feet slipping backwards with the effort of it all. And the back-end of the crocodile, leveraged by the sudden stop in its momentum, swings up into the air, ready to tumble over itself and come crashing down on top of them all.
But Jessica hears the thrusters of the Iron Man suit in the air behind her, and a small missile surges at the space-crocodile, embedding itself into some flesh when a piece of armour falls away.
"Shit," Jessica hisses, throwing herself behind an overturned car at her side just as the explosion blasts overhead, flames and metal and flesh surging over the top of the car. The ground shakes from the force of it all, the massive carcass slamming into the road, sliding off the edge, and crashing down onto the street below.
Jessica presses a hand to the side of the car, still frowning, her mouth hanging open, and she pushes back onto her feet, watching the last of the crocodile's body slip off the road. A surge in noise draws her gaze to the buildings above them, mouth shutting to curl her lips at the aliens clinging to the walls, shrieking down at the humans. The Hulk lets out an almighty roar in challenge and Jessica turns to watch the team gather into a circle a few metres away, Stark slowly lowering to the ground in his Iron Man suit to join the ranks. Jessica doesn't conceal the judgement on her face as she watches them, her hand lifting to wipe some dirt off her jacket, but when Rogers casts a glance in her direction, an invitation in his eyes, she averts her gaze skyward, avoiding the question.
But the sight that greets her in the sky is potentially somewhat worse than the gathering of nerds in front of her. "You've gotta be kidding me," she grunts, shoulders slumping.
A whole new swarm of aliens are surging through the portal in the sky, along with two more massive fucking space-crocodiles.
"Call it, Captain," Stark says, his voice tinny and muffled in his suit.
"Alright, listen up," Rogers says sharply, drawing Jessica's attention back to the group. "Until we can close that portal, our priority is containment. Barton, I want you on that roof, eyes on everything - call out patterns and strays. Stark, you got the perimeter - anything gets more than three blocks out, you turn it back, or you turn it to ash."
Bow-and-arrow-man looks over to Stark. "You gonna give me a lift?" he asks.
"Right," Stark says, marching over. "Better clench up, Legolas."
Jessica's mouth twitches, watching Stark grab a hold of Barton's back, carrying the man with him when his thrusters launch him into the air.
"Thor, you gotta try and bottle-neck that portal," Rogers continues. "Slow 'em down. You got the lightning - light the bastards up."
Thor - Jessica tuts incredulously at the name - nods, starting to spin his hammer at a wild speed, and he lifts his hand into the air, something about the hammer sending him soaring into the sky too.
Rogers looks to the redhead. "You and me, we stay here on the ground and keep the fighting here. And, Hulk," he says, watching the giant green man turn to him with a grunt and a smirk. "Smash," Rogers says, pointing upwards.
The Hulk grins and bends at the knees, pushing up to throw himself into the air, curving towards the building to attack the aliens climbing its walls.
"And, uh, hey, you," Rogers says, his voice still stern and authoritative, but somewhat uncertain. Jessica's face drops in disbelief that he actually called her what she said as a joke, an eyebrow lifting at him. "Your help would be appreciated on the ground with us."
"Well, I can't go anywhere else," she responds, shrugging, a chuckle escaping her at the ridiculousness of the interaction.
"Stop laughing, Stark," Rogers hisses, his fingers pressing to his head, turning his face away from Jessica. "She told me to call her that, what was I supposed to do?"
The redhead catches Jessica's eyes, and the woman smirks at her, shaking her head. "Men," she says simply.
Jessica's eyebrows pull in, still guarded and wary, but she can't help returning the smirk.
Alien bodies start dropping to the ground, Hulk tossing them from the buildings, and Jessica steps back, flinching slightly. This kind of fight is so beyond her normal it's absurd, but she's in it now and she knows that a part of her - small as it would be - would feel some kind of guilt if she walked away now. So she sighs through her teeth, cracks her neck, and remembers her building crumbling to the ground, recalling the anger that blazed through her veins at the sight.
A group of aliens shriek at them from Jessica's right, and she watches Rogers and the woman sprint forward, leaping into action without hesitation; but Jessica's attention is drawn left, where another group of aliens are advancing on their position. Jaw clenching, she stomps over to a nearby car and bends at her knees, fingers reaching to grab the bottom of the car's bodywork. The panels crumple beneath her strength, her fingers breaking through to get a decent grip, and her face scrunches with effort as she throws herself back up, wrenching the car with her, flipping it over and onto the oncoming group of aliens.
The remainder of the group turn to fire at her and she ducks, running to an overturned car with its door hanging open, ripping it from the hinges to use as a shield. The blasts from their weapons thump into the car door, pushing it towards her face and shoulder, the window smashing at her hips. She runs towards them, peeking round the edge of the door to get a sense of their positions, and throws the door at two of them, knocking them away. She turns quickly to another at her side, blocking its long weapon when it swings it at her, throwing her fist out to punch it hard in the chest, sending it flying into the railing behind it.
The next one shoots right next to her head and she just manages to dodge it, reaching out to grab it by the shoulder and neck, wrenching it down to slam her knee into its face. She spins, tossing the alien away over the side of the road, and stumbles forward when another one jumps on her back. Aggravation burns in her chest, her expression hardening, and she reaches her hand over her head to get a grip of the alien piggybacking her, hauling it over her head and down onto the ground in front of her. She kicks at it, watching it skid and tumble across the road until it slams into another car head-first.
She hears the machines coming, but it doesn't give her enough time to react before they fire at the ground, a blast hitting next to her feet, the explosion slamming into her and sending her hurtling backwards through the air. She grunts as she hits the ground again, tumbling backwards over herself, the rubble on the ground tearing at her jeans. Renewed anger surges through her, her head snapping up to find something to take it out on, and she spots an alien taking aim at the redheaded woman, whose back is to the alien, oblivious as she reloads her gun.
Jessica grits her teeth, grunting with effort as she scrambles to her feet and sprints towards the alien, arms reaching out to slam into it, tackling it around its waist, sending them both toppling over the railing and down to the street below. She twists so that her shoulder takes the brunt of the fall, calling out at the pain as it bursts in the joint, her hip slamming into the ground at the same time. The alien is still moving in her grip, so she hauls herself onto her hands and knees and throws her fist into its face, giving it extra strength to feel bones crunching under her knuckles.
She pants heavily as she stumbles to her feet, eyes searching the chaos around her for signs of more aliens. At the moment, she's alone, and she takes the opportunity to clutch her aching shoulder, rolling it to make sure it's not broken, straining to replenish the air in her lungs. Explosions are still rumbling through the city, blasts shooting from the aliens' flying treadmills on every street, by the sounds of things. She can hear the echo of the Hulk's roars from somewhere up high, spots flashes of lightning as Thor uses whatever he uses to fry their enemies, every so often hearing the Iron Man suit tearing through the sky, thrusters blasting at the aliens, and she looks at herself, in her leather jacket and grey hooded jumper, at her loose jeans and scrappy boots, and she finds a hollow amusement in how little she fits in with it all.
Before she can stop herself, she wonders what she would have done, whether she would have joined the team, if she had never been kidnapped and controlled.
The shadows from the road above her start to stretch out to her feet, whispers calling from their depths, and Jessica turns away from them, her ribs closing around her lungs, her throat shrinking, her feet taking her into a run. Her face is contorted in desperation, her breathing ragged and strained, her arms pumping at her sides with fists clenched so hard, her nails are cutting into her palms, and she despises how afraid she is, how much of a coward it makes her feel, but the further she runs, the quieter the whispers are, so she sprints down the street, trying to convince herself she's just making sure there are no vulnerable civilians in the battlefield.
It actually comes as a relief, then, when she rounds a corner and finds a group of maybe eighteen civilians crouched on the sidewalk, straining to keep out of sight. Jessica lets her fear and panic morph into exasperation and irritation.
"What the hell are you people still doing here?" she shouts, running towards them.
They flinch at her voice, wild eyes searching the street and sky frantically until they spot her. Since she's not recognisable like Iron Man, her presence brings little to no comfort.
"You gotta get outta here, come on," she says loudly, using her voice to cover up the whispers at the back of her mind, still trying to claw their way in. The loud bluntness of her tone seems to work for the civilians too, and they cling to each other, jogging out onto the street to meet her.
She waves them back onto the street she was running down, directing them further down it and away from Stark Tower. She has to keep shouting encouragement, because they keep faltering and hesitating, crying and screaming, and she really wonders if this is what it's like to herd a flock of spooked sheep.
And then they all skid to a halt, shouting out with fear, and Jessica runs to the front to see what's stopped them. Beyond the intersection ahead, there's a huge group of alien infantry, definitely too many for Jessica to take on alone while trying to look out for these idiots. She curses to herself quietly, encouraging them all to get onto the sidewalk and stay tight to the buildings. She moves to the corner of the intersection, glancing down the street, making sure there are no enemies at their left. Between the intersection and the group of aliens down the street ahead, she can see an alley, but she doesn't want to pen the civilians in somewhere and make the aliens' job easier.
"Alright, come on," she hisses, waving them after her as she steps left into the intersection, gaze pinned to the aliens ahead to make sure they aren't noticing them.
She takes them into the empty street on their left, jogging through the overturned cars and flaming chunks of rubble, noticing the same alley connecting to this street too on her right. She realises, when a new space-crocodile comes crashing through the corner of the building at the next intersection, that they're quite lucky to have that alley nearby.
"Get in there, now!" she yells, shoving the civilians towards the alley.
The space-crocodile lets out a terrifying, shrieking bellow, its nose angling down towards the street, towards Jessica, and her stomach drops.
"Goddamnit," she mutters, shoulders slumping.
They can't go back the way they came, because that takes them to the epicentre of the battle. They can't keep going the way they were heading, because there's a huge group of aliens who will overwhelm Jessica. And, now, they can't go down the previously, perfectly, empty street, because there's a giant fucking alien monster swimming through the air towards them, rows of massive teeth glinting in the sunlight, jaw snapping at the air.
Jessica doesn't really know what she's supposed to do about this. She knows she's strong, but she's got absolutely no idea how much strength it takes to bring a beast like this down. It's also quite high up, and while she may have flown once or twice back when she actually felt grateful for her powers, she's never done anything more than a big jump in nearly two years, and the last big jump she did was months ago. Her powers don't just come back to her straight away after such a long period of neglect.
So, she shifts from foot to foot, staring anxiously up at the goliath beast, her hands clenching and unclenching at her sides, and she waits for one of the others to make a miraculous appearance and deal with it instead. She actually kind of wishes she had one of their stupid earpieces so she could call on one of them.
But the space-crocodile is getting closer, and no one has turned up, and Jessica knows she needs to do something within the next five seconds or the beast is gonna slither up and swallow her whole.
"Goddamnit!" she snaps, furious with the situation, with herself, with the civilians, with the nerds in their stupid costumes, with the aliens that destroyed her building, and she runs to the sidewalk, hands wrapping around the thick metal pole of a streetlight. She grits her teeth, the metal bending under her fingers as she hauls it up out of the concrete of the sidewalk. She balances it on her shoulder, stomping back out into the middle of the street, facing the beast head-on, and she moves the pole downwards so that there is more of it stretching out under her grip.
The beast roars at her again, jaw gaping wide, and Jessica bares her own teeth, her knees bending, summoning all of her strength, letting out an enraged growl.
She has no idea whether this will work or not, but she makes a wild guess at when the beast comes within jumping range, and she leaps into the air with all of her strength, wind soaring past her face, feet kicking in her mild panic. She lifts the post of the streetlight up above her head, her grip firm and solid, and she reaches the peak of her jump at a height just above the beast's head, wondering where this good luck has come from all of a sudden as she starts to soar downwards, bending her knees to lift her feet to a good position as she hurtles towards the beast's head. She leans into the momentum of the jump, drawing on as much strength as she can, fingers tightening around the pole, and she lands awkwardly on the beast's head, hauling the pole down over her head and impaling it into the armour in between her feet.
The beast roars and starts to climb higher in the air, Jessica stumbling forward, her chest hitting the pole, gripping onto it desperately as her feet threaten to slip on the uneven plates of armour. She shouts out, gripping the pole tighter, straining to push it down further into the beast's head. It stops suddenly, hitting something solid - potentially bone - so Jessica pushes off her feet, hands still securely around the pole to anchor herself, and shoves the pole with the full weight of her body, her muscles giving everything they have, and she hears something crunch beneath her, the pole shuddering as it embeds itself deeper into the beast's head.
And suddenly the monster tilts, and Jessica's feet finally lose what little grip they had, and she slips off the head of the beast into the open air.
She lets out a clipped yell before she clamps her jaw shut, arms spreading wide in an attempt to straighten out and slow her fall. There's too much air rushing into her lungs and nothing is coming back out again, and her heart is hammering against her ribcage, thudding loudly in her ears as her mind scrambles to remember something, anything, about how to fucking fly.
But the ground is hurtling towards her and she realises that she's probably about to die, splatting on a street in New York in the middle of an alien invasion that she only ran into because she can't control her goddamn temper.
And then something hard and solid slams into her back, and an arm covered in red and gold plates, scratched and battered, but firm and sure, wraps around her ribs, crushing her back into the chest of the Iron Man suit behind her.
"Need a ride?" Stark's tinny voice quips at the back of her head, and the air in Jessica's lungs bursts up her throat in one big whoosh, her face slack with relief and shock.
Stark flips them over so the ground is at their backs now, soaring up and away from the spot on the street where Jessica would have become a pancake. She stares down at it, her mind reeling, thoughts still scrambled and focused on remembering how to fly even though she doesn't need to now.
"Uh, maybe loosen your grip there, hey, you," Stark says tensely, and Jessica realises her fingers are digging into his forearm so hard she's about to dent the panels.
"Shit," she snaps, doing as he suggested, but keeping her fingers wrapped onto his arm just in case his grip falters.
He carries her up to one of the shorter buildings of the street, further down from where she'd attacked the beast. As soon as her feet touch the roof, she steps away from his suit, pushing his arm away from her body, gaze searching for the beast and finding it buried deep in a building up near the intersection, dead.
"Did you seriously take that thing down with a streetlight?" Stark asks, his voice still muffled and tinny in his helmet, his suit whirring as he walks up to stand next to her.
Jessica's forehead pulls in, glancing at his glowing blue eye slits. "Sorry I don't have a billion dollars to make some glorified onesie to do the job for me," she snaps, still reeling with shock and, now, embarrassment.
"Okay, wow," Stark laughs indignantly. "I was gonna compliment you, but now I'm just gonna have to go and take one down myself," he shrugs, throwing a hand out in frustration. "Can't have a stray showing the team up!"
"A stray?" she repeats, feeling a little indignant herself.
"Yup, bye-bye!" he sing-songs, the thrusters on his palms and feet suddenly launching him into the air. "Good luck getting back down!"
Jessica grits her teeth, scowling at him as he flies off somewhere else. She stomps to the edge of the roof, leans down to place her hand flat on the edge, and vaults over. She falls to the sidewalk below, knees bending when her feet slam into the ground, and she honestly wants nothing more than to be sat at her desk with a bottle of whiskey in her hand.