Chapter 24 updated! Hope you enjoy!
When Lena comes to, it's to Peter's relieved, mask-less face.
"Lena! You're alive!" –he rejoices, then rubs the back of his head. "W-well, we knew you were alive, you just...weren't responding to anything we did."
The ravenette immediately starts rubbing her temples, wincing at the bright lights above. "Yeah, I don't...I've passed out before, but this wasn't like that at all." –she shakes her head. "What the hell happened?"
Peter scowls. "It's...pretty bad, not gonna lie." –he says, cryptically. "You got hit by some kind of...I don't wanna say spell, but it definitely looked like sparkly fairy stuff. Took you out for...five, ten minutes, maybe?" –he says, then turns to a group of very defeated looking superheroes, huddled tightly in the distance.
"Peter? ...where's Kara?" –she asks, her lip trembling. She doesn't need to look at Peter's immediately concerned visage to know something has gone horribly wrong – she can see from here that Kara's prone on the ground, her bright red boots protruding from the huddle.
"I...Lena, please don't panic." –he warns. "But the guy that blasted you, he...he stabbed her, somehow."
"That's impossible." –she finds herself saying, almost on auto. "Kara's invulnerable."
"She isn't." –Peter says, hollow. "She really isn't."
Lena struggles for a second, like she's only just remembering how to move her body, but she rises and books it towards the assembled Avengers. She's not sure which one she pushes aside – Stark, maybe? – but before she knows it, she's staring at something she never would have thought possible.
"Kara..." –she whimpers, taking in the horrific sight of a glowing, emerald blade, stained crimson, protruding from Kara's abdomen. She's alive, still; softly moaning in pain, barely breathing, weakly attempting to pull at Captain Rogers' hands. The Super Soldier is pressing a scrap of her skirt against her wound to keep her from bleeding out, but there's still a small but growing pool of blood beneath her, darkening her cape.
"We've called for reinforcements." –the redhead in the skin-tight leather costume says. She's the Black Widow, if the group's PR is to be trusted – a S.H.I.E.L.D. spook and thus instantly on Lena's shit list. "But it's gonna take a while." –she admits. Lena notices that she's gingerly holding her ribs, a trickle of drying blood falling down the corner of her lips.
"She doesn't have a while." –Lena retorts. Hearing her voice, Kara stirs somewhat, her eyes a little glazed but still trying to find her. She looks at the sword and frowns; she's never seen a crystal like it – green ones, sure, but they never glow quite like this. It's no harmless fluorescence, either – she's no nuclear physicist, of course, but the blade looks like it's irradiated. "Does anyone feel nauseous?" –she asks, the beginning of a diagnosis forming in her mind.
The Avengers shake their heads or mumble in the negative, clearly shell-shocked at the fact that their strongest lies on what could be her deathbed. "What are you thinking? Radiation?" –Stark asks. He looks a little ridiculous in his flight suit – not quite as flattering on him as the Widow's catsuit is on her – his oh-so-fancy power suit perfectly intact but discarded, for some reason, a few feet away.
Just how much did she miss?
"Ionizing radiation of some kind, yes." –Lena says. "Kara's cells take in sunlight and use it to fuel her powers – the flight, the laser eyes, the invulnerability, everything. She stores it, too, which is how she can use her powers at night without fear of running out. It stands to reason that she could absorb other kinds of radiation too, to different effects."
"This thing must be blocking or suspending her invulnerability, then." –Stark concludes.
"Her healing factor, too." –Lena agrees. She kneels by Rogers. "Captain, I'm gonna need you to stop what you're doing. We need to take the sword out of her, as quickly as possible."
Rogers looks at her like she's grown a third eye. "Ma'am...if I take it out, she'll bleed to death."
"She already is." –Lena says, surprised at her own even tone. "You can plainly see it: she's not coagulating at all. As long as the sword stays in, she'll keep bleeding."
He seems unconvinced. "Miss Luthor..."
"Captain...as much as she might seem like one, Kara is not human. She doesn't work like I do. She doesn't even work like you do. She's an alien from the planet Krypton." –Lena firmly reminds him, exasperated. "And if we don't act now, she will die."
Steve takes a moment, perhaps trying to come up with an argument, but sighs, and steps away, probably unwilling to have Kara's blood on his hands. "You know her best." –Rogers admits.
"I hope I do." –Lena says, under her breath, and gets to work. Gently, she wraps her hands with a dry scrap of Kara's skirt, and firmly grips the sword's hilt. Immediately, Kara groans, her eyes rolling to the back of her head. It almost makes her stop, but she can feel it in her heart; this is the right thing to do.
Inch by inch, the blade slides out of her. The bleeding increases, so she strives to keep as fast and even a pace as she possibly can. Stark covers his mouth, shaking his head with doubt. After what feels like an eternity, the sword pulls free, and she tosses it as far away as she can – nearly hits Peter with it. Almost immediately, Kara visibly relaxes – she fears, for a terrifying second, that she's slipping away, but the bleeding stops in mere moments, and the wound slowly but surely begins to close before their very eyes. It'd be fascinating, if her hands weren't covered in the blood of the woman she loves.
Lena pauses, betrayed by her subconscious. That's...something to think about, isn't it?
She sits, still tired from her paralysis and even more exhausted by this fresh batch of emotional trauma, beside Kara. She wipes the blood on her pencil skirt – it's oddly watery, she notes, and it doesn't seem to be drying much, if at all, unlike human blood – and grabs Kara's hand, concerned about how cold it seems to be. "...hey." –Kara whispers, barely audible.
The others seem to follow some kind of cue, walking away to give them space. She'll have to remember to thank them later. "Hey, yourself." –she smiles at her.
"You...look like hell, Luthor..." –Kara says, pulling off the tiniest smirk.
Lena gives her a watery chuckle. "My god, the absolute gall on you." –she says, indignant. "You're one to talk, Danvers; you look like you had a fight with a ketchup factory and lost."
"Yeah..." –she says, weakly bringing up her crimson drenched hand up to her face. "That's a new one."
The ravenette scoffs. "Understatement of the century, love."
Even though she almost bled out, Kara still finds it in her to raise a smug eyebrow. "Oh? Am I 'love', now?"
Lena shakes her head, fondly. "Get some rest, Kara. Promise you'll wake up again, and maybe we'll talk."
Kara slowly mocks a salute. "It's...a date, then."
As if she'd been waiting for permission, Kara conks out. Just to make sure, Lena takes her pulse – it's still a little too weak for her liking, but it is steadily improving. Peter and the Captain approach. "You were right." –Rogers notes, clearly relieved.
"Yeah, Karen says she's stable now." –Peter says. He has his mask back on – for what, Lena's not sure. Everyone here must've seen his face by now. Maybe it's the only way he can hear the AI talk.
"I wish I was as confident as I sounded." –Lena admits. "It was sound logic, given what I knew about Kryptonian biology, but...it was still risky as all hell."
"Let's not dwell on that. You figured it out and saved her life, and that's that." –Steve says.
Lena sighs, allowing herself to bask in her relief for a moment. "Just what happened, Captain? Who did this?"
Rogers' gaze darkens. "He called himself Doctor Doom – an alter ego, I assume, of Victor von Doom, king of Latveria and known associate and/or benefactor of Project Centipede." –he explains. "Came in through some kind of portal, took Titanium Man's pilot, and beat us to a pulp. It's honestly hard to believe how quickly and easily he dismantled us. Sobering."
"Seriously." –Peter says. "Kara's the only one who managed to land a solid hit on him, and, well...you saw how that ended."
Colonel Rhodes approaches with a gurney he seems to have carried over from a nearby side room – part of the emergency gear for the landing pad, Lena assumes. Peter and Steve gently lift Kara up and place her on the gurney, which Rhodes pushes toward the wreck of Titanium Man, where Widow and Stark have collected both the intact Iron Man armor and the completely dismantled War Machine. Stark curses at the iconic suit, rubbing his sweaty forehead. "What's wrong with it?" –Rogers asks.
Stark shoots him a dirty look. "The armor's fine – undamaged, really, but whatever that bastard did to pop me out like a cork stopper, it messed with its IFF security measures. It thinks I'm still inside, so it won't open up, even with the emergency release." –he explains. "Teach me not to skimp on the internal sensors' redundancies next time, I guess."
"You can't...hack it, or something?" –Rogers proposes, in a tone that suggests he's still not entirely sure of what 'hacking' means.
"Ever since Vanko took over Rhodey's suit, I decided against that kind of remote backdoor. I'm all for a challenging fight, but losing control of the suit mid-fight would be, shall we say, not ideal." –he says, sarcastic. "I planned for a lot of contingencies, Cap; intangibility was not one of them. Maybe I can break the CO2 filters, provoke the suit into popping open to 'save my life', but it's gonna take a little while. I built the Mark VIII to work in space."
"Do whatever it takes." –Rogers orders. Stark doesn't look like he appreciates his tone, but quickly gets to work. "The rest of you, status report."
"Two broken ribs and a serious headache. Could be a minor concussion." –Widow grudgingly admits. "I can fight, but it's gonna hurt like a bitch. Probably land me in the hospital, too."
"Whatever Doom did, it didn't hurt me, but I'm down to my sidearm. Obviously." –Rhodes says, pulling a standard issue M9 Beretta from a little thigh holster. "Could probably salvage some of the armor's weapons, since they're mostly grafted on."
"Yeah, the minigun should be perfectly fine." –Stark absently remarks.
"...it's also 90 pounds and pretty impossible to fire from the hip, but sure, Tony."
"Why are you guys talking like there's more fighting to be done? Aren't we just waiting for S.H.I.E.L.D. to pick us up?" –Lena asks.
Rogers purses his lips. "Centipede has made it clear that it has plenty of bodies to throw at us. We may have defeated their forces here and back at OsCorp, but reinforcements are a definite possibility."
"Guys, guys, guys, GUYS!" –a newcomer shouts, running up to them. It's a young woman, Asian American and kind of on the short side, brown-haired and brown-eyed – very pretty, if not really Lena's type. She's clutching a laptop to her chest like it's a sack of gold, or something equally valuable. "Centipede's coming!"
Rogers sighs, and Stark chuckles, bitterly. "Just had to jinx it, didn't you?" –the engineer mutters.
"Grab whatever gear you can get working and form a defensive perimeter around the injured." –Steve orders. He hands his indestructible shield to Rhodey, and spares him a small smile. "Trade you for the minigun?"
Rhodes snorts. "Don't mind if I do." –he quips, and gets to work getting the War Machine's shoulder-mounted turret ready for battle.
The new girl finally makes it to the platform, presenting the laptop like some kind of peace offering. "I, um...I downloaded everything I could before Centipede remotely wiped their local servers. It's just a couple gigs' worth of data, but, y'know...better than nothing, right?"
"It's excellent news." –Rogers says. "Thank you, miss...?"
"Oh, it's Skye." –she says. "I'm a friend of...hers, actually." –Skye says, growing pale as she takes in Kara's prone form. "What the hell happened to Kara?"
"That." –Lena says, pointing her thumb at the bloodstained crystal sword Peter has started to wrap in webbing. "The blade gives off some kind of radiation that blocks her powers – invulnerability and all."
Skye shakes her head. "Jesus. Is she gonna be okay?"
"She should be, but...well, lots of unknowns going on right now." –Lena admits. The Avengers step away from their conversation, getting to work on readying themselves for the incoming assault. Captain America hunkers behind Rhodes and the adamantium shield, testing the minigun's spinning barrels. On the other side, Black Widow settles into a kneel, pointing Rhodes' sidearm at the room's only entrance. Tony swears in pain, having stupidly kicked the nigh-indestructible suit of armor at his feet in frustration. Spider-Man clings to the wall above the entrance, ready to ambush the mercenaries closing in. It's equal parts terrifying and reassuring.
"So, uh...how do you know Kara?" –Lena asks, awkwardly, pushing the gurney behind the massive titanium suit.
"Just met her, actually." –Skye admits. "I infiltrated Centipede and got sent in with the merc squad they sent to OsCorp. Kara beat the shit out of everyone else in my unit, so I figured I'd stick with her, see if I could help make sure you guys didn't walk away from this empty-handed. Last I saw, she was charging in here to beat this guy." –she says, nodding at the power armor they've hidden behind. "Which...I guess she did. Geez."
"You just...infiltrated Centipede?" –Lena asks, baffled. "What are you, a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent?"
Skye snorts. "Not in a million years, Luthor." –she retorts. "No, I'm just a concerned citizen with excellent coding skills and the right friends in New York's underground vigilante scene."
Lena narrows her eyes. "...right." –she mutters. Just then, the shooting starts.
Movies don't really prepare you for just how loud firearms actually are, but growing up in the Jameson household – and thus, around all of her step-father's conservative, 2nd Amendment-obsessed gun nut friends – certainly did for Lena. Even so, the firefight is deafening, and the sheer amounts of lead being thrown their way is terrifying. Skye and Lena can only hold onto each other and wince as the bullets ping off of Captain America's shield and the Titanium Man armor.
The ravenette grits her teeth as War Machine's minigun roars to life. "I feel so useless like this!" –she shouts. "I should've taken the Serum!"
Skye shakes her head. "Trust me, you're better off without it!" –she says. "That thing burns through people! Sometimes literally!"
Lena shrinks as a stray ricochet zips a foot or so over her head. "Well, I need to do something!"
"Unless you wanna try and help Iron Man into his tin can," –she jokes, pointing towards the cursing billionaire, "I think this is all we can do!"
Lena feels an epiphany rushing into her head. She looks at Stark, and then at the armor they're cowering behind. "Well, maybe we don't need Iron Man!" –she says, banging her fist against the vacant suit.
Skye's eyes widen, and after a moment, so does her grin. "You know that's crazy, right!?" –she says, equal parts incredulous and excited. "You need, like, weeks of training to pilot this thing! I should know, I programmed it!"
Lena scoffs. "Fuck training! If Stark could pilot his flying metal coffin hot off the fabricators, I can do it, too!" –she says, defiant, perhaps more confident than she should be. "Help me get it up and running!"
As if on cue, the Avengers start falling back towards them. Captain America looks a little worse for wear – Lena can count at least three fresh bullet holes, two on his right arm and one on his hip, all on the soft parts of his uniform – but he doesn't seem particularly bothered by his wounds, carrying the Iron Man suit with ease, and the others seem unharmed. Stark has managed to get the small of the armor's back plating open, somehow, and seems to be in the middle of damaging a fancy looking filtering apparatus. Lena climbs into the armor's torso compartments before the heroes can protest, following Skye's instructions for rebooting the suit as best she can in the middle of a firefight.
Titanium Man groans back to life, the armor's hydraulics kicking in and lifting the multi-ton suit off its would-be final resting place. It's a fairly intuitive system, all things considered; the suit's limbs, too large for any human to fill and operate 1-to-1, take in her arms and legs' motions and translate them to their mechanical equivalents. It takes a couple tentative swings, but she swiftly gets a good sense of the suit's sensitivity. The shield and weapon systems are a problem, however; Kara did a number on the armor, overloading and frying the shield generators, shearing off the rotary cannon entirely, and mangling the front of the armor so badly that it won't cover her torso and head, and more importantly, won't let the head and neck sections lower enough for her to use the helmet's HUD. She can manually operate the grenade launcher and eyeball the missile launchers, but unless things get too heated, she probably shouldn't risk those.
It's a risky play, but Lena doesn't see a better option; she needs to buy time for the cavalry to arrive – to get Kara and her friends to safety – and she got them into this mess in the first place. If it weren't for her stealing the Serum – right thing to do though it might've been – Kara wouldn't have nearly died.
"What the hell do you think you're doing, Luthor!?" –Stark demands.
"Trying to save our asses, Stark!" –Lena retorts, hotly. "Now fix your armor, and quit your bitching!"
She gives Skye a barely reassuring smile. "Here goes nothing!" –she yells, and charges forth. She almost squishes some utterly shocked Avengers on the way, but she manages to reach the mercenaries, using one arm to shield her upper body and the other to sweep at the nearest foes. Lena experiences a mixture of euphoria and disgust, as the massive limb easily swats away fully grown men and women away, breaking bones, plastics, and metal alike with no difficulty whatsoever.
She realizes, in a sobering moment between swings, that she's a killer now – the very thing she feared Kara might become as part of the Avengers. Even if some of the people she's tossing around like toys survive – and it's looking increasingly unlikely – she's definitely killed most of them. She hates to admit it, even just to herself, but she gets it, now; why it seems so easy for someone like Tony Stark to have eradicated scores of terrorists, why most people seem to be ok with the literal assassins on the team – why the media, even in its most tooth-achingly fluffy articles about Steve Rogers, doesn't shy away from the fact that Captain America killed many, many Nazis back in his heyday.
These people will not hesitate at the chance to take her life. Their leader – or benefactor, or whatever – did not hesitate at the chance to take Kara's. To protect herself, and the people she loves, she can't afford to hesitate at the chance to take theirs. To permanently end the threat they pose, lest they end her.
Before she knows it, Lena is standing alone, surrounded by broken bodies.
As her adrenaline starts wearing off, she hisses in pain – one of the soldiers managed to shoot her in the shoulder. It's a fairly shallow wound, but she can tell it's gonna need stitches. Lena shakes her head, lumbering back towards the Avengers.
"I can't believe I didn't think of doing that myself." –Stark grouses, glancing up at her. "That is my tech, after all."
Romanoff snorts. "This armor almost killed you and Pepper. And it did kill your godfather. You wouldn't wear that thing if it were the last suit of armor in the world."
Stark scowls, but Rhodes nods at her. "It looks better on Lena, anyway." –he shrugs.
"That was incredibly brave of you, ma'am." –Rogers says, then smirks, tiredly. "Really saved our bacon. Thank you."
"Sure, uh...anytime." –Lena says. "Honestly, it was kind of...disturbingly easy, in the heat of the moment."
Spider-Man lands on and perches on her left shoulder. It's almost cute, how little he budges the armor. "I've webbed up the survivors." –he points back. Sure enough, there's a trio of mercs stuck to the walls, and another handful trapped by cobwebs against the floor. "Not that there's, um, many of them."
Lena winces. "I'm sorry. I didn't see another choice."
"No one's blaming you." –Widow says. "That's a shot that needed to be taken."
"Not sure that's gonna help me sleep at night, but thanks, I suppose." –Lena says.
Peter grabs a bandage from a scavenged first aid kit, and gets to work on Lena's shoulder. "I took up a few first aid courses." –he says, noticing her staring at him with a raised eyebrow. "You'd be surprised at how many times I've had to play first responder. Maybe I should consider a career as an EMT." –he jokes.
"Probably wouldn't leave you much time for vigilantism." –Lena notes.
"Well, we can't have that. Lots of laws I've yet to break." –he quips. One of his lenses squints a little. "Hey, uh...are you sure you're ok?"
"As much as I can be, I guess." –Lena mutters. "I don't regret it – at least, not yet. I just wanted to keep all of you safe."
Spidey nods, sagely. "That right there is what makes you a hero. I know Kara would think so, too."
Lena sighs, but manages a tiny smile. "Thanks, Spider-Man."
The sounds of approaching aircraft rumble in the distance, closing fast. Lena allows herself to relax for a moment, but Peter, on the other hand, seems to tense. "What's wrong?" –she asks.
"Just got a chill..." –he tilts his head, lenses narrowing as he listens to Karen. "Oh, gosh."
"What is it?"
"Well, it's not S.H.I.E.L.D..." –Peter laments, nodding above them.
Lena turns to the hole in the roof, which slowly opens as much as the damage allows. Five fairly advanced rotorcraft begin hovering above them – two of them opening their side doors to let down rappel lines, and three hauling underneath what looks to be fully-fledged mech suits, which drop onto the platform with resounding thuds and a shower of asphalt. A small platoon of mercenaries in similar but heavier garb to the Centipede crew they just defeated drops into formation behind the armatures, armed to the teeth.
Rhodes slowly hands over the shield to Rogers. "Identify yourselves!" –the Super Soldier demands.
One of the soldiers steps forth, coming to a halt beside the middle mech. "Captain Rogers, Centipede demands the return of the Serum you've stolen." –the man says, almost relaxed, as he levels his firearm. "As well as the permanent removal of the Avengers as a threat to our operations."
At once, the other soldiers aim their weapons, and the mechs whine with power. "That's not happening, son." –Rogers declares. "Stand down...or end up like all the others."
The soldier gives him a half-shrug. "They did their part. And looking at your sorry state? I like our chances."
Lena takes stock of their situation; one down, three injured, three mostly defenseless, and a single, unharmed teenage vigilante against three Big n' Tall Iron Men and a goddamn platoon of armed and armored mercenaries. As much as she hates to admit it, the merc's confidence is not unfounded. It's a sound strategy, really; wear out your foe with plentiful advance troops, hit 'em like a truck with a superpowered foe, and deliver the killing blow with overwhelming reserve forces. She'd thought Centipede's attack a little haphazard and improvised, initially, but between this and the sword specifically designed to kill Kryptonians, Lena's beginning to think the people behind Centipede have put a lot of thought into destroying the Avengers.
The ravenette braces herself for yet another fight, but as luck would have it, she doesn't need to. The soldier gives the order to fire, and Centipede's forces don't hesitate to do so – Lena hurriedly stepping forth to shield the vulnerable heroes with her armor – but their volley is stopped short by a sort of invisible barrier, a few feet ahead of them. Lena isn't left to wonder on this strange phenomenon for long; a strange, circular portal has spawned, just off to the side, from which a blonde in a blue jumpsuit has stepped forth. Her face is scrunched in concentration, and her hands are outstretched, pointed towards the spot where the bullets have been seemingly halted in midair. All around the platform, a number of other portals appear – Lena doesn't know it yet, but they're of the same kind as the one Doctor Doom arrived through.
"Oh my god." –Peter says. "I can't believe they're here."
"What's going on?" –Lena asks, utterly confused.
"Daredevil must've convinced them to come." –he says, elated, pointing at one of the portals. "It's the vigilantes!"
Though Lena has never been one to keep up with the rumors about New York's underground and its champions, even she recognizes the so-called Man Without Fear – Daredevil, the vigilante that took down Wilson Fisk's criminal enterprise a few years ago. She doesn't recognize the others – the bored looking woman in the leather jacket, the slim, topless, masked guy with the massive dragon tattoo on his chest, or the black man with the bright yellow shirt.
Through another portal behind the Centipede soldiers, a man seemingly made of cracked sandstone emerges, mouth twisted into a gleeful grin. Beside him, a walking pyre of a person sneers at the assembled mercenaries. Dozens of soldiers bearing S.H.I.E.L.D. insignias pour out of the other portals, Kara's step-sister, Alex, chief among them.
Behind them, the final portal spits out a tall, bearded man in strange, luscious blue robes, adorned with a flowing red cape, his gloved hands ringed with amber designs that seem to match what the portals are made of – and beside him, the small, almost frail frame of Doctor Bruce Banner shyly waves at them.
"Sorry I'm late, guys." –he apologizes. "I would've come alone, but Fury insisted I bring some guests."
"Robert Bruce Banner, you beautiful bastard." –Tony cheers, as the Iron Man suit finally pops open and he steps inside. Lena can almost hear the mercenaries trembling at the sight. "What do you say we bash some skulls?"
"Me? Not much." –he admits. "Hulk, on the other hand..."
Lena watches, enthralled as the brilliant scientist trails off, his body seeming to burst into the massive, musclebound green creature known as the Hulk. Any dread she might've felt evaporates, as the jade giant roars. "HULK SAY SMASH!"
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!