Woooo update time for Avenger'd! This is my longest chapter of this fanfic yet! I'm so proud, it took me forever to write this! ...although I do have homework that is due August 5th so I should do that...OKAY I will continue on that AFTER I have this posted! :D
Thanks to all of you who have been reading and reviewing, you guys are the reason this thing is still going as fast as it is!
Tony: It's also because she loves this story and because she's been on a MCU high and watched the Avengers, Thor, Iron Man, Iron Man 2, Iron Man 3 (trailers and interviews after the movie, since sadly it's no longer in theaters in this area) and Captain America, as well as indulging herself in the comics she can find off of her Second-Screen Avengers App. All in the course of last month and the end of May. Yeah.
Me: shhhh now I sound like I have no life!
Tony: technically speaking, if you have us muses in your head than you kinda are lacking a social life.
Me: SSHHHHHH!
Review replies from Chapter Six:
Ancient Wanderer: AAAAGGHHHH FLATTERY I MUST HIDE MY FACE *as it lights up like a freakin red sun* t-Thank you for saying so I'm glad you like the story and thanks so much for reviewing, it means a lot.
Arabelle (Belle/Liberty Bell): Hey, thanks, it's nice to meet you. Hahaha I understand the situation, my friends do that as well. Yeah, i dunno, I just have a thing for instrumental music and I had heard the Sonata for two pianos from Ouran High School Host Club (a great show I totally recommend) and I fell in love. So I figured I'd play tribute. Ohhhh YAY another question!
Arabelle's question, for Thor: What is it about Jane Foster that intrigues you the most?
Thor: I believe the most intriguing thing about Lady Jane is that she has such perseverance for a human and she continues to believe in me even though I have not returned to her as of yet.
Last but not least, Avengerlicious: I'm really happy you're liking this story and I hope it continues to amuse you as the story goes on! Thanks so much for continuing to review!
YOU ALL GET YUMMY INTERNET COOKIES!
Time for the disclaimer!
I don't own in any way shape or form any of the Avengers, back stories, or affiliations, or anything in the MCU. I do, however, own Tori Matthews as she is a projection of myself. I do not own the character of Parker who is AglonAuthor's cameo character.
AglonAuthor, this chappie is dedicated to you!
Avenger'd
Chapter Seven
The end of my small "concert" was received with a standing ovation, and I blushed feverishly as I closed the lid and turned around to the applause.
"Thanks guys," I murmured, trying (and failing) to hide my scarlet-hued emotions. Tony, Steve, and Bruce all clapped me on the back in congratulations and a grin appeared on the billionaire's face.
"Hey, you know what goes great with other great things like this?" Tony asked with a manic twinkle in his eyes. We all cocked our heads, although curious smiles were on our faces in anticipation. "Pizza party!" Clint and I cheered, Bruce gave a firm "Yeah," Steve just smiled and nodded and Natasha did the same. Thor still had a confused look on his face.
"Man of Iron, what is this 'pizza' you speak of?" he asked, which caused most of us (minus Steve, Natasha, and Bruce, duly noted) to scoff and gape.
"Never heard of pizza?!" Tony cried, to which Thor shook his head. "Well then, this is more needed than ever!" Tony burst the door open to the outside hallway and motioned for the rest of us to follow. "Come on, we can go back up to the top suite and order from there!"
So without wasting another minute we all raced to the top floor once again. Clint got there first as he went through the vents again, Natasha followed after, then Thor, Tony, Bruce, then Steve and I. When we all got in, Tony called JARVIS and asked him to page the front desk of Stark Tower.
A holographic screen appeared in front of him and Tony tapped his foot impatiently until the receiver clicked.
"Yes, Mr. Stark, what is it?" a female voice responded. Tony grinned like a Cheshire Cat.
"Hey Parker, me and my team up here are in desperate need of a pizza party," he started in a mockingly serious voice, similar to the one he used when I first woke up. "I need you to call the closest local pizza place that serves the best kinds and I want you to order a large pizza for every kind of topping, plus drinks, whatever desserts they serve, and breadsticks. Got that?" I almost laughed out loud at all that he could buy, flying by the seat of his pants. I heard a tired sigh on the other side of the line.
"Yes. Is that all, Mr. Stark?" the receptionist named Parker asked. Tony looked back at us, then to the screen.
"Yup, that should just do it. I'll have the money wired down to the desk when you get the bill."
"Alright boss, I'll call back up when I've got the order," she stated and the call ended. Tony turned back to us and gave a thumbs-up.
"Yeah-ha this is gonna be awesome!" he exclaimed which riled the rest of us up.
Pizza party in the awesome Stark Tower with the Avengers, heck yes!
Marie "Parker" Kiehof slumped on the desk in front of her, letting out a fairly audible groan. Out of all the things today, attending to superheroes and huge pizza parties were not the things she was expecting, or looking forward to doing. Although…the famous Captain America had been one of those heroes, and Parker remembered the huge buzz when the boss had mentioned that SHIELD had found the soldier in the ice, and she subconsciously clutched the Captain America trading card in her jacket pocket. She glanced at the phone next to the computer and sighed dejectedly.
Picking up the handheld, she pressed zero and waited until the operator picked up. "Yes, hello? I need a list of all local New York pizza parlors in the Manhattan area."
The operator rattled off a list of many different places and Parker dutifully wrote down each one. After hanging up, she took glances at all of the names. One caught her eye after a few minutes: Little Italy's Famous Pies. Shrugging, she looked it up on Google and checked if the menu had all of what Mr. Stark had requested.
"Little Italy's, what can I do ya for?" a male, presumably older with a Brooklyn accent answered. Parker without hesitation read off Tony's order and she heard the man's breath hitch after a while. "Jeez lady, that's some goddamn expensive buyin' you're askin for," he commented. Parker smirked.
"This will all be delivered to Stark Tower, I'm ordering on behalf of my boss," she said coolly. She heard a shriek of excitement on the other line and grinned.
"Hurry up with this order Louie it's for Tony Stark! Yeah! Now move it!" she heard from the pizza guy. Although this was tedious, she did in fact enjoy the reactions. Never got old.
"Sir, the bill please?"
"Oh- uh, yeah yeah that'll be $[censored]"
Well damn, Parker thought after hanging up the phone and waiting for the order. The boss certainly had a damn good ton of money to throw around.
I laughed as Thor made an impression of what he called bilgesnipe (big, scaly, with huge antlers, duly noted).
"They are repulsive and rampage everything in their path!" Thor mimed with a playful smile as he ran around with his hands up to his head like antlers. Tony laughed and gave a somewhat coy look at Bruce who stared in confusion in response.
"What?" he dared Tony to say after seeing a look of almost childish excitement appear on his face. It quickly disappeared, replaced by a mask of nonchalance as Tony shrugged.
"Nothing, nothing, I just thought it'd be fun to see the Hulk go at it with a few of those bilgesnipe things," he offered, hiding a playful gleam in his eyes.
"Haha, I don't think so," Bruce deadpanned with a smirk. I glanced at Bruce with a confused look.
"Hulk?" I inquired. The scientist's smirk faded.
"An accident," he muttered in a low voice. I moved closer to him.
"What happened?" Bruce looked at me with weary dark eyes and rubbed his forehead as he removed his glasses.
"A while back I was doing research into gamma radiation at Culver University and how its effects could be used to heal soldiers," he started, eyes glazed over in his anecdote. "At least, that's what I was told starting out. The general who was running the research was interested in duplicating or finding a substitute for a super soldier serum used in World War II and he believed gamma waves were the key to finding the original formula." He took a glance at Steve and I followed his gaze, then looked back. "I got overexposed badly to the radiation and one explosion later, I had this green hulking Other Guy inside me who would come out and wreak havoc when my stress levels went beyond my control." He next took a glance at the genius billionaire. "Tony believes that I should have died from the accident, and that somehow, the Other Guy saved my life." Bruce shifted to Natasha, who gave him a firm but blank look in response. "For what, I don't know." There was an unusual quiet, even from Tony, and Bruce returned his gaze to the window. I stayed silent for a minute.
"Maybe…he saved you because he somehow knew you weren't like those guys who wanted the power of the super-soldier," I replied slowly and softly. "Maybe he did it because he knew you were good." Bruce locked eyes with me for a moment, not saying anything, but the look on his face said everything. After a while he gave a small smile and looked around at the team.
"Who knows…" he muttered quietly. His comment seemed to dissolve the tension in the room and the silence left as Tony started a conversation on something else, but my attention was lost. My interest was more hitched than ever, though in the group Tony called the Avengers.
Before, he had noted them as a group of badass superheroes (not that I'm disagreeing…) but it seemed like most of them had issues and were there by either accident or by happenstance. Bruce's 'hero' seemed to be an uncontrollable dilemma with little positive outlook, Steve, well, by the looks and actions of him he didn't seem to be quite comfortable in the situation, Tony was positively reeking of enigma, Thor…in the occasion he really was a god from Asgard, what drove him and Loki here? What would bring them to Earth, and why? As for Natasha and Clint, they appeared to just be thrown in the mix of misfits.
A ringing of the transmission broke my musing and Tony answered without any second thought.
"The order has arrived, boss," Parker the receptionist replied simply. Tony grinned, prompting the rest of us to brighten as well.
"Great, now if you could just bring it up and then you'll be done with this. Thanks," Tony finished, cutting off the call. He turned around and took out his small glass-like tablet. "JARVIS, initiate party sequence and deploy DUM-E Mark II for cleanup duty when we're done."
"Affirmative, sir," JARVIS replied, to which the lights dimmed just the slightest bit and black light was added to make the glow effect. Rock music (AC/DC I guessed) could be heard turning on and playing in the background. A couple of minutes later, the elevator dinged and as the doors open, all that is able to be seen are pizza boxes.
"Your order Mr. Stark," a muffled voice stated from behind the boxes. Tony grinned. Steve jumped up and went over to the wall of pizza boxes and began taking them out. After the wall was breached and no more than 30 boxes of pizza were loaded out, the girl known as Parker was visible. She was carrying two other boxes (I presumed the desserts and breadsticks) and the floor was lined with 2 liter sodas.
"Let me take these for you ma'am," Steve offered, grabbing the drinks and gesturing to the boxes in her hands. Parker lit up like a stop-light and nodded, almost furiously.
"Thank you Captain America sir!" she exclaimed frantically. I glanced curiously at her and then at Steve. Captain America? Well…that would explain the red-white-and-blue…
Quickly the receptionist saluted the captain and descended back down in the elevator. Tony clapped his hands together and began laying out the boxes and plates and cups with help from Clint and Bruce. Thor gave a confused glance at the many boxes.
"Man of Iron you still have not shown to me what this pizza is!" the god protested, crossing his arms. The genius's grin lit up in the black light.
"Watch and enjoy, Point Break!" he laughed as he lifted the lids of the boxes. A delicious wave of pizza scent flooded the room and all of our mouths instinctively began to water. Thor's sharp blue eyes widened in amazement.
"All of this?" he gestured to the practically glowing food, not taking his eyes away. Tony nodded with a laugh.
"I've never seen this much pizza in all of my life," I awed, and Clint nodded beside me. "It's beautiful…"
"Who wants to take the first piece?" Tony asked, now holding a glass filled with soda from one of the 2-liters.
We all glanced at each other hungrily, although Natasha still looked unfazed and Bruce just looked amused. After a few minutes of us staring, Tony clapped me on the back.
"Why don't we let the maestro take the first?" he suggested, raising his eyebrows. The others smiled in response and cheered. I could feel my face heat up as the corners of my mouth tugged upwards. "Go on, pick whatever kind you want."
Slowly I made my way across the boxes and my eyes locked on the meat-lover's pizza. I looked back to Tony and he grinned. I reached over and picked up a piece and put it on a plate with a gesturing smile to the other Avengers. They all swarmed in to grab slices of their own, and with that our pizza party began.
What seemed like countless hours later, I found myself lying on the floor, stomach full with many kinds of different pizzas, all lurching around in my insides. With a groan, I got up to my knees and looked around with narrowed eyes.
Natasha, Tony, and Thor were all battling to see who could still eat without puking, Bruce was contentedly relaxing, having thrown in his competition plate, Steve was slowly working on eating, I'm guessing he had a seriously high metabolism, and Clint…well I couldn't see him so I surmised he was in the rafters.
How much food did I eat? I could hardly remember but I felt sick enough to constitute that I over ate by a ton. I stumbled upwards onto my feet and caught the attention of the gamma scientist. He caught my shoulder and I looked over quickly, regretting that action immediately because it made my head pound.
"You alright, Tori?" he questioned in a concerned voice. I took a breath.
"y-Yeah, just tired," I admitted, blinking slowly. He smirked.
"You've had one hell of a day I'd bet," he said softly, walking me over to the elevator. A broken chuckle escaped my lips.
"I bet it's nothing compared to the day you've been having," I replied with a forced smile. Bruce didn't reply but he only shrugged. He pressed the button on the elevator and we went down to the floor of six bedrooms. I walked out and Bruce stayed in the elevator.
"You sure you'll be alright from here?" he asked. I nodded.
"Yeah I'll just crash in one of the two bedrooms on this side of the floor. I expect they'll be up for a while longer," I added. He chuckled in reply.
"I think you're right about that. Well, goodnight Tori."
"'Night Dr. Banner."
I made my way through the hall to two doors and subconsciously I turned to the room on the right. Without caring, my vision blackened and I hopped on the piece of comfortable furniture I knew as a bed. Instantly my eyelids shut and I was swept into unconsciousness.
In the pitch blackness of my subconscious I heard a slight chirping that I didn't recognize, but I knew to be a bird of some kind.
Slowly, a dark forest of tall trees was painted around me, silver patches of moonlight streaming through the dark green canopy. A smooth breeze flitted through the forest and caressed my skin. The chirping began again and as if in slow-motion the silver streams turned gold and the scenery brightened as the moon was replaced with the sun.
"Hello, little human."
I turned around sharply and couldn't see anyone present, or anything.
"Who's there?" I asked aloud, caution edging in my voice. No answer, delightful. I turned around in a circle again, the scenery shifting with my movements. I heard a high pitched laugh in the bird sounds.
"You're trying too hard, girl. This is a dream, you won't find me by looking," a silky voice taunted.
I frowned, but I closed my eyes (dream eyes, I guess) and opened them again, and gasped. Hovering in front of my face was a small bird, slightly bigger than a dove, with brilliant green feathers and gold plumage with a gold feather "cowlick" on the top of its head. Once my jaw shut itself, I gave it a curious glance.
"Who are you?" I interrogated. The bird, somehow, gave an amused smile which gave a chill down my spine.
"Just a little bird, wandering around," it replied mysteriously. "And this little bird has learned a lot." My eyes narrowed.
"What kinds of things?"
"Oh…anything and everything. Tell me, have you ever heard of the phrase 'a little bird told me'?" I nodded slowly, barely moving my head. It gave a melodic chuckle. "Well where do you think the little bird found out?" I smirked at the green and gold bird.
"So you're equating yourself as the cause of an age-old aphorism?" I asked mockingly, although suspicions edging my mind like a fog.
"You said so."
My lip curled in annoyance. "What do you want?!" I yelled at it, to then a clap of thunder sounded through the dreamscape and I ducked down. The bird laughed.
"It's not about me, dear human girl. We're in your dream," it cooed, flying on top of my head, arching its head next to my ear. "And I've seen and know your fears." My eyes welled up in terror. "So how about we have ourselves some fun?"
Before I could answer, I felt a whoosh and we were standing on top of a thousand mile high cliff. Above, clouds of ink black color were flashing with super-charged plasma and all luminance was drained from the space below us, save for a rushing torrent of obsidian water, churning and roaring with the intensity of the thunder rolling above.
My hazel irises widened in pure horror and I tried to look away, hot tears rolled down my cheeks. But instead of meeting a blank plateau behind, it was the mirror image of what was in front of me. The ground crumbled beneath me and I felt the gut-dropping lurch of losing ground and falling. My hands flailed helplessly and caught the small spire of rock that was formerly beneath me. The bird perched itself on top of my desperately clenched hands and looked over me amusedly.
"Poor little human, helpless and scared. Tell me, Tori Matthews, how long will it take for you to wake up before your spine is shattered from the fall?" I tried not to listen to its words but it was to no avail. My fingers were slipping and my heart was racing. "You have also heard the myth that if you die in your dream, you die in reality?" I shook my head desperately, saline liquid rapidly making its way down my red puffy face.
"Stop, please stop!" I choked, shaking with the force of my sobs.
The bird said nothing and my fingers were lost from their spot. My mind went blank as I stared in utter primal fear at the creature. My vocal cords started working again and I let out a piercing scream as I fell.
"Stop, STOP! Make it STOP!"
The scene went blank and I was lost in darkness.
"Sweet dreams…mortal."
DUN DUN DUN DUN DUNNNNNNNNN! HAHAHAHAHAAAAA!
Okay, for Bruce's little back story, I took stuff from the Incredble Hulk (2008) movie as well as the 'adjusted' Avengers backstory, and I used a lot of information from the Second-Screen Experience app I LOVE THAT THING! XD
I didn't know if I spelled 'bilgesnipe' right, as there's no real reference for that word. Ah well.
Reference for the nightmare comes from some personal experience as most of those fears are my own. Fear of falling from very high heights (which used to just be fear of heights), fear of total darkness, and of course slight fear and less slight detest of thunderstorms. You know the feeling you get when you wake up like you fell on your bed and you have that mini-heart attack? Yeah.
And If any of you have seen the new Les Mis and remember Javert's suicide...well..seeing that in theaters twice didn't really help...hearing that sickening crack...*shudders*
Oh and why I censored the bill for the pizza, I felt if I showed it, many people (including me) would feel their hearts break into a million pieces. hahaha XD
Alright, now that that's over, you know what's coming!
Review, and you will be mentioned, and you all are free to ask questions of any of my muses and they will answer as best as possible! And you receive sweet delicious internet cookies!
REVIEW!
~DarkMousyRulezAll, signing out!