Hello! Sorry for the longer than anticipated wait. Immediately after posting my last chapter I suddenly got 4 jobs and then had some other stuff suck all the creativity out of me for a while. Finally though this chapter is finished, and with it very nearly the end of the Avengers arc and Part 1 of this fic.
Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters aside from my own OC. The rights of the other characters belong to Marvel and its affiliates.
Enjoy!
aAa
The cold did not bother Loki as they plummeted. The buildings rising up to meet them however…
"Midguardian!" He shook the woman with force, digging his fingers into her arms as his yell turned strangled.
Cora didn't stir. He could see her eyes flutter beneath their lids but she gave no further sign of hearing his shouts, or doing anything to remedy them.
Their nosedive continued, and Loki could see the flashes now upon the streets; blue and orange and the familiar white of summoned electricity. Zipping between them were the creatures at his command, conveniently plugged in to their modes of transport to avoid exactly this situation, he thought dryly as their plummet reached the tallest skyscraper spires.
He had already summoned a ride, could hear its drone as it climbed to meet him. The Midgardian however…it seemed a shame to lose her to the concrete.
Gently now, he shook the historian in a final attempt at if not his, then her own preservation. She murmured but remained stubbornly limp.
"Apologies Midgardian," He brought his hand to cup her face as he prepared to fling himself away from her, "No clemency for you today after all."
And then he felt it. Choked around her neck and with wires threading under her suit that he had felt with each shake but stupidly ignored.
"Mask," The woman had whispered to the wind when they were a considerable amount higher, but he had felt only rage internal at being faced with such an accusation of hiding behind one, no matter how true it was.
He wasn't the mask, this was.
"Oh you fool," He said, not quite to himself but not quite to her either.
Then he yanked the thin fabric up around the historian's nose and mouth and watched as the internal workings connected and she sucked in a breath.
The alarm in her suddenly opened eyes widened to fear, before all of it was scrunched down with a gasp as the wings snapped open and they were whiplash-yanked to a near halt.
"Owww," Cora whined behind her mask, but even as she did so she was spinning them both, letting them fall from the hover and descend more comfortably now in a dive.
"Are you quite finished?" Loki managed to spit out as he felt his stomach return from its pit and watched the skies beyond Cora's shoulders stay at a steady distance above them.
Cora looked at him, as if only just realising the intimacy of the position they were in.
With one strong beat upwards she forced the God to fall, and then snatched him from the air, this time holding onto the leather at his shoulder blades so he could fly parallel beneath her.
"Now…" She spoke through pain-gritted teeth at the strain, "Now I'm done."
"Then may I suggest you find somewhere to land, and imminently," Loki tried to regain his nonchalance; hoped malice would fall back into place with it. "Seeing as my forces have you surrounded."
Sure enough the mounted aliens were providing an aerial honour guard to the historian and her deity cargo. Cursing under her breath, Cora dredged up one of the only evasive manoeuvres she remembered being taught and banked rapidly. Her boots offered a small amount of propulsion and so with a twist and a few moments she was flapping back in the direction of Stark Tower, a curse throwing God clutched with whitening knuckles beneath her and a squadron of alien biker boys left in her dust.
aAa
The team watched as Cora's fall stopped with a snap as her wings arched out behind her.
"Eeesh I felt that," Tony muttered even as internally he breathed a sigh of relief.
He had followed Cora after she'd taken Loki for a joyride in the sky. Or at least, he had followed as high as the building tops before his attention had been called to a space whale terrorising a midtown deli. Then he had been forced to watch her ascent turn to smoke trails and wait for her and her passenger to turn up back in their airspace.
Her return had been equally as dramatic: hurtling downwards, spinning and limp with the God apparently navigating the fall. But as soon as Tony shifted his path again skyward, it seemed Cora was again in control: violently breaking her fall before hastily pivoting to direct the God as back towards the main fight.
"Is she friend or foe?" Hawkeye called out as Stark passed above him. From his position Stark could see how the archer tracked the historian with his bow, arrow notched.
"How can we tell?" Rogers' voice was muffled by the comm but still sounded frantic. Stark couldn't see him but was sure his face would be a picture of patriotic panic.
"The effects wore off when I knocked Barton unconscious," Romanoff chimed in; "If she was unconscious when falling it's possible he's lost control."
"Is her comm network still live?" The captain's voice was taut as he came into view, gaze pointed to Stark and the skies beyond.
"Jarvis?" Tony questioned.
"Negative, Sir. The altitude of Dr Quinn's ascent has likely interfered with the comm system."
"We can't call her," Stark relayed to the team.
"Could you fly close enough to her to get a visual?" The captain sounded like even he knew he was clutching at straws.
Stark sighed.
"I could do that Rogers, but this will be quicker."
Preparing himself for the yells over the comms, Stark fired a repulsor beam at the historian. When Steve Rogers inevitably pinned him to a wall over this he would explain he had calculated the exact angle to hit only the God she was carrying. Whether this was true or not however didn't matter, because the beam hit its target regardless.
Stark watched as Cora again brought her wings in front of the beam's trajectory, and felt a pang of guilt as he watched her shudder as the energy threaded through the metal and forced her to dip in altitude.
"She's still protecting him," He said over the cacophony of yells from the good captain. "She could have let him take the hit if she was in control."
"What now then?" Natasha remained ever the pragmatist.
Hawkeye delivered the verdict as he watched the historian click her heels and shoot off, putting distance between her teammates and her cargo.
"Then, we take them out of the sky."
aAa
"Abort! Abort!" Cora yelled as the last of the blast energy prickled out of her fingertips. "Stop shooting! Friendly fire."
Her comm crackled but there was no voice of reassurance on the end of the line.
How could it stop working? This was Stark's tech for God's sake! Surely one little free fall couldn't break a communication system that probably cost more than her combined student debts!
Within her grip, Loki resumed struggling. Cora looked down with fire in her gaze, and though she was glaring at the back of Loki's head, he stilled beneath her stare.
"Hold still," She muttered anyway, and then she let go with one hand.
The pull on her remaining clenched fist was near unbearable. As a result her other-handed actions were fumbled as she yanked the goggles up from around her neck and once they were secure and her grip on the God was faltering, pulling the hood up over her head so she was completely covered.
When she looked down to return both hands to grasping the God, her goggles lit up in a maelstrom of labels and diagrams. She could see the grip strength of her fists, outlined by glowing impressions of the metal in her wrists and an ever updating calculation of her ability to hold Loki tight. Looking to her left the goggles tracked the progress of the alien crafts as they zipped around them. All the while her own heart rate and oxygen levels were visible at the top left of her vision. And above them, in an unwelcome reminder of what she had to investigate further if they ever got out of this madness: EyrieTec: 28061948.
A building rose up to meet them from behind the mass of text. Realising her mistake, Cora tried to avoid it, but the flashing proximity alerts did little to stop the impending impact.
Loki however did perfectly.
"Oof," He complained to the masonry.
"Sorry, sorry," Cora peeled backwards, squinting past the goggles for a clear bit of sky.
Instead she was met by a huddled fleet of aliens, watching as she smushed their boss into the building front with guns drawn.
"I take it you're directing the escort," Cora muttered as she followed their lead and turned back towards the tower.
"Stark Tower, if you please," Loki responded curtly, the shake in his voice swallowed by a practiced ire.
"Fine," Cora bit out, "But if they shoot me again you're taking the bullet."
aAa
Natasha shaded her eyes as she watched the sky. Two Chitauri soldiers littered the ground in front of her, their blood still warm under her nails.
Roger's approaches her, his shield still raised from his own run in with the aliens.
"Captain, none of this is gonna mean a damm thing if we don't close that portal."
The super soldier looks unfocussed for a minute, his gaze still skyward, before he snaps back into focus.
"Our biggest guns couldn't touch it," He confirms.
Another squadron of alien crafts whizzes above them. Natasha watches their trail with calculated interest.
"Maybe it's not about guns."
Steve followed her thought process with a start.
"You want to get up there? Surely Stark and Coraline have got it covered?"
Natasha looked back at him, her eyes stern.
"Quinn isn't confirmed as a friendly, Rogers. One way or another we need to stop this thing. We can't have you getting squeamish over who's sky-bound."
Steve sighed as he drew his attention from the air above. "Fine, then you'll need a ride."
"I've got one," Natasha smirked, "Could use a lift though."
"Are you sure about this?"
"Yeah," Natasha gave a nervous smile. "It'll be fun."
For having never trained together, their actions were fluid as Steve raised his shield enough to give the assassin a boost upwards.
From his position on the ground, he watched as another member of his team zipped off into the rooftop arena. Then he turned and headed back into the melee.
aAa
Cora couldn't see Steve.
She tried not to let that worry her. After all, he was a soldier. He had trained for situations like these. With a hiss she altered her course to avoid a space whale falling with a screech. Ok, maybe not for situations exactly like this.
She still craned her neck downwards as they flew.
The aliens had spread out once they were apparently happy that she wasn't about to change course on them. The front runners were a good couple hundred metres ahead, but as Cora rounded another building and turned onto a new street, she noticed a commotion up ahead as an alien fell from his craft.
Squinting activated the zoom feature of the goggles, and past the resulting wave of nausea she could see a flash of red hair amidst the metal of the craft.
Natasha.
Cora made the mistake of glancing around her, her hopes of seeing Stark coming in to intercept them and retrieve her Godly cargo dashed immediately when the goggles remained on and the world spun in triple zoom.
"Ugh, I'm gonna be sick," She hung her head with a breath.
A blue blast from beneath her startled her back into alertness.
"What was that?" She yelled.
"Offensive measures," Loki yelled back, and though Cora's vision was still skewed she could just about make out the metal of a gun in his grip.
"Are you trying to get us both killed?" Her shout was accompanied by another dodge as a stray beam from Stark's suit cut through the craft ahead of them.
"Your abysmal flying will see to that I'm sure."
Cora's shriek of frustration didn't calm her ire. The click of her boots and the folding in of her wings as she took them into a roll however…
"Take that you stupid, ignorant, egomaniacal sycophant," She seethed as internally her stomach churned.
When her motion sick stomach could take it no more, Cora righted them both. In glorious zoomed in HD she watched as Loki's weapon plummeted below them.
"Ha!" She said triumphantly, but the next minute a whistling, clinking thud against her left wing took the grin from her face.
Arrows.
She narrowly managed to dodge a second, feeling it fly past her right arm and hoping she had flinched enough to stop it hitting her other wing.
"Are you trying to get hit on purpose?" Loki's voice was strained.
"I can't see," Cora admitted with a yelp as she felt an arrow thunk off her boot heel. "The stupid goggles…"
"Then it's a good thing they're aiming at me," Loki said, but then he was shifting, dropping from her hold before grabbing with an arm so much stronger than Cora's so that their hands were entwined.
"Lean down," He said through gritted teeth, making Cora all the more aware that they were still flying, still watching street by street pass blurrily beneath them.
In the next moment the goggles were ripped from her face and she felt a jolt on her arm as Loki dropped back down to hang beneath her. Immediately the wind brought tears to her eyes.
Another arrow shot towards them. Cora beat her wings to raise their altitude away, but it followed, red light flashing in its tip.
"Look out," Cora yelled as she braced for impact.
Loki caught the arrow like he was playing catch on a summer's day. He scoffed as he looked back at its trajectory.
"You said something about taking bullets?" He said sweetly as he made to throw the arrow away.
It exploded.
Suddenly Loki's' hand was gone from hers, and the heat and the pressure pushed Cora so off course that she had no hope of following his fall.
Instead she was in her own spiralling decline. Frantically she tried to flap upwards, but where before there had been solid wing mechanisms now the wind whistled through areas where metal feathers had been blown away. The goggles were round her neck again but she could hear a shrill beeping coming from the screen, and it didn't take a genius to guess her rapidly falling altitude had something to do with it.
For a split second Cora considered how best to land, but it only took another failed beat of her wings for her to realise she wasn't going to get a choice.
In fact, as she realised that in her panic she'd never unclicked her heels from her barrel rolling, she was already breaking free of the skyscraper capital and heading into open airspace.
And in the next moment she had lost control completely and was diving into the East River.
The water was cold and brackish in her mouth as it flooded through her mask filters. Now that she had her hands free Cora made quick work of discarding the smooth plastic mask before it did its part in her drowning, and them with already tiring limbs she swam for the surface.
Cora hadn't seen much of the waterfront in her time before the Helicarrier. Even so, she had expected it to be near deserted given the situation the city was in. Instead it was crowded with people and with boats too – their wakes forcing her to paddle furiously as they churned the water up around her into froth.
A splash next to her sprayed more water up into her eyes, but as it cleared Cora realised someone had thrown her a life ring. As she clutched it, she looked around to see a small tour boat edging closer to her, deckhands already leaning over the railings with hands outstretched.
The waves threatened to envelope her as the boat pulled close enough for a rope ladder to be pitched over the railings, but in the next moment she was being yanked up the side of the boat and was beached on the deck, wings dripping water as she gasped for breath.
After a few moments of panting Cora propped herself up on her hands and looked around. Scared faces looked back. One had a look of fear induced determination as it wielded a spanner.
Slowly she raised her hands in surrender, but the jolt of the boat hitting the side of the dock forced her back to her hands and knees position. From there two sets of hands grabbed her arms and she was hoisted upright before being frogmarched off the boat and pushed back down onto the dockside.
"OK, form a line people," Cora heard from above her, and as she looked up, this time in astonishment, she saw the evacuation taking place.
Scared men in business suits waited on the quay front alongside tourists still clutching cameras. Around them, men in a mixture of river cruise jerseys and the more formal shirts with epaulet regalia martialled the crowds into lines quickly filing on to a small fleet of boats.
A boatlift, Cora thought with amazement.
She'd watched a documentary about this. In the hours following the last attack on New York, facing an exodus from the city with no way out by road or rail, a call had been put out for the ferry boats. Anyone who could, anyone who dared: a plea to assist in the evacuation efforts by water, the only way off the island. And they had come in droves.
Again they were stepping up. Done this time with a grim familiarity, each boat was loaded with probably more than the exact recommended passenger manifest and waved off as another sidled in to take its place.
Cora would have stayed and marvelled at it for far longer had not she been brought back to the present by a scream of:
"What is that?!"
They were talking about her of course. Wings splayed behind her, her left with an arrow protruding from the wing joint, her right pockmarked and skeletal. And between it a soggy, dripping thing in a hood, which Cora was quick to remove once she realised how close it made her resemble the aliens these people were so desperately avoiding.
"Dredged it out of the river," One of the men who had deposited her stepped up on her left side.
"Watched it come down from that direction," The other pointed back to the smouldering buildings as he kept his distance.
"I'm sorry," Cora said quietly, but she was drowned out by the yells of the crowd.
"How do we know it won't attack us?!"
"I saw it carrying that man, the one who killed all those people in Germany!"
"What if it calls for its friends to come and kill us too?"
"No, no," Cora scooted backwards with arms raised, but she only got a few feet before she was hitting the legs of one of the boat operators, who wasn't wielded a spanner anymore but still looked just as dangerous.
"Wait!" A new voice cut through the crowd.
At first the people remained angry, closing in on Cora as she tried to make herself smaller.
But with another yell three people burst through the closed ranks of the scared New Yorkers and Cora visibly wilted in relief.
The receptionist, the courier and the security guard looked even more rumpled than they had in Docutec's lobby. But they were alive. And for Cora that was enough.
"You made it," She whispered as they took up positions in her defence.
"This woman helped us evacuate our entire building," The security guard started.
"She ran upwards while we all went down," The receptionist continued.
"Why should we believe you?" A yell from the crowd responded.
"She's wearing a Docutec fire tabard you jackass," The courier shouted back before giving Cora a small smile of encouragement and offering her a hand.
"I remember her," A new voice piped up, and though Cora didn't recognise the suited worker that stepped up, she appreciated his help as he crossed to her right and hefted the crumpled wing metal back into a more normal settled position against her back.
"She evacuated my building too. I thought the tabard was odd – before everything else became stranger that is."
"I remember her too," Someone else chimed in, and then there was a flurry of voices as more and more office workers stepped forward.
"You all got out," Cora looked around in astonishment.
"We did," The courier said softly as she continued to hold onto Cora's arm.
"This is all very touching," One of the tour boat operators called over the rising hubbub, "But we need you all on the boats if we're gonna get everyone out of here."
At once the dock snapped back into action, the crowds returning to their speedy boarding as the original surge of workers was replaced by another and another.
The courier stayed with Cora, the security guard waving sombrely as he helped the nervous receptionist onto a ferry
"Don't you need to go with them?" Cora asked as the boats peeled away and new empty ones arrived.
"I'll catch the next one," The courier promised even as she made no move to leave. "Someone's gotta make sure they don't start beating you up."
aAa
Hawkeye swore as he watched the historian nosedive in the direction of the East River.
"I thought you said Quinn's wings were indestructible?" He shouted through the Comm.
Stark's response was strained with the effort of his fight: "Impervious to repulsor blasts, Barton. Not to being blown up."
Steve's response cut above that as he yelled: "WHAT?!"
"It's fine Cap," Clint attempted pacifications. "She's just grounded."
He could hear the Captain's barrage of questions in his ear even as he was turning to fire an arrow close range at an alien at his back. If he had not been interrupted he perhaps would have scouted more to see if or where the woman had come down. Now though…
Now he fired his last arrow, plucked from the chest of a fallen Chitauri, and after it flew, followed it over the edge.
aAa
Cora's wings were a dead weight.
She'd tried folding them in, but whether it was the arrow in one wing or the complete lack of 'feathers' in the other that impeded her movement, either way they remained splayed behind her as she directed people onto the boats.
They had been reluctant to let her help at first. But then the sounds of fighting had gotten a little closer to their position and any reluctance was swept away in a megaphone instruction to point people towards the nearest ferry. Through it all the courier had stayed with her. Together they helped people onto boats heading to where they presumed the carnage had not spread. Together they offered soft reassurances and consoling touches. Together they turned as they heard a building give way behind them. Together they saw the space whale come down.
Cora whirled her wings around them both with a hiss at the pain the movement caused. Small pieces of debris still stung their faces as the building caved completely under the alien beast's weight. For a few seconds there was quiet as the dust started to settle and the space whale gave the last of its groans.
And then there was a high pitched whine of a weapon blast and a shuddering quake as electricity crackled through the remnants of her wings.
Cora braced as best she could, already trying to pinpoint where the blast had come from. By the angle it certainly wasn't the sky, but all her sniper identification training had come from history books and adventure novels so apart from that she was coming up blank.
The source soon made itself known however, as first one and then five aliens scrambled out from the carcass of their transport, weapons raised and eyes glistening beneath their masks.
A weight at her right side made her look down.
The courier was leaning in to her; a gasp paused in her expression as she clutched her side. With horror Cora tracked the pattern of red-raw burns on the courier's torso, her mind already matching them to the holes in her right wing.
"No," Cora breathed out with a shake.
Another energy beam shot past her, this time on the left. Cora didn't stop to look at the approaching aliens, nor track the beam's trajectory to see if it had hit the boats and evacuating New Yorkers. Instead she flared her wings behind her, ignored the pain the action caused, and then grabbed the courier under her shoulders. With whispered apologies she dragged the limp woman backwards, and when this felt too slow, manhandled the courier into her arms to turn and run towards the ferries.
"Help her," She gasped as two deckhands ran towards them.
"She needs a doctor!" One called back to the boat. Anxious faces stared from the deck. They had been ready to cast off and now they were stalled, with alien forces prowling ever closer. Cora looked up at them deploringly. She could feel tears on her cheeks.
"Please," She sobbed.
A woman pushed through the boat's passengers and vaulted over the rails. She landed harshly but was steadied by a tourist who had streaked from the crowd. A deckhand gestured upwards and was rewarded by first one and then two first aid kits being thrown down to him. He quickly gathered both and followed the path of the two civilians streaking towards Cora.
"I'm a doctor," The woman explained as she helped Cora guide the courier to the concrete.
"I served in the RAMC," The tourist was British, a balding man in his fifties who crouched beside them and quickly translated the military jargon when he saw the harried confusion on all but Cora's face, "Royal Army Medical Corps. I'm a nurse."
"I...uh…I've had first aid training," The deckhand supplied. The doctor nodded and started listing things for him to pull out of the first aid kits. Cora watched in dismay as they created a makeshift triage on the dock.
Then an energy blast behind her forced her attention to shift to the cause of the renewed screaming on the ferry deck.
The aliens were almost upon them now, already beginning to fan out as each one took in the huddling crowds of those still waiting to board, and the sitting ducks of those on boats waiting to leave the waterfront. Cora saw all of this and with it heard a moan from the courier behind her.
And then she heard only the blood rushing in her ears as she ran towards the attackers.
The first one went down with the force of her jump. Her wings might have been useless but the boots still had a small amount of energy in them and she used it to gain enough height to drop and push the alien into the concrete. She heard a snap and watched the creature's limbs drop like a broken marionette. She couldn't help the grin of satisfaction, but it turned to snarl as another creature reached for her wings.
She gave the creature what it wanted, slicing horizontally and feeling the thud as the jagged metal made contact. It staggered backwards but was only momentarily stilled. Cora was ready when it came again and met it with two hands wrenching it's helmet from its face with the all the strength she could muster. This time it went down and didn't get up.
A missile shot overhead. Cora recognised the noise from news reels, but the corresponding sight was as foreign as everything else was. Iron Man was flying parallel to the rocket barrel, nudging it slightly as it began to gain altitude. Cora squinted as he flew back towards the city, but her squint was turned to a scrunch of pain as her head was whipped sideways by an alien's blow.
The force of the backhand had put her on her knees, and the alien followed her down with its clawed hands around her neck. She struggled, of course she struggled, but with every missed kick and flailed punch her strength was fading, and with it came the settling feeling that perhaps she couldn't fight this. When another alien joined the fray with a kick to her side it took all her effort not to give up completely. But then as the tussle flipped her to her side she caught a glimpse of the doctors still crouched around the courier, and the dread in her stomach hardened to a last ditch adrenalin fuelled rage.
Cora clicked her heels into the first alien's chest. The heat flared upwards and into its armour as the historian was propelled backwards into a firmer chokehold with the force. She could smell the burn of melted material and then flesh, corroborating her success with the screams of the creature and the release of its grasp from her neck. Past the smell of smouldering monster, Cora coughed through a few jagged breaths. Then she looked up to find the remaining creature pointing its weapon down at her.
She froze. Her wings creaked in complaint as she flared then outwards. The alien fired. She closed her eyes and hoped instincts would still bring her metal shield down around her.
There was quiet. Far off the boats knocking against the side of the dock drifted into her hearing. On them the crowds gasped collectively. Another quiet pause. Then yells. Not of fear, nor of anguish. Yells of triumph. Of jubilation. Of witnessing a horror and seeing it end.
Cora opened her eyes and peeled back the wings.
The alien in front of her was down, its weapon discarded. Around her people swarmed from there crouched positions, some looking up at the now empty sky, otherwise directing their gaze towards Midtown where the sound of falling alien crafts could be heard: little explosion pockmarks to the quiet of the streets.
Cora got to her feet shakily and swayed. Instantly a hand braced against her shoulder, another began to guide her to the dock front where someone else pushed her down into a sit.
"The courier," Cora rasped as she looked around frantically.
"Stable," The deckhand with the first aid experience clarified as he handed her a water bottle produced from someone's forgotten gym bag.
Cora looked beyond him to see the doctor sat up on her haunches, wiping her brow with a look of quiet satisfaction as beneath her the courier lay still but with one hand clutching that of the tourist nurse.
"What happened?" She said more clearly after downing the water in one go.
"That Iron Man flew something into the sky," The deckhand handed her a glucose sachet from the gym bag which Cora gratefully accepted as he continued. "Launched it right into the portal and they all just dropped."
The man gestured to the splayed bodies, now being stepped over by the milling crowds. The cheers had sobered to disbelieving gasps and the occasional moan as people regarded the damage to their city. Through it all came the same phrase, again and again: is it over?
Cora didn't realise she had vocalised it herself till the deckhand responded with a hand cupped over his brow.
"It's not over yet," He said as he surveyed the approaching scene. "I reckon it's only just beginning."
Cora braced to see more aliens flooding the streets, but as she followed the deckhand's gaze she instead saw the cavalry had arrived. Police and armoured vehicles swarmed towards the dock, drove upon drove of flashing lights and megaphone touting men in khaki.
"Come on," The deckhand helped her back to her feet and pulled her with him into the crowds. "You'd best get out of here before your cover is blown."
"What cover?" Cora asked as she staggered alongside him.
The deckhand didn't answer till she was swept past the crowd now being organised into lines by the army and police. As the boatlift began again in earnest, the deckhand directed her down a side street and only turned to her once she'd been nudged into facing the right direction of Stark Tower.
"The world hasn't been the same since Stark made that suit of his," The deckhand explained quietly as around them people began to emerge from their hiding places.
"And now," He continued. "God now I don't even know what kind of world we'll be waking up to tomorrow. But what I do know is that people like you are changing with this new reality, doing more than most of us ever could to combat all that's being thrown at us. And that makes you a hero."
Cora spluttered at this, but he put up a hand to shush her and continued.
"You, the God from the desert, that red white and blue guy from the old comics. You're heroes now. What you did, that's changed how we will see the world. But what we shouldn't see, what we don't deserve to see," He pointed a finger into her chest, "Is you."
Cora made as if to object but then simply sighed and nodded.
"I don't even know your name," She said quietly.
"Good," The deckhand responded curtly, already stepping back. "I don't know yours either. And no one on that dock's gonna remember your face, not with the rest of the crazy that's going on."
"Make sure the courier is OK, please," Cora called to him as he turned to job back to the dock.
The man waved in salute and left her to the stares of those climbing from shopfront rubble.
Cora ignored their gasps and mutters. Instead she shifted her shoulders and hissed in pain. With wings dragging she took a step – hissed again. Then another and a gritted teeth hiss because Goddamit she was getting back to the Tower no matter how much her body stung at every movement.
Slowly, so slowly, one clunking foot after the other, Coraline Quinn began to walk.
aAa
Cora picked her way through the lobby of Stark Tower with a weariness that mounted with every creak and muscle-twinge.
For a building at the epicentre of an invasion it had not fared too badly. Paperwork had been abandoned and everything was coated in a dust and smoke mix that clung to her clothes and swept across her brow when she wiped sweat from her eyes, but it was far better than the chaos and rubble she had crossed to reach it. Mercifully the sofas in the waiting area were still upright and unscathed, and it was onto one of these that Cora sunk with a sigh.
With her suit still damp and chaffing, her wings cramping the muscles of her back and neck, and her ribs and face throbbing from the alien blows, the small comfort of a soft surface was a heavenly bliss.
It was here that the rest of the team found her. They'd dealt with Loki, and with the arrival of a S.H.I.E.L.D team imminent, they had left Thor and the Hulk to monitor the Trickster God and descended the many flights of stairs to meet S.H.I.E.L.D in the lobby. Instead they found Cora, sitting quietly and staring at nothing.
Steve's cry of 'Cora' however brought her gaze snapping upwards and then melting from concern to relief.
It was clear standing was hard for her. She looked about as beat up as the rest of them, and just as tired. Nevertheless as she crossed to them a glimmer of humour still danced in her eyes.
"Your tech sucks," She handed two soggy ear pieces to Tony with an exaggerated ire.
"And I believe this is yours," She reached around to her left wing with a grunt and pulled the protruding arrow free to place in Clint's apologetically outstretched hand.
With a nod she passed Natasha, who returned it before taking up Cora's place on the sofa.
That left only Steve, and it was at this point Cora faltered.
The man in front of her was bloodied and bruised. His face held an expression Cora couldn't place and she had no snarky comment to smokescreen her relief that he of all teammates was OK. So she faltered and the lobby remained silent and his face remained unreadable beneath the grime.
But then his arms were around her and she was pulled close to his chest. And she could hear his heart beating through his uniform and feel the warmth of blood at his side. And she could feel the staccato shakes of his chest as he stifled sobs of relief, and felt the way in which they imperceptibly jostled each other as her own sobs joined his. And when they had done their crying, she could feel his breathing as he pushed his face into her hair, and grimaced when he pulled back to find it wet from the river. But the grimace turned to a small smile as he raised his eyebrows and reached for a damp strand, and she in turn stretched up to dust a piece of rubble from his tussled hair.
And there was still Loki to worry about, and S.H.I.E.L.D and Eyrie and every other new reality that had been brought down from the stars. But all that melted into the backdrop of the busying lobby as the agents finally arrived en-mass. For Cora there was only the sureness of Steve standing in front of her, sturdy and safe and unwilling to let her go. In that moment, amidst the dust and the smoke, that was enough.
That was more than enough.
aAa
The boatlift documentary Cora remembers watching is on YouTube under 'Boatlift'. It is narrated by Tom Hanks and is a very moving short film which has impacted me greatly in all aspects of life.
Thank you again to Nixdragon for reviewing, I hope you like this newest chapter too!
As always, let me know any thoughts, comments, questions, screams of frustration, theories, unintelligible yelling. I cherish every comment.
