A/N: Hope you all enjoy this new story! Please R&R!
I do not own Avengers.
The Quinjet flew over the zombie-infested of New York City, heading for Avengers Tower. Just 24 hours before, the city had been normal – well, as normal as a city perennially plagued by supervillain attacks could be.
The previous day, the Avengers had been called upstate to investigate an attack by several mysterious creatures in a small town on the banks of the Hudson River. But when they arrived, they found that the creatures were what could only be called zombies. By that time most of the town had been infected and turned into zombies as well. The team had tried to contain the zombies but were horribly outnumbered and cut off from getting back to the Quinjet. Hawkeye and Thor had volunteered to cause a diversion to lead the zombies away from Cap, Iron Man, Hulk, and Black Widow, which allowed the four to get back to the Quinjet. None of them had seen what became of Thor and Hawkeye, but there wasn't much doubt in anyone's minds about their fate.
The team had figured they would return to Avengers Tower and come up with a plan to cure the zombies, but upon returning to Manhattan, they saw that the zombie virus had managed to beat them there. Visible below the Quinjet were hordes of zombies swarming through the streets.
"This is bad," Steve said. "Some of these zombies have probably broken into the tower by now."
"Actually, it might not be all that bad," Bruce said. "In order to make a cure for this, we'd have to have a sample of infected blood to work with. Now that there's zombies all over the place, that shouldn't be too hard to do. Although, you do bring up a good point. We'd better hope any zombies in the tower haven't wrecked the machinery I'd need to develop a cure."
"So how are we going to get into the tower?"
"We'll park the Quinjet on the landing pad," Tony said, "and then once we're in, I'll activate the tower's forcefield. That way no more zombies will be able to get in, and we'll just be dealing with the ones – if any – already in there."
The Quinjet arrived at Avengers Tower and landed on the pad towards the top of the tower, its wings folding up. Tony tapped his ARC reactor, causing the current model of his Iron Man suit to spread from it over him. "Okay, F.R.I.D.A.Y.," he said, "isolate the tower. Forcefield protocol."
A few seconds later, a translucent blue dome spread from the base of the tower up around it. When it was about halfway up the tower, though, it stopped. "F.R.I.D.A.Y., we got a problem?" Tony asked.
"Power cells low," F.R.I.D.A.Y. replied. "That is as far as the forcefield will go presently."
"Well, that should still keep any zombies from wandering in," Tony said. "Everyone out. Let's go see what we're up against."
The Avengers exited the Quinjet and warily looked around the interior of the tower. The floor they were on appeared untouched, but that didn't mean the same was true of lower floors. "Stay sharp," Steve said as they headed towards the stairs.
As they headed down, Tony whispered, "F.R.I.D.A.Y., scan the tower for any life signatures other than ours."
A few seconds later, F.R.I.D.A.Y. replied, "Eleven signatures detected. Three on the third floor, one on the second, and seven on the first."
"Thanks."
"What did she say?" Natasha asked.
"There's eleven lifeforms on the bottom three floors. We've gotta assume they're zombies."
After heading down several levels, the team arrived on the fourth floor. Almost immediately, they heard a crash come from the third floor. They slowly approached the stairs, and saw several shadows on the stairwell's curved wall. "Those don't look like regular shadows," Bruce whispered. "Their movements are all off. They're moving like the zombies we fought earlier."
Steve nodded. "Everyone go down quietly until we know they've seen us – we want to rely on stealth as long as possible. And remember, once the fighting starts, be sure not to get bitten."
The four crept down the stairs. When they were about halfway down, they saw the zombies around the wall. The three walking corpses were ransacking the tower's food supply, growling and shoving whatever they could in their mouths.
One of the zombies then looked up and saw the approaching Avengers.
Everyone froze, until the zombie growled to get the attention of the other two. The three then launched themselves across the room towards the stairs at frightening speed.
Steve deflected one zombie off his shield, while Tony blasted at the others with his lasers. Natasha zapped the second zombie. "Bruce, we could use some help from your green friend!" Tony said.
"Working on it," Bruce replied.
Suddenly, more zombies rushed up the stairs from the lower levels and charged as well. Tony blasted a table in the center of the room at the newcomers, shoving the zombies back down the stairs and blocking their path. Steve leapt at the first zombie, which was back up, and attacked it with his shield again.
The two other zombies in the room leapt on Tony, tearing at his armor. Natasha zapped one of them, while Steve threw his shield at the back of the other zombie, knocking it off Tony.
Then the zombies on the stairs shoved the table aside and rushed into the room, over half a dozen strong. Tony blasted at them too, but with one zombie still partly on him, his aim was mostly off.
Suddenly, the team heard a roar from behind them, and looked back to see that Bruce had turned into the Hulk. He leapt off the stairs into the main room and yelled, "SMASH ZOMBIES!" Steve hit the zombie still on Tony with his shield, and then the three ran down the stairs to help Bruce.
Not that he needed much helping. Three of the zombies had already been smashed, but it sounded as though the two that hadn't arrived at the fight yet were coming up the stairs. Bruce roared and approached two of the other zombies, but the third one leapt on his back. Tony flew towards it and knocked it off.
The two other zombies arrived at the top of the stairs, resulting in a total of four facing the team. Steve threw his shield at another, knocking it over, while Bruce attacked the other three. Only a few seconds later, the remaining zombies had been subdued.
"Okay, Nat, time to calm him down," Steve said. "Then we can get a blood sample from one of these things and get to work on a cure."
Bruce slowly reverted to his human form. Tony landed next to him and retracted his helmet. He asked Bruce, "I've always wondered, what exactly are your pants made of?"
"What?" Bruce asked as he stood up.
"All your other clothes always get completely shredded when you Hulk out, but your pants just stretch and stay mostly intact."
Bruce chuckled. "Yeah, I don't really know."
"Okay, let's get to work," Steve said, strapping his shield to his back. "Bruce, how long do you think it'll take to make this cure?"
"Probably several hours," Bruce said. "At least, I…."
Everyone turned back to see why he had stopped talking. "Bruce, what is it?" Natasha asked.
"Uh…," Bruce pointed to his arm. "Guys, we've got a problem. I think…one of them bit me."