You guys know the drill, I have uni which comes first and procrastination which manages to get before that.
I'm also uploading my story onto AO3, editing it a bit to make it flow better, as you lot can probably guess its a long tedious job that ends up with me getting distracted and just reading it again.
Then there's the fact I bought Lego Marvel Super Heroes. Iron Man is so tiny and adorable!
Loki and Itachi had gone, Max had stupidly dropped her guard in surprise at the fact Loki was seemingly under this mind control too. Now she had a cut across her forearm and a very bruised ribcage from where Itachi had managed to kick her over the side of the helicarrier.
Max knew they would be long gone by the time she apperated back so instead appeared where Stark and the Captain were arguing. Stark had just come to a revelation about the finale. They both noticed her when she announced her arrived with the customary pop followed by some coughing and clutching at her ribs. Rodgers was by her side in an instant looking over her in concern.
"I'm fine, we need to get to Loki." Max said waving off the super soldier, "Someone can fill me in on the way."
"You look like you went through a meat grinder. Maybe you should leave this to us." Rodger offered trying to take her arm and lead her to get looked at by a doctor.
"No. I've had worse. This is like a Tuesday for me," Max insisted.
"Well we're heading for New York, Loki's heading there for a big finale." Stark said, Max was not likely to stand down on this and they could use all the help they could. Max knew the enemy more than they did.
"My partner is under his control, don't expect this to be easy." Max warned as they headed off to kit up. Max thought she saw a flash of sympathy from Romanov.
Opting to take the jet, most of the team piled in, evicting the guy working on it. Agent Rider had joined them as Max was going. He had taken one look at her and sighed before following. "Haku's going to kill you." He muttered to her once they were in flight. Max shrugged and fished out some medical supplies and soldier pills and got to work, sewing up the worst of her injuries and then bandaging them up with Alex's help.
"Are you drinking alcohol?" Someone noticed she was drinking from a hipflask.
"No… Maybe." Max mumbled sheepishly.
"We're going to war and you're getting drunk?"
"Trust me. I need this. I'm the only one who has the skills to take down my partner and he knows my style too well, he doesn't know my drunken style though. It's the only chance to get him back." Max seemed to be trying to convince herself more than the team.
Trying to take on a god while they were in a fairly flimsy jet, that relied on being in one fully working piece to fly, seemed like a bad idea to Max. It did give her a chance to ping out her partner on top of Stark Tower with the device which had created a portal that had creatures pouring out. Max made short work of the distance after diving out of the back of the jet, slipping her ANBU mask over her face as she fell. Having her face known to the world would be a very bad idea.
A fire dragon crested the top of the building preceding Max as she made her dramatic entrance, trying not to wince in pain as her movements tugged on the stitches. Her eyes locked onto Itachi, noting the civilian by the device as an afterthought.
The dragon swooped across the short roof swerving to the side at the last second to allow Max who had followed it to gain the upper hand with the surprise. She ignored the inquiries from the Avengers into what the dragon was as it circled the top of the tower to prevent any interruptions. Max piled on with her offensive letting her drunken instinct lead her movements making her unpredictable, if she had no idea what she was doing it made it difficult for the Sharingan to predict and counter.
It seemed to be working as Max landed a lucky punch that allowed her to follow with a nice combo ending with an unconscious partner. The civilian also on the roof seemed shocked, Max could see the blue/green eyes and did the nice thing, knocking him out gently.
Moments later she was diving for cover as a blast of red light hit the spot she had been in seconds before. Max knew that light, her eyes sought out the origin, using FA when she shouldn't see anything. She had invisible company in the form of a Miss Hermione Granger whom she imagined also had the sea green eyes.
Another spell blasted at her cover, disintegrating it. Max needed the upper hand soon. She threw down a few smoke bombs to cover her movements as she started to circle around to behind the witch. She knew Hermione would have considered that. She probably would still miss what most people would.
Hidden by part of the building Max leapt up to on top of it. People had this funny habit of only looking around on the horizontal plane. Which is why Max affectionately called this move, 'Death from above'. Even if she wasn't going to kill the girl.
It felt too easy just throwing the two precision aimed sebon at her, Using FA to guide them, for the brightest witch of her generation it was hard to believe she had missed that. Maybe if they'd been on a level playing field it would have been fun.
Max realised something was wrong when the sebon hit the building, going through the figure Max had thought was Hermione. She quickly moved, her position compromised. FA wouldn't help her here, magic could apparently fool it which was a shame, she liked having a trick up her sleeve for when people tried to deceive her eyes. Thinking about it, it was actually fairly easy to fool with magic but that was something she could debate on some other time when there wasn't an alien invasion going on.
Assessing the situation Max knew she had to take the offensive, magic was far too resourceful and irritating to defend against. First she had to find the witch. She opened up her senses, still using FA to help filter out unwanted things. Hermione was good at hiding but Max was a kunoichi of the highest level, she would come out on top out of sheer determination if she had to.
It seemed Hermione had done the sensible thing and not even been on the roof with her double. Max's senses pinged her magical signature in a building nearby, close enough she could direct it and see what was going on but far enough to be out of any combat. A few attempts told Max she wouldn't be able to apperate over due to some magical wards, it wouldn't be that easy. Instead Max leapt the distance, sticking to the glass and punching out the window next to her and diving in at the witch, twisting her body enough to miss the curses thrown at her. Max was lucky as she tackled Hermione, they both went down and Hermione was knocked out by the hit to her head as she hit the floor.
Looking out over the city of New York Max had no idea where to help. Summoning dozens of ANBU style clones she sent them to the streets to try and control the invasion. She eyed her partner lying on the floor and sat by him, with this many clones to control she needed to focus and there was no way she was leaving Itachi defenceless on the roof.
One of her clones noticed a group of people at the base of the tower trying to break in, confirmed a second later by Stark warning the team that someone was trying to hack in past Jarvis. Max redirected that clone to intercept the group.
"Secret Service, We need to get into this building." One of them declared, brandishing a badge. In her other hand Max noticed what looked like a steam punk ray gun. That wasn't standard issue.
"Pull the other one, it has bells on." Max snipped back. She could see a girl leaning a laptop on a short wall, presumably the hacker. "You know Jarvis isn't going to like being hacked?" she called. "I hope you didn't like that laptop." As if on cue the girl yelled at the laptop.
"Look whoever you are, we need to get in that building and stop this invasion." From her perch on the building top Max smirked, these guys were persistent. Most people would not want to stay out in the open during an alien invasion.
Interrupting the lovely argument a bunch of Chitauri landed beside them. The woman fired the steampunk gun and Max was not disappointed by the arc of electricity that fried the alien. Her clone had reacted the second they had landed and the rest were down in various states of dismemberment. Max smirked at the looks on the groups face.
"Who are you?"
"Classified beyond your wildest dreams." Max wanted to meet these guys in person, she switched with her clone, making it become a router for directing the remaining clones. If the group were surprised at the sudden change they didn't show it, Max did noticed one turn to another and mouth 'Artifact?'
"You lot are in danger on the streets." This was demonstrated by more Chitauri landing nearby pinning them against the entrance to the tower. "Jarvis, let them in." Max called, the doors opened and the group piled inside. Max made sure they were safe before turning back to the approaching creatures, her hands flowing through some seals and she pressed a hand to the ground, a layer of ice quickly spread immobilising the aliens. From there Max easily destroyed them, she didn't know what ice would do to them and preferred the safe option of definitely dead.
Slipping into the tower she could see the group had tried to find a way past the atrium.
"So, fancy telling me the truth kids?" Max asked. The older guy of the group adjusted his glasses impatiently as he looked at her.
"Look here, we are on important business, those things are invading New York and you're stopping us from doing our job."
"It's not the job of the secret service to take out alien threats. The agency that does deal with it is dealing with it in case you hadn't noticed." Max dived out of the way as electricity hit the spot she had been standing in. She gave them a hurt look. The woman looked a bit embarrassed.
"It was only going to stun."
"You stun me and New York is screwed. See all those people in black out there pushing back the invaders. That's me." Max explained. She could see they were dying to ask how. Eventually the hacker asked.
"How? Do you have some sort of object you that grants you this power because let me tell you this, nothing good ever comes from it."
"No object. As I said, beyond your wildest dreams."
"What about one opening the portal?" Max tilted her head, the blue cube counted she guessed. She didn't really want these guys near it though.
"You know what it is don't you?" Another voice piped up, Max groaned, another person who could sneak up on her.
"Raise your hand if you know what the tesseract is." The newcomer looked at her then the group.
"This is out of our jurisdiction."
"It's weird and wacky, how is it not ours?" the hacker girl with the coloured stripe in her hair demanded.
"Not used to be getting told no?" Max simpered sarcastically. She got a scowl for her troubles. "I hate to love you and leave you but I have a job to be doing, you should be safe in here. If bad things happen Jarvis will alert someone. Maybe. Adios amigos."
Max returned to the roof of the tower not entirely sure she should have left that group down there, maybe if there weren't aliens invading New York she would investigate, but she had pressing matters to attend to. She took a moment to reconnect as the central processor for her clones and figure out what was happening around, a chuckle slipped out as she saw Iron Man flying into one of the flying abominations. When she saw how effective it was she sent a small squad of her clones on search and explode missions into others. Wasn't particularly nice to watch first hand when she gained her clones memories though. Fishing out her hip flask again she went to drain it only for it to be taken out of her hand.
"Really Maxie, now?"
"If you stopped getting mind screwed every time I turn my back then I wouldn't be. I've been dealing with the stuff sober for long enough."
"Remind me to stage and intervention when this is over."
"Only if I can stage one for your inherent ability to get mind controlled."
It seemed the Avengers and her clones were doing fine, so Max decided that sitting on the top of the tower with Itachi, guarding the cube and directing clones until they could disable the tesseract device.
I swear by the time I finish this story it will be old enough to legally drink in most countries. Plenty of crossovers to come, revisiting some maybe.
For the recent anon reviewer for when you reach this chapter: I've heard of Magic: The Gathering. I even on occasion play, mostly when the new sets come out. I might crossover at some point if I can figure out how.
Reviews are always loved, I sort of squee when I get them and on occasion do a happy dance.