Chapter 23 updated! Hope you enjoy! (I'm particularly proud of this one!)
It feels like the best kind of eternity, but their embrace lasts only a few seconds. Peter comes back with refreshed web cartridges and, like, half a dozen first aid kits – a bit excessive for the cut on Lena's forehead and the myriad scrapes along her arms and legs, but Kara appreciates the thought. Peter's suit is pretty messed up, but the damage is all cosmetic; the torn sections expose the black, armored lining beneath the relatively unassuming red and blue of the costume.
Kara makes a mental note to thank Stark for making the kid a suit. Cute though the self-made hoodie and workout pants combo might've been, it did nothing to protect Peter from harm, and he has the absolutely unacceptable number of scars on a teenager to prove it.
The storm outside seems to finally subside – enough for the roar of Iron Man's jet boots to echo clearly through the facility. The armored Avenger busts through the rubble Kara's own destructive entry left behind with a few, well placed repulsor blasts. Kara resists the urge to snicker; Tony didn't come alone, and from the looks of things, he gave Steve a piggyback ride. Rhodey comes in next, Natasha smoothly hanging onto the lengthy barrels of his shoulder mounted minigun.
"Do you guys have any idea how mind-numbingly boring it is to hack your way through twelve-ish miles of tunnel sensors?" –Tony asks, his faceplate peeling back, exasperated. "Even JARVIS got tired of it."
Steve dismounts like he didn't just ride Iron Man for fifteen minutes (phrasing). He gives the place a once-over, then puts his shield on his back and walks toward them. "Colonel, watch our airspace and hail a S.H.I.E.L.D. transport – something rated for heavy lifting. Widow, check on the captive." –he orders. War Machine salutes, and flies through the hole in the ceiling. Romanoff saunters past them, and gives Kara a knowing wink.
"How are you, Miss Luthor?" –Steve asks, first and foremost.
"Down a pencil skirt and dreading the next board meeting." –she snarks. "Otherwise, I'm fine, Captain. Supergirl saved the day." –she says, just the tiniest bit sultry. Kara blushes pretty visibly.
He nods. "Glad to hear it. Do you have the Serum?"
Lena produces the strange, segmented metal vial. "I thought about using it, but...well, the Avengers already have a Super Soldier on the roster, don't they?" –she jokes.
Steve smirks, slightly. "Yes, ma'am. And I don't exactly recommend the process." –he says. Steve turns to Peter, who's doing his level best to make himself as much of a wallflower as he can – hard to achieve, given his rather evocative costume. "About time I caught up with you, son." –Steve tells him. "Wish it were under less hectic circumstances."
"R-right." –Peter says, meek. "Captain. Big fan. I'm Spider-Man." –he stammers, waving a little.
Rogers snorts, turning to Tony. "You've been busy." –he says, nodding back at the clearly Stark-made suit.
Stark shrugs. "What else is new?" –he says, then stares at Titanium Man's damaged armor. "...other than my godfather's killer robot suit getting lovingly refurbished into a more advanced killer robot suit, apparently?"
"Meet Titanium Man." –Kara says, nodding at the unconscious pilot. "Courtesy of S.H.I.E.L.D. engineering and Centipede's absent morals."
Tony's lips form a thin line. "Oh, I am gonna kill Nick Fury."
"I'll gladly hold the knife." –Kara grumbles. Lena gives her an amused glance.
Rogers frowns. He turns to Romanoff. "Did you know about this?"
Romanoff crosses her arms. "Vaguely. I didn't think they'd literally use Stane's armor, or that the prototype was anywhere near operational. The Centipede connection's new, though. New and concerning."
"Concerning is S.H.I.E.L.D. trying to have their Iron Man-themed cake and eat it, too." –Stark says. "I get that I'm not their first choice for a superhero, but this is downright offensive."
"Don't take it personally." –Romanoff advises. "You know there's any number of ongoing attempts to replicate your tech the world over. S.H.I.E.L.D. just cheated ahead. So did the US Air Force." –she says, pointing a thumb at Rhodey's direction, circling overhead.
"I'm sorry, do people not get that I'm a human being? Like, with feelings? Mildly hurt ones, given the man I trusted and thought of as a second father had me kidnapped, tortured, and nearly killed?" –he asks, sarcastic. "What the fuck did Fury think I'd do, the moment I found out about this? Sue for copyright infringement?"
"No, I'm pretty sure he knew you'd blow up." –Natasha sighs.
"So he just didn't care." –Kara surmises. "Business as usual, really."
"Fury does care." –Romanoff defends. Kara gets the feeling she's speaking from experience. "But he also understands, all too well, that caring can get in the way of the mission. Get more people hurt. I get it, Tony. This sucks. It's an awful thing to do to you. But this suit wasn't intended to replace you, much less bring up the painful memories associated with it; it was meant to go where you couldn't. Even Iron Man can't be in two places at once."
Tony scoffs. "Yeah, well. I'll believe it when I see it, Romanoff. Fury's had every chance to prove he's not an absolute jackass, and so far? Not impressed."
The faceplate lowers then, and he approaches the half-wrecked suit. He kneels by it, turning to Kara. "Jesus, Kara. You did a number on this guy."
Kara purses her lips. "What can I say? I was motivated."
"You say that like you didn't just rip open a hunk of metal that could probably withstand a tactical nuke." –he says. "Which, dibs, by the way. I'm totally breaking this thing down and making one for myself. Hell, I might even integrate it into the Hulkbuster concept."
"Good luck keeping it out of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s hands." –Romanoff says. "Damaged or not, they're gonna want their stolen prototype back."
"They'd be lucky to get a picture." –Tony retorts. "JARVIS, make sure to get a good one."
Natasha raises her arms in surrender. "I'm just saying. Don't wonder why you're constantly on Fury's shit list when you pull shit like this."
"I pull shit like this because I'm on Fury's shit list." –Tony argues.
"It's an Ouroboros of petty." –Lena mutters, rolling her eyes. If Tony hears her, he doesn't react. Steve does hear it, and he snickers a bit. "How do you people even function?" –she shakes her head, half fondly, half concerned.
Cap sighs. "Dysfunctionally. It's early days, ma'am. A lot of strong personalities making up this team. But rest assured we all want the same thing: to protect those who cannot protect themselves. To avenge the victims of those who would abuse their power, like Centipede clearly has."
"It's a noble goal." –Lena allows. "I only worry that you might be seen as abusing your power, too. It only takes a few mistakes for that line to blur."
Rogers purses his lips. "I know that fear. I've lived with it for the better part of a century." –he jokes, though his eyes betray a hint of sadness. "But I also fundamentally believe this is the right path for us to take. The best way to make use of these talents and abilities is in service of the people."
"Some might argue the better way is to not make use of them at all." –Lena notes.
"Some might." –he admits. "But evil only triumphs in the absence of good. Our gifts come with a moral obligation to use them, and use them responsibly. We all, in our own way, understand that. And I do mean all of us. Iron Man, Thor, Black Widow...all of the Avengers, but also the vigilantes patrolling New York City by night." –he says, then nods at Peter, who's excitedly chatting with Tony, perched atop the Titanium Man suit. "By all accounts, Spider-Man should only be concerned with his education, his friends, and his loved ones. And yet, he's spent his nights going out and stopping crime for months, now – long before I decided he had a place with the Avengers, and definitely before Tony decided to enable him with a technologically advanced suit."
"You give him a lot of credit." –Lena says. "If I didn't already know who he was, I don't know that I wouldn't just assume he's in it for the thrills, instead of wanting to do the right thing."
"I just give him the credit he deserves." –he counters. "When I woke up to the chaos and confusion of the twenty-first century, I feared we'd lost many of the values I'd grown up aspiring to uphold. I'm just glad this fifteen year old's proven me wrong so quickly."
"He's a good kid." –Kara finally chimes in, previously enraptured by the fascinating discussion. "Held Titanium Man off all by himself for quite a while."
Lena scoffs, bumping shoulders with her good-naturedly. "Excuse you, I helped! I threw every Erlenmeyer flask I could get my hands on at the guy! I must've looked like some caricature of a mad scientist."
"I'm sure you looked very brave." –Kara chuckles.
"Terrified, more like. I don't know how you people do it – well you, Kara, I understand. You're invulnerable. But the rest of you? Stark has the right idea, and so does this asshole, for that matter." –she says, pointing at the unconscious mercenary. "Layers upon layers of armor, that's the dream."
Rogers shrugs. "It's not too bad if you don't get hit."
Lena looks ready to fire back a witty retort, but she doesn't get to; a beam of red light and sparks flies between Kara and Steve, and hits her chest, dead center. She collapses instantly, like a puppet whose strings have been cut. Steve manages to react just in time to save her from hitting her head on the ground, while Kara just stands there, frozen in shock. She drops to her knees, reaching for Lena – she can't help but stare at her eyes, open yet vacant, glassy like a corpse's.
It's like she's back on Krypton, dodging plasma and debris, surrounded by an audience of the dead. Unmoving eyes, so often framed by liquid crimson and charred black, unable to track her but quickly replaced by the next spectator. Tripping on the rubble of buildings she grew up looking at, slipping on the blood of the people they once housed – trying her best not to join their numbers.
But this isn't Krypton, and she isn't a helpless girl any longer.
Kara's eyes blaze with fury, as she turns to find the culprit. What she finds gives her pause, if only for a moment; ahead of them, by the rubble of the entrance to this place, a sort of tear in reality has appeared. It's perfectly circular, shooting off amber colored sparks at the edges, like metal on metal. A dark figure lurks within, their hand outstretched, wreathed by a residual glow, the same color as the blast that hit Lena.
The attacker steps forth, their arm folding back beneath a rich green hooded cloak that covers most of their figure. They regard the Avengers coldly, their gaze finally settling on Kara. "Kryptonian." –the figure says. The voice sounds decidedly male, hollow and tinny, like a man using a loudspeaker at the bottom of a well.
The glow of her eyes subsides in confusion. The name of her species isn't common knowledge; Jameson identified her as extraterrestrial, and she confirmed the fact to the media when asked, but she hasn't ever spoken in public about her homeworld or species. Only the Avengers and S.H.I.E.L.D. personnel with the appropriate clearance would know to call her a daughter of Krypton.
"Who are you? What do you want?" –Steve says, grim, his shield at the ready.
"You are honored to hold the attention of Victor von Doom."
A shiver runs through Kara's spine. She can see what Sue meant; Victor is all metal and cloth, the only visible traces of humanity being his eyes – pinpricks of a brown so dark it may as well be black, framed by bloodshot whites and the barest hint of scarred skin around them. His face is a permanent, cruel metal scowl, a grotesque iron mask more befitting a gargoyle, or perhaps an Oni, than a man. Even the rich, golden-trimmed emerald robes, and the ornate silver armor underneath – both fit for the royalty the man allegedly belongs to – can't lessen the horrifying visage holding her gaze.
"There's no honor in striking a defenseless woman." –Rogers spits out.
"Doom has no mercy for the weak." –he counters. "And he does not tolerate failure."
He thrusts his hand out; the Avengers hold fast, anticipating an attack, but it doesn't come. Instead, the defeated mercenary gets pulled toward him, metal bars and all, screaming in pain. Romanoff tries to reach for him, but the motion is too quick, too violent. In an instant, Doom holds him up by the neck, venomously staring into his eyes. "Your services are no longer required." –he declares, and Andrew Stockwell goes up in flames.
Tony is the first to react; he blasts forward, holding his fist back for a punch, but Doom moves even quicker – he tosses the blazing man back, into the portal, and charges forward to meet the Iron Avenger halfway, his cape billowing behind him. He not only easily avoids the powerful blow, but manages to deliver one of his own, an open palmed strike to the chest, perfectly centered. The hit doesn't make contact with the armor – it completely bypasses it, sinking through the gold-titanium alloy like it's not even there, and strikes the man within, who's then tossed through the back of the armor, similarly intangible, landing hard a few feet away. Doom tosses the emptied suit aside, distinctly unimpressed.
"Mr. Stark!" –Peter yells, in a panic. He leaps to his aid, Cap and Widow flanking him for a two-pronged assault. Kara's left to hold Lena – her heartbeat is faint, but Kara shudders with relief at the fact that it's still present. Whatever Victor blasted her with, Lena's not dead yet.
The villain doesn't shy away from the challenge; he deflects Cap's thrown shield toward Widow, who barely has time to drop to her knees in a slide, springing back up into a leap, her gauntlets sparking with electricity. Doom ignores her, instead blasting Steve with a black, smoky beam that doesn't seem to damage the Super Soldier, but instead restrains him by taking the form of a negative-colored doppelganger holding him in place.
Natasha successfully lands on his torso, Widow's Bites at either side of his armored neck, but Doom is entirely unaffected, even as the powerful electric current arcs along his suit. He head-butts her, hard enough to instantly draw blood, and she falls onto her back. Doom reaches down and grabs her by the neck, but Natasha pushes through her dazed state and pushes his head back with her legs. Unabated, Doom lifts her up, and slams her back down – and Kara, horrified, hears the sickening snap of a broken bone.
Enough is enough; Kara sets Lena down as gently as possible, and unleashes her heat vision upon the villain, but the pencil-thin beams don't even reach the target; instead, a smaller version of the portal Doom came in appears right in front of her face, and the photon beams reappear behind Cap and his negative clone, destroying the construct and hitting Steve in the back. He, too, goes down, smoking and groaning in pain.
"Doom has judged the champions of this world." –he says, slowly advancing toward her. She rushes forth, hot tears in her trail, but he blasts her with a white beam, which she, perhaps foolishly, ignores and allows to hit her. It doesn't hurt at all, but it completely paralyzes her, mid-charge – for all her inhuman strength, she cannot move a muscle. "And he has found them wanting."
Spider-Man brings Cap's discarded shield towards him with a web, and spin-jumps in place, keeping the shield's momentum and adding his own power to the throw, but Doom merely reaches out and catches it, examining it for a moment before securing it to his hand and beckoning Peter to duel him.
Kara can't get over how wrong he looks, wielding that shield.
To his credit, Peter doesn't falter; he shoots a trio of web globs that Doom easily blocks in a flash of red, white, and blue, but allow the agile vigilante to leap in close. Doom moves the shield out of the way for a strike, but Peter sticks his hand on the very edge of the discus, letting the movement carry him out of the way of the blow, and atop the supervillain. He grabs onto his hood and drops in front of him, pulling the garment with him, but that puts him exactly in place for a swing with the shield, which he has to literally bend over backwards to avoid. Kara's eyes widen – as much as the strange spell that immobilizes her allows – as Peter then sticks to the ground with his hands, and pulls himself into a kick that connects with Doom's chin, sending him a single step backward.
Kara's filled with hope, then, as Rhodey comes in hot through the ceiling, guns blazing. Spider-Man manages to jump out of the way and pull both Romanoff and Steve from the line of fire and behind her, leaving Doom cleanly open for War Machine's attack. Bullets, shells, and even particle blasts hail upon the Latverian monarch, but Kara's hopes are short-lived – Doom is protected by a neon green energy barrier, which halts all the shots and renders them harmless at his feet. The barrier is a half dome, and it moves to protect him, even as Rhodey tries to find an angle. Perhaps bored, Doom tosses the adamantium shield aside, and reaches out towards Rhodey, tendrils of a jagged, red and black crystalline material shooting out from his fingertips. When they make contact with the armor, he drops out of the sky, and as he struggles to remain upright, Kara watches in awe and horror as the suit disassembles itself, piece by piece, until only Rhodey is left standing, balking in his flight suit.
"You wield weapons you have not earned. You fight as prideful individuals, not as one force of justice." –he says derisively, as Peter desperately tries to help her move her arms, narrowing his eyes with distaste. He turns to Kara, and bitterly speaks. "And when the worst comes to pass, you huddle around your bastion, unaware of just how fragile she really is."
Doom waves a hand, and the paralysis is lifted. Kara doesn't waste a moment, flying as fast as she can towards him – and she isn't surprised, either, when he opens a portal in front of her, which she manages to evade with a mid-air roll. Her arms are heavy from the earlier flurry of blows, but she puts as much power as she dares into a single punch, aimed at his hideous mask, but it meets the green shield from before.
This, too, she anticipates.
The shield is still a half dome – which means his back is unprotected. As she recoils from the blow, she takes a page from Peter's book, performing a floating somersault that lets her grab Cap's shield and just miss a throw by Doom's head. Her eyes light up with her heat vision then, which she lets wash over the dome, tracking upwards until the beams clear it and hit the indestructible shield, refracting onto Victor's unprotected back. The acrid smell of burning cloth and ozone assaults her nostrils as Doom groans, prostrated as he reels from the impact.
"That's. It." –Kara grinds out, furious. "Stay down, or you'll regret it."
Doom laughs, a little brokenly. "Regret is an old friend, Kara Zor-El. Welcome yours gladly, as you would a great mentor."
Kara scoffs. "You've got a burning hole on your back, Victor. I have nothing to regret – except for maybe not aiming higher."
He looks up at her, cold fury in his bloodshot eyes. "But you won't kill, will you? You won't finish it – finish me, even though I could kill everyone here with a snap of my fingers were I so inclined."
"Don't tempt me." –she grits her teeth.
"But I must, Kryptonian." –he narrows his eyes. "I must, else you will remain an aberration. A weakling. A mistake I will be forced to correct."
Kara shakes her head. "Do you even hear what you're saying? You're insane. A 'weakling'? I destroyed more Chitauri than I could count. I tore Titanium Man to pieces. I beat you with a single punch."
Doom rises, then, his movements stiff and pained. "It is as I said." –he declares, with an air of finality. He grabs some kind of metal hilt from his belt – presses a button on it, which shoots forth a metal blade with a strange, obsidian-like crystal edge. "Prideful." –he calls her, and the crystal ignites with an inner, emerald light.
It's the strangest thing.
In a mere moment, the godly amounts of power and strength she's known for the past eight years, living under Earth's beautiful yellow sun vanish. In an instant, she's the fleeing, helpless girl, back on Krypton – no one special, not unique by any means, and certainly not invulnerable. Her footing wavers, her arms weigh her down like anchors, and her vision blurs as Victor von Doom approaches. Her skin burns, and her breathing becomes labored as Doom's cold, metal hand encircles her neck and lifts her, just enough that she can see the complete disregard for life in his eyes.
Victor tilts his head, ever so slightly. "Fragile." –he says, almost disappointed, and plunges the green blade into her abdomen.
As always, thank you for your attention! Make sure to comment or message me if you have any questions about this story. Look me up on Twitter as Darthkvzn or Tumblr as darthkvznblogs if you'd like - and on Ko-fi, as Darthkvzn, if you like what I do and have a buck to spare.
Until next time!