So, I decided to take a break from What Could Go Wrong? and write another chapter of this. I wrote the entire chapter today, actually, after having spent about an hour every night around about 10pm planning this story that will inevitably become a series.
Anyway, read, enjoy, and please review! I enjoy the feedback, and even the odd compliment that comes through
-Wolf (:
Sol could hear Tony giving commands to JARVIS, his suit's AI, to assist with getting the nuke into the wormhole (great minds think alike, after all).
She flared her wings slightly to shift to another wind current, one that was faster. She was nearly at the cloud line – the wind was much quicker up here.
She did a visual sweep of the city, her sight automatically zooming in – she didn't know why her eyes did this, or how to control it other than focusing on something she wanted to view. She could see the civilians panicking in the streets, either trying to flee or to make it to the subway, where the Captain had told them to go.
Sol could feel her body heat rising as she dived, and swooped in behind her father, who was now under the nuke, trying to direct it.
"What can I do to help?" she asked, flapping her wings so she could keep with them.
"Clear a path," he told her, "And stay out of the way – I don't want you charbroiled, Fire Storm."
She grinned. "Will do, Tin Man," and flew off.
This was why most people saw her as an annoying reflection of her father's humour.
She flew through the streets, weaving a path and charbroiling anything that got in the way.
She flapped her wings and sped up, and eventually they were on the home straight.
"Sol, get out of the way!" Tony called from behind, and so she flew straight up.
She eventually stopped about half a mile in the air, and watched with bated breath as her father ricocheted off the windows of the tower, and flew straight through the portal.
He could've stopped.
He could've let go of the missile and trusted that it would explode on the other side.
But she could tell that he had to see this through to the end.
And that was one thing she both hated and loved about her father; he couldn't give up.
There was a flash of light from the other side of the portal, but she still couldn't breathe; her father was still up there, and she wouldn't relax until he fell back through.
The Chitauri soldiers dropped dead immediately – even the leviathans – and she knew Tony had succeeded.
Come on, Dad, she thought. You can make it!
There was a whisper through the comms from Natasha: "Come on, Stark," as she watched the portal.
And the Captain gave one order: "Close it."
NO! Sol wanted to scream, but she knew it had to be done – space debris could be deadly, especially if it's in large chunks and flying straight through a portal after a nuclear explosion.
The SHIELD assassin did so – Sol's gaze never moved from the shrinking hole, though. She wanted to cry, to scream, to shout It's not fair, but if there's one thing she's learnt, it's that nothing in life was fair – she learnt that from when her father was imprisoned in Afghanistan and she couldn't do anything about it, and from when Natasha had helped save their asses at the Stark Expo after the Hammer droids had gone bad.
The blue beam cut off, and there was a rumble of thunder as the blue and grey storm clouds that lined the portal began to close in on it, steadily turning orange.
The portal disappeared and a small speck fell from where it had been.
Sol's gaze zoomed in on it.
It was the Iron Man armour, with her father in it.
He'd survived.
"Son of a gun," was all Cap had to say on the matter.
She dived for him.
He wasn't slowing down.
Thor voiced this, as she heard the distinct sound of Mjolnir being swung around – a few days with the God of Thunder could make that easily recognisable.
"I'm grabbin' him!" Sol pretty much yelled.
She could feel the wind whipping at her clothing, at her wings, at her face. She had to close her eyes and direct herself only on instinct for this catch.
Her mind flashed back to when she'd discovered her pyrokinesis – she'd dropped her whittling knife in the bay while carving a fox. She'd leapt from her perch with no regard for her personal safety (like a Stark), and a small ball of flame had gathered in her hand. The ball had then been thrown at the knife, and (somehow) become a thin rope made of fire. It wrapped itself around the handle of the knife and carried it back up to her. She'd landed in the water with no injuries (which was a miracle) and had discovered that her half-finished fox had burnt up.
She imagined the armour was her whittling knife, her common sense as her fox (it was true) and the fire-whip was about to form in her hand when she collided with something metal, hard, and painful; her dad's armour.
She forgot about the wind and opened her eyes, flinging her wings open to create more air resistance, when another thing collided with her – this time fleshy, muscly, green, and also painful; Hulk.
"Watch the wings," she said, as said wings were being sort-of crushed in the Hulk's grip.
"Bird OK," Hulk said.
"Yes, I'm fi-mmh!" they collided with a building, then the floor – Hulk cushioned the impact with the floor slightly, but it still hurt to have concrete collide with her skin, probably hard enough to break a bone.
Hulk grunted, and put them on the floor. "Bird OK," he re-affirmed.
Thor and Cap ran over as Sol rolled her father onto his back and knelt down next to him. Cap knelt too, his giant metal frisbee no-where to be seen. Thor flung the face-plate away as Cap leant over Tony's mouth to see if he was still breathing.
When he sat up, he looked grave.
Sol's mind went to the worst possible outcome straight away – he was dead.
Tears welled in her eyes, but she held them back – she'd worked out a strategy for this; don't blink.
Hulk stood from where he'd been standing protectively over Sol on his knuckles and roared, loud and sudden.
Sol jumped so hard her wings burst into flames, but, when she looked back at the armour…
Tony was awake.
Sol's eyes widened as the tears from before fell.
Hulk roared in a King-Kong sort of way – chest hitting and all.
She hugged her father tightly as the ARC reactor in his chest light back up.
"What the hell," he said, "what just happened? Please tell me nobody kissed me." That was Tony Stark in a nutshell – recovering from being unconscious and straight to the pop-culture references and jokes.
Steve sat down. "We won."
Sol smiled as Tony laid his head back with a sigh of relief.
"All right – yay everybody! Good job guys!"
"No more going into weird-looking wormholes, okay?" she asked him.
"Ok," he agreed. "You ever tried Shwarma?"
Steve was smiling now.
"There's a Shwarma joint about two blocks from here. I dunno what it is but I wanna try it."
"We're no finished yet," Thor said ominously.
That's right – there's a ridiculously hot god currently unconscious in the penthouse floor of Stark Tower that we have to deal with…
"And then Shwarma after?" Tony said, though it wasn't really a question.
Sol grinned.
"Right, get off me Fire Bird – you guys wanna take the lifts or…?"
"Nah, I worked out a while ago that I can carry immense weights while I'm flying – I should be able to carry Captain Icicle over here to the Tower," she said, gesturing at Steve.
"Of course you can, you're a phoenix…" he muttered as he got up.
They landed in the building – Sol had gone and gotten Clint from the streets after flying the Captain to the Tower, and Natasha had come down from the roof.
They all walked in and watched as Loki – the God of Mischief that would be incredibly hot if he wasn't currently covered in rubble and dust and other such things – lifted himself up onto the steps and sat on them. He turned after a second, and noticed the entirety of the Avengers assembled in front of him – Hulk was in the back, looking just about ready to have another bout with him, with Tony on front of him, the helmet of the armour now completely removed, with Steve on his left. Clint was in front with an arrow nocked in his bow, ready to shoot – the drawstring was already pulled all the way back – while Thor stood, looking disappointed with his brother (Sol could almost hear him saying in that moment 'You fought us, we lost. I'm now going to train you how to lead an army properly.'), in front of Natasha who was holding the newly Christened 'Glow Stick of Destiny'. Sol stood in the middle of them all, blocking the sun from Loki's eyes with her carefully mantled wings because she's such a nice person, while still looking somewhat intimidating, what with her hair now a shade of ginger and a fireball held in each hand.
She noticed that his eyes were now green instead of the blue that they had been in Germany, as he said, "If it's all the same to you, I'll have that drink now."
Sol's father smirked, while Sol herself raised an eyebrow. "You offered him a drink?" she said with a hint of sarcasm.
"Well I was gonna have one anyway, and peace negotiations were always easier over a glass of scotch, right?"
"No they were not, Stark," Cap said.
"What is this 'scotch' you speak of?"
"It's grea-"
"An alcoholic drink."
Light bickering; in other words, everyone was fine.
They did, in fact, get that Shwarma. And as any Avenger will tell you, the first meal after a big battle is always delicious.
A few days later, they gathered in a park (Sol won't disclose where) in casual gear – or at least as casual as you could get with two aliens that don't seem to understand 'quiet attire' and a billionaire that insisted on wearing suits in public places.
They'd been all over the news – people saying that the whole ordeal was a hoax, people saying that they weren't safe, people saying that they should be held accountable for the damages done to the area around Stark Tower.
But most of all, people saying they were grateful to them for saving their city.
Sol and Tony had arrived in one of her father's super-expensive cars that he just seemed to have lying around – Tony was wearing a white and grey suit with a purple tie while Sol was wearing her favourite outfit: navy-blue jeans, a grey t-shirt and a black leather jacket. Her hair had reverted back to its usual black, and her eyes their normal green. Her jacket wasn't destroyed by her wings by the fact that they could slip in and out of existence at will – one of the first things she'd mastered with them after they'd slipped out at one of Tony's press conferences.
Clint and Natasha had gotten there in a black SHIELD-issue car – at this point Sol simply assumes there's a 'SHIELD-issue' everything – with Bruce Banner, the scientist that had an alter ego that could crush a building if he so wanted to.
Steve had arrived on his motorcycle. Sol guessed that was SHIELD-issue too, since he'd spent a lot of time around the 'super-secret spy-agency' these days.
Tony had the Tesseract in a suitcase that matched his suit (white, grey and silver).
People somehow didn't notice the group of odd people by the lake.
Selvig – the scientist that had been studying the Tesseract for SHIELD – had come along too, and brought out an Asgardian-looking container (what is she kidding – all the strange stuff looked Asgardian!), and held it out as Tony took the Tesseract out of its suitcase.
"Do you want to do the honours, Feathers?" he asked her, gesturing to the blue glowing cube that was still in the suitcase.
"Of course, Gryffindor Knight," she replied, plucking the Tesseract out of said suitcase.
And the feeling that coursed through her, the power, the possibilities that flowed through her head was kind of overwhelming.
There were visions – visions of her standing above everyone, visions of her giving the people what they need, visions of her fighting a losing battle…
She couldn't explain it.
Nor could the narrator of this story.
But she knew she wanted to get away from it.
She placed it carefully in the container, and something changed as the visions disappeared – the fire that coursed through her was magnified slightly, as was something else that she couldn't quite place.
Thor thanked Selvig, and took one handle of the container.
Everyone stood back, other than Loki, and Natasha whispered something to Clint, which made him smile. Sol suspected it was some sort of inside joke.
Thor held the container out to his brother (adopted, as the god had made very clear when Natasha had pointed out his kill count), and the Trickster took it.
Sol still couldn't shake the feeling that something was going to happen in the near future, and she was going to play a big part in it, even as the two gods were 'beamed up' by a flash of blue.
Tony and Steve shook hands as Natasha grabbed a bag out of the SHIELD-issue car and handed it to Bruce, and Clint got in the SHIELD-issue car. Sol shrugged off her jacket and set it in her father's car as Bruce got in shotgun and Tony got in the driver's seat.
"You coming with us or…?" Bruce asked her.
"Oh, I've got my transport sorted, Doctor," she replied with a smile. Her wings appeared, startling Banner slightly, but he kept a straight face.
"Good to know."
"Hey, Mars, race you to the Tower?" Tony offered.
"Sure," she agreed, "out of the goodness of my heart, you can have a head-start."
They drove off, and Sol counted to thirty as the others left, and then took off.
This was going to be a fun week of planning the redesigns before she left for the winter to spend it at Westover Hall.
Oh, there's an AN at the bottom too? That's new!
Yes, it is new, because I like reviews, and I would like you, dear valued reader, to post a review. It makes me happy.
Also because the review box is right there and it would be so easy for you to write one...
Anyway, enough of that short reminder that reviews make me happy and onto a shoutout to my friend on Teen Ink, Books_And_Scribbles, as we came up with a headcannon that was too good to stay a headcannon over Discord and she wrote it into a fanfic - go read it! It's amazing
Anyway, read, review, repeat.
-Wolf (: