a/n: the Avengers plot gets juicy here, kiddos. strap in.
A little hindsight before jumping into this chapter: I didn't want to do a complete retelling of the Avengers plot scene for scene, so like I mentioned earlier in the story, it's going to be told through the perspectives of the citizens during the Attack. Because A) the Battle of New York is like THAT point during the MCU, so it's always interesting to see the different POVs that affected the future (ie. Kate Bishop's episode on Hawkeye, the Vulture's Spider-Man Flashback, literally any of season one of Agents of SHIELD) and B) I try to avoid writing action as much as I can because sometimes it sucks to write when I have writer's block, so... yeah!
I lived in New York City for only a couple of years during undergrad. I tried to use my local knowledge to the best of my ability, but I haven't lived there in a few years. It's not like I was touring every crack and crevice while I was there either, so if I get something wrong- don't kill me, New Yorkers.
this chapter is brought to you in part by sriracha, Lord Huron's discography, AC systems, the US Open, sprite soda, Google Maps, and Unreal Unearth by Hozier.
NATIONAL EMERGENCY ALERT: New York City is under attack. Citizens need to seek shelter immediately. This is NOT a drill.
5:25 p.m.
Darcy Lewis wasn't entirely sure why she'd let her closest friend talk her into tagging along with her on her last minute emergency trip to some secluded SHIELD research facility in Butt-Fuck-Nowhere, Norway, but it was starting to take it's toll on her emotional wellbeing. Truth be told, she'd thought an all-paid trip to Europe sounded pretty great the way Jane made it out to seem in her initial pitch, already half-packed and ready to go with her equipment and passport in-hand. But now that she was stuck inside of this cabin atop a chilly mountain shacked up with a bunch of other super nerds and super spies? Darcy was starting to regret ever saying 'yes' to the trip at all.
The only thing keeping her sane seemed to be her direct messages she was allowed under SHIELD surveillance with the people back in the States. Which really meant she was only allowed to message the one other person who knew about SHIELD and had their type of clearance, only... Erik Selvig hadn't been answering messages in a few days now.
D. Lewis: heyyyyyyy. i know you told me to keep Jane away from those cheesy love-related reality TV shows because she gets all dopey about You Know Who, but c'mon! it's the Bachelor! she loves it! you should get into it, too! i can send you the recorded mp4s I have on my hard drive. maybe SHIELD goonies who monitor every little thing we send get a kick out of the Courtney and Ben skinny dipping scandal in Puerto Ricooooo.
That had been a week ago.
D. Lewis: Erik! we're getting a little antsy out here. SHIELD just invited us to go on this pretty cool trip to some random research base in Norway. you know anything about this? i know it's all lock and key- Keymaster and Gatekeeper type shit- but could you please let Jane and i know you're alright. wherever you are. i mean... Jane's a little distracted by the giant new piece of shiny tech they've got her working with in a mountain lab, but we're both still very, VERY worried. hit me back, Erik. i'm serious.
That was only a few days ago.
D. Lewis: okay, this isn't cute anymore. what's going on? you can't just get involved with SHIELD, promise to keep in touch, then fall off the grid when you hit some kind of break through! i don't know what they've got you working on and i don't give a shit how important or ground breaking it is, there's no excuse! ...unless, you're like stuck inside of some other dimension or plane of existence. then i'd kinda understand how messaging back isn't a priority. i hope you're alright. please, message when you can to confirm sign of life.
That was yesterday.
Darcy was practically bouncing off the tiny office walls, wishing she could be back in New Mexico again... in the warmth, reunited with Erik, back when they chased lightning storms in the middle of the night and spent less time sequestered on a mountaintop surrounded by people who didn't exist.
As if on cue, a new message alert popped up on the screen, practically sending Darcy bounding across the room and scrambling over a few rolling chairs. When she got to her desktop, she crossed her legs at her chair and opened the message- from Erik, shockingly.
"Jane!" The former poli-sci major used her loud-debate voice to shout above the voices of the lingering scientists all working around each other in the lab outside of her office. "Jane! We got a message from Erik, finally!"
She could see the brunette's head swivel at the sound of her mentor's name. That caught her attention, at last.
Darcy turned back to her screen, examining the message. As her eyes darted across the screen, her relieved smile slowly morphed into a confused frown that only deepened with every new line of code she failed to understand or interpret. "What the Hell..."
Jane had finally caught up, rushing over and standing close behind Darcy in her chair. "What's this supposed to be? I thought you said you'd got a new message from him."
"This is the new message," Darcy retorted, affronted at her assumption that she'd somehow made this up- whatever this was on her screen, which appeared to be nothing but a bunch of lines of unreadable numbers, figures, and mixed together letters. It took up paragraphs, pages.
The Doctor in astrophysics leaned forward skeptically as her assistant scrolled through. "Is this supposed to be some kind of hidden message? An alert? A warning? A transmission?" God, he was spending too much time with other SHIELD Agents.
Darcy scoffed. "Why would he do that over a SHIELD-monitored messaging system?"
"Maybe he wants them to see it too," Jane theorized as she began to try and inspect any hint within the jumble of words, numbers, and figures that could've pointed to what Erik was trying to tell them from wherever he'd broadcasted this message. "Doesn't SHIELD have a coded message database we could run this through? We have access to that, don't we?"
"Uh, I could try."
After several minutes of back and forth banter and panicked shouts through the phone to a SHIELD IT coordinator, the pair were finally able to get their friend's message through a decoder. Only what they hoped would provide them answers, merely left them with more questions.
E. Selvig: 40.753349/-73.976667
Both women tilted their heads in intrigue.
"Coordinates?" Darcy frowned.
"What's he trying to tell us? Where is that, anyway?" With a few clicks of the desktop mouse, Jane was able to pop-up a new map that directed them to exactly where their friend's transmission had come from. "Is that... He's at Grand Central."
"Aw," Darcy practically gushed. "Maybe he's having his Hello, Dolly! moment."
The astrophysicist's frown only deepened. Something wasn't right. Erik wouldn't sit there and type out a coded message. If he'd sent a message like that, it was out of emergency. Whether it was from his laptop or a system he'd built a backup protocol for, there was really only one reason he'd need to send his coordinates for and it couldn't have been good.
"...I don't think so," Jane muttered absently.
11:27 a.m.
As a journalist, it was difficult for Jamie to suspend her disbelief surrounding any matter. Cynicism and critical analysis were her two most handy tools in certain circumstances. During high stakes situations- like the one she was currently facing- Jamie had trained herself to stay calm in order to maintain order and keep the facts straight. Thus far in her multi-year career, she'd had to retrieve B-reel during a shoot out between two billionaires in metal armored suits, report on an active bank robbery during a hurricane, and dodge two giant monsters brawling in Harlem for a story on human experimentation.
However, aliens falling from the sky seemed far more detrimental than anything she'd ever faced before. Suddenly, the journalism degree was useless as Jamie Archer watched from a distance as small, dark flying figures emerged from the glowing and growing portal in the sky. Her stomach fell and her skin went cold. There were screams and cries echoing from around her, but it was difficult to focus on much else while she was watching the world end in front of her.
Time and space had frozen for all she was aware. That was until the first explosions rang out in the air.
At first, it sounded eerily like distant gunfire from up above. It wasn't until Jamie could vaguely pinpoint that pre-explosive sound she'd recognized from the Stark Expo and Stark Labs Incidents that she realized why it looked as though the flying figures were being shot out of the sky- because they were.
One of the kids playing at the basketball court called out in excitement, "Look! It's Iron Man!"
A large array of fire and smoke bellowed above Stark Tower, directly beneath the opened portal. Jamie had a limited line of sight from her place on the ground, but she was able to catch a glimpse of the all-too-familiar hot rod red and vibrant gold speck in the sky as it shot up through the blasts, unphased.
Stark. A wave of relief swept through her body knowing he was on scene.
The relief was almost instantaneously squashed when beams of bright blue lights began to rain from above- blowing off chunks of cement, glass panes from buildings, and cars lining the curb. There was no fire, which made it that much more alarming, when the alien ships descended on the streets of New York City. Jamie, still rooted in her place on the street, was shaken to her core as the realization that Iron Man wasn't catching all of the aliens coming out of the portal finally dawned on her.
"Run!"
Chaos erupted as the crowd surrounding the street scattered.
Uprooting herself from her place, Jamie broke out into an all out sprint down the street she'd come from. Her legs carried her as far and as fast as they could away from the open space between the skyscrapers of West 51st Street. With the open portal popping out aliens above Stark Tower, Jamie knew her best bet was getting as far away from Grand Central as she possibly could. I need to get home- Wait!
The reporter scrapped to a halt when an aircraft of some kind swept through the skies, narrowly missing the skyscraper glass panes as the noise of it's engine ricocheted off the walls. It's shots were even louder as the blue lasers struck everything in it's path. Jamie had barely stopped at the intersection on 7th Ave where one struck a hot dog stand, obliterating it into pieces before her very eyes. "Oh- fuck!" she gaped, scrambling back up to her feet and sprinting north for a few more blocks.
It looked as though most of everyone else around her had caught on just as quickly. Folks were jumping out of their idle cars in the streets, restaurant guests were scrambling indoors, and people on the streets were running for cover or an escape.
A man on a moped zipped by on the sidewalk, knocking over several people and newspaper stands on his mad escape from the aliens. Nearby, a bodega erupted into flames as an alien shot blasted a parked car into the front of the shop. The sounds of screams, explosions, and alien battle cries echoed off the bases of the buildings, creating an even more chaotic scene below. Debris began to fall from the skyscrapers being damaged above- cement, glass, brick, and miscellaneous items from office buildings pummeling people fleeing.
Jamie had been avoiding getting hit thus far, but couldn't help herself when she noticed a young boy crying alone on the curb nearby. You can't leave him there! The journalist threw caution to the wind when she tossed herself out from under the cover of the buildings, scooping up the boy quickly and continuing her mad dash with the toddler in her arms. Moments later, a bus rammed directly into a the fire hydrant where the boy had been standing seconds prior.
By the time her and the rest of the crowd on the sidewalk had come to the 7th Ave Station on 53rd. With an entrance to the underground station on nearly every corner of the four-way intersection, mass clusters of New Yorkers stampeded down the stairs. Jamie knew if she even attempted to go down now, she'd either get killed in the riot or lose the kid- she'd be damned if she risked either option. Instead, she kept running.
"I want my Mommy!" the young boy clutching onto her like a koala wailed in her ear. His sobs wracked his body even more any time Jamie had to halt her running to duck with every shot or explosion that rang out above or around them.
I can't do this. I can't do this. I can't do this. The inner voice in the back of her mind panicked as she wracked her brain for ideas of where to go that would be safe, who she needed to get in touch with, what she needed to cover. First thing was first, the little boy needed to get somewhere far away from New York City. And Jamie had to help him get there before she could even think about making it back to cover whatever the Hell was happening.
"I know, I know," Jamie repeated as she idly rubbed and patted the boy's back.
Like a holy call into the night, Jamie's heart could've flown out of her chest at the sound of the wailing NYFD sirens. Soon enough, the firetrucks came flying down 7th Ave. Right- there's a station at the corner on 58th, just a block away from Central Park. Central Park, which was probably the worst place to be in a city full of cover- a single 143 acre plot of open land and forest. But if she could get the kid to the fire station, he'd be evacuated with the rest of the citizens flocking towards these first responders.
As Jamie neared the station, it was almost completely blocked by several taxis and idly abandoned cars. It was difficult to get through the rushing crowds, but to get through running people and parked cars while trying to avoid getting shot by flying aliens above? This was a fucking suicide mission.
An explosion and crash sent a vibration that rocked through Jamie's chest. On instinct, she ducked, clutching the boy close to herself as a flying alien ship came spiraling down from the air, crashing directly into the base of the Columbus Circle statue. She winced as the boy screamed.
11:35 a.m.
Chess Roberts was still nursing a brutal hangover, nearly a day after her night out with her former NYU classmates and their friends. Whatever bar crawl shenanigans she had gotten up to off-duty was beginning to affect her on-duty. She'd already chugged half a bottle of Pedialyte, threw back nearly six dissolving Alka-Seltzer tablets, and eaten an entire box of saltine crackers... that she also promptly threw up hours later. Yet still, the hangover persisted.
The morning news reporter looked as good as she felt going into work that day. After going through four hours in hair and make-up upon her arrival, Chess had never regretted meeting Jamie Archer and Margot Sharpe more than she had on this day.
I'm never drinking with those skanks again, the WHiH reporter inwardly joked to herself as another wave of nausea rocked through her, sending a queasy feeling up her spine and a gurgling sensation in her stomach. Ooh, this was so payback for doing blow before going on air at the Stark Expo. Chess squeezed her middle tightly as she rocked back in her seat at the anchor desk.
"Chess," a voice murmured softly in her ear. "You alright? You're lookin' a little pale on my screen right now." She recognized the concern tremor of her Executive Producer, Clay, speaking to her from inside the studio.
"Pale?" she scoffed beneath her breath, trying her best not to let her pain and discomfort out in her voice. They'd replace her off the block for the rest of the day if they needed to. And if Clay found out she was live on national television with a hangover right now? Her career would be dead and gone. "I know I did not just hear you call me pale under this lighting. Not when you know damn well that I spent my afternoon the other day in a tanning bed."
There was a chuckle on the other line of her ear piece. "Contrary to popular belief, I don't regularly check up on your calendar and daily itineraries. I'll have you know, I do actually have a life of my own."
"Yeah, sure. A messy one." Chess gave the camera screen in front of her a shit-eating grin, knowing she was being watched as she spoke. "Which is exactly why you check up on my calendars. To take notes on how someone is supposed to organize their life. It's okay, Clay. There's no shame in needing a little guidance."
"LIVE IN THREE," an unseen PA shouted from off-screen. The blinding lights made it difficult for Chess to spot anyone around her, so it felt a little isolating being in her seat right now.
Still, she nodded good-heartedly to acknowledge the time she had left before they'd be back on air. She debated running to the restroom to try and barf just once more. Her stomach gurgled and the anchorwoman lurched in her seat. "Mmm," the reporter tried her best to suppress her groan, but it was fruitless...
"Chess?"
"Clay."
"Quit being cheeky. You look like shit. I doubt it's my lighting. Do I need to get one of our interns down to the drug store?"
Massaging her temples, Chess murmured, "Do you even know our interns' names?"
There was a heavy exhale. "Greg, Jan, Peter, Marcia, Bobby, Cindy, Carol... Who am I forgetting?"
Chess rolled her eyes. "Brady, to complete the last of the Bunch."
"You! You!" Chess cringed as her EP shouted at someone unseen to her in the studio. "Go get that zombie in Studio B some ginger ale and crackers."
"No more crackers."
"Forget the crackers! Fuck the crackers!"
"Please stop screaming in my ear," the anchorwoman whimpered, pointedly turning her attention to the PAs and camera crews behind the large frames and softbox lighting fixtures. "What's up next on the block?"
Another unseen PA called out from behind the camera, "Mitt Romney!" Of course, Chess nearly blanched. It's always been fucking Romney this year. "He's won Maryland- solidifying his nomination with the GOP. Despite that, he's still going after Santorum on his runs in Pennsylvania. We've got our field producer Barney Bennett on the ground out there, which gives you a five minute break. Later you'll go on with GOP Political Analyst Jeff McHale and WHiH's political correspondent Will Adams. That'll take up the rest of the block until we get to whatever Clay has coming up next."
Boring, boring, boring, boring, boring. The last thing Chess needed was to be apart of a heated debate with two pretentious former frat bros with MBAs in political science over Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum's dick measuring contest on the East Coast. Then she really would barf on national television.
As if on cue, a petite young woman with dark skin, highlighted by a white cable-knit cardigan, holding a clipboard beneath her arm, a bag of pretzels in her hand, and a bottle of Minute Maid in the other. Chess watched with a beaming smile as the girl set two of the three items on the desk in front of her. "I'm so sorry. We don't have ginger ale anywhere. Did you need anything else, Miss Roberts?" she prompted.
"What's your name?"
"Prisha."
"Prisha," she practically gushed as she undid the lid on the orange juice, taking in the sweet scent as if she'd been parched in a dry desert for years. "You would be my favorite person in the entire world if you could go grab me some Alka Seltzer from my office desk." Prisha nodded, spinning on her heel to briskly complete her errand. "And my cell phone, please!" Chess added last minute.
"Cell phone? Why do you need your phone in the studio? You know my rules about phones in the studio. Especially On Air," Clay began to nag over the ear piece.
"I'm not on air for another- How many minutes do I have?"
"LIVE IN TWO!"
Prisha returned in record timing. "Your phone and two Alka Seltzer tablets, ma'am."
"Thank you." Chess had just plucked up her cell from the desktop when she glanced up. "And Prisha?" The intern paused at the door. "Don't ever call me 'ma'am' again."
"Yes, ma- Yes, Miss Roberts." She practically dashed out of the studio side door.
But before the door had time to close, a lanky boy in jeans and a plaid button up came scrambling in. His tennis shoes squeaked across the marble floor on his way towards the crew members behind the camera. Chess hadn't really been paying attention to this odd intern. She'd seen plenty of overzealous, post-grads running in and out of the hectic newsroom like clock work, so she went about her time unpacking the tablets and chasing them down with some pulpy OJ. "Mm, Clay- I have a proposition for you."
"Hold that thought."
"I'm serious, Clay. Do we have to keep milking this Romney front? I mean, I know we're front runners for hosting the debate for this year's Election, but should we really be botching our views this way? It seems so repetitive. I feel like a fucking parrot up here sometimes. You've gotta do something about this or it's going to drive me crazy, then it'll be everyone's problem," Chess continued to rant, blissfully unaware of the commotion starting to erupt in the editing room, the developing desk, or even just behind the cameras in front of her.
It wasn't until Chess realized she'd been getting ignored did she finally start to get the sense that something might've been off. "Clay? D'you get that up there in your ivory tower?" Still no answer. More scattered whispers echoing off the walls of the studio. "Hello? Clay? What's going on? Clay!"
"Chess."
Something about the tone of her EP's voice made her skin crawl. She'd recognized it in moments of dire emergency. The last time he sounded so hoarse and haunted, there'd been a bombing at a synagogue. This sounded... different. "What's going on?" Finally, she took note of the lanky intern from earlier running out as if his pants were on fire, several other PAs following him out almost uneasily.
"We're scrapping the entire rundown, Chess."
"W-What?" she gaped. She hadn't expected that in response to her criticism. "Clay, we're less than two minutes to Air and you want to throw it all out? For what? What's going on? What could possibly be that important we can't wait to push it to after at least the first block and intro-"
"Chess!" The reporter clamped her mouth. "There's an attack in Manhattan. An active attack! We're getting reports of a portal opening above Stark Tower. Aliens are literally falling out of the sky right now. The National Guard is en route to the city as we speak."
There was a beat. "... are you fucking with me right now?"
"I wish I was, but this is 100% happening right now. I'm not kidding in the slightest," came the eerie, dead-serious response from the Executive Producer. "We're getting raw footage from New Yorkers on the ground and our sister station out there. Chess, this is... This is world changing."
The camera crews unseen were starting to talk. Worried whispers and buzzing phone alerts began to bounce off the walls of the studio. This was serious. This was happening.
For a second, Chess thought it might've actually been a prank. But there was no faking the footage that was starting to appear on the B-Reel screens around the studio. Chess's grip on her desk tightened as she turned towards the screen beside her now projecting video footage of grey reptilian-like creatures wearing golden armor with glowing spears on their backs as they whipped through skies of New York on cybernetic flying chariots. They were firing down on streets, blowing up lines of car traffic, crashing into the sides of skyscrapers, and obliterating everything in their path as they spread out from the open portal.
It was like watching a horror movie, only it was happening in real time.
"Oh my God..." Chess couldn't help the horrified whisper that escaped from her hanging mouth.
If you asked someone where they were on 9/11, they would tell you exactly where they were when it happened, where they watched it, what happened after and leading up. This was one of those moments during a disaster that Chess knew she'd be able to remember for the rest of her life. Although, she wouldn't get to reminisce or watch while it happened... she actually had to work around this now.
Focus. A sharp voice in the back of her her head reminded her. Chess Roberts brushed off the panic for a moment, suspending her disbelief and setting aside the growing urge to scream, cry, and hide beneath her bed. She had a job to do. A job that lives depended on, that the World depended on.
"Okay- What do we know so far?!"
It was as if a switch flipped in the WHiH Newsroom. Panic quickly morphed into adrenaline-fueled determination. This was an intercontinental emergency happening in their city only a few miles away. This was what they'd been prepared for in a 24/7 Breaking News station. This was their fucking job.
"We've got our producers reaching out to the White House, the Pentagon, the FBI, the DOJ, the DOD, NYPD, NYFD, any and every first responder we can contact right now-"
"Explosions confirmed at Park and 53rd, Fifth and 56th, Madison and 33rd, 47th at the UN Plaza-"
"NYPD is on the ground!"
"-traffic's backed up on the Queensboro Bridge, blocking the National Guard convoy from getting onto the island!"
"Subway Lines 5, 6, 7, F, M, S, and B are all down from overcrowding!"
"New York Fire and Rescue are conducting evacuations within the 20-block radius around Grand Central and are telling citizens to stay clear of Park Ave in any direction!"
"Mass casualties confirmed at Lexington and 59th!"
"More critically injured coming in, according to the ERs at Bellevue and Lennox!"
"-and can you confirm whether the source of the portal is coming from Stark Tower?"
"Explosions confirmed on multiple levels at the Empire State Building!"
"-NPR is verifying that the extraterrestrials are now landing on the streets!"
"Where the fuck is the Army?!"
Whether the WHiH Newsroom was ready for it or not, they'd be the main form of news communication and coverage for the rest of the Battle of New York.
Chess ran her fingers through her hair, pulling out a few strands as PAs and producers rushed in and out of the studio. Phones rang, producers shouted, papers were printing faster than the files were coming through the wire. Still struggling to focus on every small tidbit of information being fed to her and crammed into a rundown before the hour of Prime Time breaking television would go on air, the reporter was practically shaking from the overwhelming weight of everything happening at once and being at the forefront of it all.
A PA from behind the cameras was kind enough to step in front of the blinding lights to approach the desk, a soft and patient look on his face. "We're live in 30," he informed her. "Did you need anything before we go on? To call someone or get something?"
Chess sat silent for a moment. She wracked her brain for what she could've needed in that moment. A break, a drink, her Mom, a hug- all of the above. It was kind of this PA to offer to call someone in the city for her, but even the offer made her realize she was that much more alone in this. No close family, friends all probably out reporting on exactly what she was right now, and only one clear path ahead- Chess really only had one necessity.
Knocking on the desk, she finally answered, "A trash can, please. Small. Easy to hold."
The PA nodded, spinning on their heel and rushing out to grab what she asked for.
"You're not gonna start getting sea sick on me now, are you?" Clay's voice of reason returned in her ear.
The roaring of the aliens on the video reel. The worried whispers of the crew. The ringing phones and the bustling office in the bull pen behind her. The screaming producers, reporters. The explosions playing on the screen. Even if Chess weren't still hungover, she imagined she still would've needed the can for her anxious nerve-induced vomiting that was sure to come out sooner or later. She hoped it would be later. Preferably during a commercial break.
"Chess? You haven't answered my question and you're making me nervous..." there was a pause. "Even more nervous than I currently am, which is actually quite a feat considering I can literally hear my heartbeat in my throat right now. Fuck!" Clay let out a sharp exhale on the other end of the line. Chess imagined he was probably pulling at his hair up in the control room right now.
Chess's frown deepened. The second the EP lost it, everything was lost. "Take a deep breath. It'll all be okay." She wasn't sure if she was trying to reassure Clay or herself. Maybe it was a bit of both in these trying times.
"How can you know?"
The journalist froze. The question had caught her off guard because how could she have known that it would all be okay? No one had ever dealt with an alien invasion before. Sure, Chess could probably name a handful of movies based on this exact premise- War of the Worlds, Cloverfield, Independence Day, Alien- but this wasn't a movie. This was happening before their very eyes, they were reporting this to the rest of the world, and there was no certain outcome to a disaster like this that had never happened before. Eventually, Chess came to her answer... "I don't."
"LIVE IN FIFTEEN!"
Prisha had returned in place of the other PA with the small trash can in hand. She placed it discreetly behind the desk and rushed away with a brief "ma'am" to her place behind the cameras.
Focus. "I just have to have faith, I guess," Chess added as the WHiH intros began to play in sync with the recording of their show going on air.
Faith in what or who, Chess didn't specify because, frankly, she wasn't sure if there was anyone who could take on an attack like this. Maybe her faith was in people, as shown in every other Sci-Fi alien invasion blockbuster where the citizens of Earth rally together to fight off their invaders. Maybe her faith was in God, who'd possibly swoop in at the last second to be the world's savior once more. Or maybe her faith was in the Universe allowing everything to work out the way it should.
"LIVE IN TEN!"
Whichever it was, Chess knew it wasn't her job out there to fight off any aliens. Her role was to keep people informed and that was exactly what she was going to do- her job. "Hey, think of it this way," Chess provided as she shuffled around the papers being placed on her desk of whatever new info was coming in off the wires. "You threw out the rundown and I'm about to do an hour of breaking news without a single line written off the prompter. How can you know I won't fuck up during something as huge as this?"
The crew chief stood out from behind the cameras, his headset resting on his shoulders with his clipboard in hand. He didn't look phased at all by the invasion. He looked determined to see the job through. His eyes darted between the standby countdown and his anchorwoman at the helm of it all. He began counting down with his fingers held up high, "In five... four..."
"I have faith in you, Chess," Clay assured her softly.
"...three... two... one... Go!"
Chess sat straight in her seat behind the desk. She took a deep breath in. The light at the top of the camera lit up red. She let out her heavy sigh and looked directly into her frame. "Good evening, I'm Chess Roberts with Breaking News out of Manhattan of an extraterrestrial attack. We're getting various reports on the ground of unknown beings and flying objects coming out of an open portal above the Stark Tower. Local authorities on the ground are urging people to stay clear of everything along Park Avenue, evacuate the inner city, and to seek shelter indoors. Here's what we know-"
12:22 p.m.
The National Guard symbol plastered against a large evacuation truck was a saving grace to the running reporter carrying the young boy in her arms. After dashing through alien gunfire carrying a small human in her arms for nearly twenty blocks, Jamie Archer was exhausted. So exhausted, she'd nearly fallen over after depositing the young boy with a Nation Guardsmen, leaving them with a description of where and how she found him. They'd offered her assistance in whatever makeshift safe haven they'd set up under the covers of the tree at the edge of Central Park, but the reporter knew her place wasn't here.
So, she went back out.
J: Portal source at Stark Tower near Grand Central.
Almost immediately after she'd sent the message, she got her response from her photographer.
L: Meet on Park Ave?
Jamie knew Logan would be coming from the Daily Bugle building near Madison Square Park, so the best bet wasn't to meet at the center of the fight it was to meet a little further off.
J: Negative. No Man's Land.
J: M Line up 6th. Meet on Rockefeller?
L: M Line down.
Jamie pinched the bridge of her nose as she wracked her brain for alternative routes to get to Stark Tower. The biggest and brightest light in the city skyline and it was quite literally impossible to get close to it- and that was without counting in the aliens firing down on them. With how traffic-packed the streets were and how crowded the underground train rails were, there weren't many options on getting there that weren't by foot or by- Jamie froze.
J: how much is the fee for those rental bikes at the park?
Wasting no time at all, Jamie and Logan had plotted to meet at the New York Public Library, a few blocks away from Stark Tower. It'd give them opportune line of sight and good cover at Bryant Park. But it was still a trek to make it from opposite ends of the city by bike. The furthest Jamie had ever biked was on a trip with her Dad to Maine where they'd gone biking on a trail at 7am. She'd been so sweaty and out of breath by the time she'd gotten back to their rented cabin- she was practically as red as a tomato. Needless to say, she was getting to that point the harder she pushed herself along on those pedals, having to stop every so often to avoid alien gunfire from above. Lucky enough for Jamie, the sidewalks of New York were freakishly empty for once during this disaster.
It'd been going smoothly for Jamie as she navigated her way from Central Park, zig-zagging through skyscrapers and through clogged streets of debris and blown-up chunks of buildings and buses. It was apocalyptic. Horrifying.
She'd just narrowly avoided a line of blown up cars by turning down 49th Street when a large flying alien leviathan came pummeling through the buildings above her. Jamie shouted in peril, skirting on the bike and pedaling off the street under the cover of the nearby buildings. She'd skidded to a halt inside the Frost Bank lobby, but stopped long enough in her cover spot to bear witness as multiple aliens descended on a stuck double-decker tour bus.
"No, no, no, no, no," Jamie whimpered as she could only crouch behind a nearby lounge couch with the bike at her side and watch. What'd she have on her but her wallet, her phone, a digital camera, and a- AHA! Dropping the bike, Jamie clutched her handheld weapon and slowly crept out towards the bus. All she had was a fucking stun gun, but she couldn't just let these people stuck inside of this paparazzi tour bus die.
"Rargh!" A grey-skinned alien with a giant, glowing and golden staff growled at the people screaming and crying within the locked confines of the double decker bus. Jamie could hear kids in there. Fuck. This wasn't going to end well. Turning towards another one of the aliens, they communicated in distorted, odd noises exchanged back and forth. It looked as if they were discussing how to go about getting the people inside out.
Jamie had to wonder what the end goal was: total domination, or just murder any living thing in front of them. But it wasn't like Jamie had the luxury of being able to stop and ask the extraterrestrial fellas. She doubted this would pan out the way ET did. Putting on her bravest face and taking a deep breath, armed with her stun gun, the reporter prepared to launch her assault.
That was until a figure in a flash of blue and red came bounding in, throwing itself against one alien and shoving it with so much force that he threw it into yet another alien, knocking the pair into a crushed piece of building that had fallen nearby.
"Oh my God!" Jamie gasped, practically stumbling away from the assault and realizing her chance. "OH- shit!" she shouted out in a war cry, rushing the closest alien she saw and shoving the end of her stun gun into the exposed grey piece of neck between the golden helmet and chest pieces of armor. With a crackle, pop, and scream, the thing went down with a thud at her feet. "Wow!" That felt surprisingly liberating. Suddenly, Jamie found herself fighting the urge to scream something along the lines of 'Welcome to Earth, bitch,' and figured it was a little ill-timed.
Instead, she opted for forgetting about the stunned alien and focusing on helping the people still trapped inside the rocking bus, now pushed sideways against the crushed debris of a nearby skyscraper.
"Help! Help us! We're in here!" Peeking out of the top of some broken bus windows, fogged up from the smoke building up inside, were various young faces shouting and crying out from inside. "It's going to explode! Get us out! Please!"
Frantically searching for anything at her feet, Jamie pocketed her stun gun and grabbed at an uprooted stop sign, with a chunk of concrete still attached at the end. It was heavy, but Jamie was pretty determined to at least attempt to help in what ways she could. Starting with wracking up property damage charges by banging said concrete end of the stop sign into the windows of the bus, knocking them in and allowing the people inside reprieve from the smoke suffocating them from within.
The reporter tossed the stop sign to the side, discarding it as she used her free hands to help the escaping people down one by one. "Here, right this way. There's a Metro Station back that way!" Jamie repeated to every adult she helped down, pointing in the direction down the street as whatever blue and red figure had saved them earlier continued to defend them from other descending aliens nearby. A few more shots fired off, hitting the top of the bus and causing Jamie and the others to duck down in peril. "Go, go, go, go!" She shouted to the people jumping down from the bus as soon as they'd recovered from the blow. "Run! Go!"
She'd thought she'd gotten the last of the people out before another alien reared it's ugly head from around the end of the charred bus. For the second time in her life- far too many times already- Jamie was staring down an alien with a weapon. Her heart fell to her stomach and she nearly closed her eyes in acceptance of her fate.
That was until a loud metallic thud and alien whimper abruptly brought her back to the present where she was staring wide-eyed at where the alien had been moments before, and where a man now stood tall. But it wasn't just the fact that said man had just knocked an alien squarely in the jaw and down into the asphalt with an inhuman amount of strength, but because of what that man was wearing and holding.
Jamie blinked once. Twice.
She rubbed her eyes trying to decipher what she was seeing and whether it was reality or a hallucination of some kind from the adrenaline of everything going on and the stress from her latest story. There was no way she was actually staring at Captain America; clad in red boots, blue tight pants, the giant white 'A' on his chunky helmet, a star emblem on his chest, and a matching shield clutched on his arm. But he was real. He was actually in front of her right now. And he was actually speaking to her, only she couldn't quite hear what he was saying through the sound of her pounding heartbeat in her ears. What was happening right now? Wow, everything was spinning. Huh.
"Hey! Are you alright? Can you hear me?"
Jamie could just barely make out what he was saying as she attempted to focus through the noise. An explosion from far away echoed against the windows of the nearby buildings, practically snapping her back to the present where she was standing in front of Captain America during an alien invasion and she still needed to meet Logan back at the Public Library.
"Miss? Miss? Elizabeth!" Clutching at her arm, the Captain shook her lightly. "You need to get off the street. Do you understand?"
Faltering at this walking fossil somehow knowing her middle name, Jamie shook her head frantically, her eyes searching around her for the Frost Bank lobby that she'd left her rented bike in. "Off the street," she repeated idly. "Right." Completely disregarding the man attempting to help her, the redhead brushed right past him towards the building.
The Captain wasn't sure what he was expecting from her to be grabbing from inside- a purse, a kid, a camera- but instead, she came dashing out with a bike. He cupped his gloved hands around his mouth to direct her back up North, in the opposite direction of the fighting, "Turn around!" he'd called out. "The fighting is that way!"
"I know!" came the shouted response.
Shockingly, the young woman didn't seem to care. In fact, he was a little confused to see her start pedaling without her hands, turning her upper body to face behind her- a camera in her hand and posed just above her right eye as she lined up her shot. The camera flashed with a snap and the Captain nearly felt himself transported back to where he was a week and a half ago, a block away in Times Square, being captured with a flashing camera while talking with Director Fury by a woman with that same plush red head of hair.
Elizabeth... it couldn't have been.
12:45 p.m.
"-and we're getting more now from our on-the-ground WHiH Correspondent Andrew Lincoln, reporting off the Williamsburg Bridge. Andrew, what can you tell us about the scenes coming out of Manhattan that you can see right now?" Chess prompted the man plastered on the screen behind her anchor desk.
As the studio alternated to the reporters- the PAs immediately rushed in to update Chess on the latest info the producers had been grabbing while she'd been busy reporting On Air. While Andrew Lincoln parroted the information she'd been feeding the public with since the 11th hour, Chess was given direct updates on the ground from what Prisha, Clay, and the others had gathered in the mean time.
"Hit me," Chess exclaimed the second the red light above her camera went out. "Wait!"
Everyone paused, watching for a moment as the anchorwoman abruptly spun in her seat to throw her head over the small, hand-held trash can to spit up behind her desk. Just as quickly as she'd finished throwing up, Chess wiped away the excess and threw back a few swigs of water, turning back to her team.
"Alright- now hit me."
A female PA with blue hair stepped forward with a handful of AP wire reports. "Correspondents and witnesses on the ground are talking about sightings of Enhanced Individuals. Apparently, there was a plane crash at Grand Central with an emblem on the side. AP and NPR have both confirmed the emblem to be the US covert military organization SHIELD."
Chess frowned. SHIELD? What kind of an organization went by that abbreviation? What could it have possibly stood for? "Did they send in these... Enhanced Individuals?"
"It's unconfirmed, but implied."
"Don't imply it unless it's been confirmed."
"Yes, ma- Chess," the PA hiccupped.
"How do we know that they're Enhanced and not just... Special Special Ops?" the anchorwoman asked, somewhat stupidly. She wasn't quite sure what explanations she could've had, but did the US Government seriously have a covert special forces team designated for extraterrestrial incidents? And did it seriously consist of super-powered individuals? What kind of World would that mean they lived in?
Another PA- male, tall, lanky, and wore big-brimmed glasses- stepped forward with another handful of Twitter screencaps and Instagram posts. "There are six individuals. We have one clear shot of all of them facing off against an Alien Leviathan along Park Ave."
Peering down at the images before her, Chess couldn't help but gape in disbelief at the ensemble standing as a united front at the front and center of this Battle. Tony Stark's Iron Man stuck out like a red and gold thumb among the group standing idly in the street out front of Stark Tower, beside him was a man in a red, white, and blue star-spangled uniform with the matching shield in some kind of homage to the 1940's war hero Captain America, next to him was a woman in a black catsuit with a redheaded bob and pistol, a man with metal armor and a flowing red cape holding a large hammer with a golden head of flowing hair atop his head, a man dressed in black and purple holding a bow and arrow, and a giant green monster standing about a couple yards taller than an average human would, probably ten times larger in muscle mass.
"Wow," Chess uttered. "This is quite the A-Team."
"Twitter users are saying that they think the man beside Iron Man is a government clone of the original Captain America from the '40s, but it's just speculation."
She peered over the series of pictures of the team in action against the aliens. "And the others? What rock did they come out from under and where have they been kept since then?" Surely, people like this didn't just appear from out of the woodwork. Even if it were an implication that SHIELD had even just transported these people to the scene, there was now a heavy implication that they had to have been the ones to wrangle this little project unit together in the first place.
"Producers reaching out to SHIELD are getting blocked, transferred, put on hold, or are told that the organization doesn't exist," another PA chimed into the discussion. "It's all very allusive and secretive. Even the DOD is being dodgy about them."
"We thinking they may be the cause of all of this? What can you tell me about the portal itself?" Chess pressed. "Where is it coming from? What is it powered by? Stark is on the ground, is he responsible or is Stark Tower being used for it's significance?"
"No statement has been made by Stark Industries," the blue-haired PA stated.
Beside her, Prisha added, "I knew a girl in college who works closely with Pepper Potts. She says they're on a flight out of New York to DC right now. It'd been a pre-planned flight for zoning on three other potential Stark Industries buildings along the East Coast. A trip that'd been on her schedule for months now."
"No chance it was an escape plan?" Clay chided in her ear.
Reaching up to her ear piece, Chess sighed, "Clay, what are one of the Golden Rules of this Newsroom? No conspiracy theories!" With a huff, she heard her EP toss his headset off his head. "I'm not running conspiracy theories on my fucking segment. Unless we have cold hard proof that Tony Stark knowingly opened a portal to another dimension giving aliens access to this World, we're still running this story as a united front in a fight against these forces, not against a man trying to help save the World right now." Her words hung with a silence in the room. "Hit me with something else!"
"LIVE IN TWO!"
"The National Guard has made it onto the island. Our sources in DC are saying that the President has authorized sending Army convoys up from Staten Island," an unnamed PA from behind one of the cameras popped up to inform her.
Prisha stepped forward again with even more printed papers, this time they were maps. "I called one of our sources with the Air Force and they begrudgingly explained that the closest aircraft carrier the US has from it's fleet in the Atlantic that's even remotely close to New York right now is the USS George H.W. Bush."
Chess caught the sliding map with her polished nails and smirked at the paperwork in her hand. "The Avenger?" she recited the name from off the top of the graph.
"What's that?" Prisha asked.
"The ship's nickname. It's the Avenger," Chess reiterated. "Fitting since it doesn't look like it'll be within launching range for any of the planes onboard to even get here within the next two hours. Air Force One in DC would probably make it here quicker with reinforcements."
"Any chance they'd go DEFCON 1 on the city of Manhattan?"
The room fell silent. A suffocating kind of silence where no one could verifiably say "no" because there'd be a chance someone would correct them, and no one wanted to say "yes" under the weight of the implied disaster they'd be facing, seeing as they would be affected by that decision- if it were made.
"No," Chess finally put her foot down on the subject. "No. They would never consider doing that to us. Not here." Surely, they wouldn't nuke the biggest city in the country to stop a portal. Surely, they had other reinforcements than just a bunch of super-powered people from a secret government organization and a half-assed convoys of troops that were barely holding off the walking aliens, let alone the giant flying ones.
"LIVE IN ONE!"
"So, we're running with the President's convoy and the Enhanced Black-Ops Team. Scrapping any mention of Stark Industries until they release an official statement. Still pushing hard on the SHIELD front. Giving updated lists about evacuations and shut downs. Do we have any updates on the ferries under attack out in the bay?"
The PAs all fell into a hush, each looking among one another. No one stepped forward. There might've been no update, or they all had the update... it just wasn't a good one.
1:05 p.m.
The trail to get further into the city was proving to be difficult. Jamie had to stop more frequently as heavy gunfire erupted from all ends of the streets, the loud bangs echoing off the skyscrapers of downtown making it difficult to make out where they could've been coming from. The reporter attempted to get what shots she could on her digital camera, even daring to pull over for a moment to capture a shot from directly beneath a Leviathan as bolts of lightning struck out and a roaring monster ripped panels from the top of the armor-like texture along it's spine. She could've sworn she'd heard those roars before.
As Jamie dodged through the fiery scraps left behind from the initial wave of aliens that had swept through along Park Ave and the parallel streets, she tried her best to direct or help anyone she spotted on her route. It didn't sound as though Logan was making much headway on his trek from the Bugle Building up to where they'd planned to meet either, so the reporter took her time to ensure she wouldn't end up splattered on the pavement like many of the bodies she was having to pass on her bike.
She made sure to take back alleys and passageways between buildings that'd be difficult for flying objects to get through. She made sure to avoid the gunfire as much as possible- which was made even harder when she spotted an Army Humvee barreling down 5th with a strapped machine gun on the roof. Downtown Manhattan had become a warzone in the blink of an eye and it looked as though she were one of the few on-the-ground reporters there to cover it.
Jamie was almost heartbroken upon pedaling over to the stunning steps of the Schwartzman Building to find them littered with ash, debris, and large chunks of fallen metal from an alien craft that had crashed. The young journalist remembered taking the Metro up to the NYC Public Library on one of her first outings freshman year with her first handful of friends from orientation. It was an awkward hangout, they always were those first few weeks of school, but it was still a cherished memory of the past. A memory that would now be replaced of the Schwartzman Building in all of its pillared glory half-charred and partially destroyed on all sides as more creatures rained down from the sky above.
Clutching the bike at her side, the reporter quickly made her way into the shelter of the building. It looked like it had been cleared out fairly quickly. Most of the buildings closer to Stark Tower had thankfully been evacuated, it seemed. It gave an eerie apocalyptic feel to the city that made Jamie's skin crawl.
J: I made it
J: ETA?
A clap of thunder and a series of shots that rocked the side of the building caused the young woman to clutch her phone to her chest as she ducked beneath a nearby desk. Jamie waited anxiously for her photographer to return her message. C'mon, Logan, she silently prayed to whoever was listening as another series of shots echoed across the Library, small deposits of material from the roof beginning to trickle down with each shake.
Eventually, her phone buzzed with a response.
L: Jay...
L: the Army convoy is blocking the city off. I'm not gonna make it.
Upon reading the message, Jamie felt the air leave her chest in a swift huff of air. Suddenly, the world got smaller and the weight of the world got a whole lot heavier. Her stomach twisted- either out of fear or from the remaining effects of her hangover, Jamie wasn't sure. Without Logan, she was in this alone. Which- obviously, this wouldn't be the first time she'd run into an unknown, high-risk situation alone- but... this different.
As if on cue, the sound of a rocket launching and landing following by a series of gunshots not far from the Library popped off. The sound echoed through the empty rows of bookshelves. Jamie took a deep breath to try and steady her beating heart. It was like she could feel it in her throat, in her ears, in her forehead. C'mon, c'mon, c'mon, c'mon... Focus. Please, just, stay focused. Breathe. WWMGD? What Would Martha Gellhorn Do? C'mon- think, Archer!
BOOM! Another resounding explosion shook the Library to the point of rattling the floor.
Jamie's eyes snapped open as a new wave of resounding determination washed over her.
She wouldn't have much time, so she'd have to be quick. She'd need to get one shot- one good shot- of the portal above Stark Tower, something substantial for JJ. If she wasn't careful, Jamie would get shot on the roof of the New York City Library... so she was going to try to avoid taking a shot under enemy fire. She wondered if this was some of the stuff her Dad had to theorize about before running into war zones.
Instinctually, the redhead went to clutch for her rings and felt a painful tug at her chest when she remembered where she'd left them.
Stick to the plan, Jamie inwardly reminded herself. Whether her photographer was with her or not, she'd gotten shots before without him. This would be no different than undergrad assignments on her own... except the running through extraterrestrial enemy fire, that would be a first for her... or anyone. The plan had originally been for Jamie and Logan to meet at the Library and dash a block towards the Vanderbilt building. The higher up- the better for viewing the portal. So, leaving behind the refuge of the Schwartzman Building, Jamie tried to make herself as small as possible as she crouched and dashed through the debris field in the streets. The young woman cut across empty intersections, skipped over asphalt covered in sheets of broken glass, and ducked close towards the skyscrapers anytime she even saw a flicker of something flying above her, scared the second she dropped her guard that it'd be the last thing she ever did.
Out of breath, eventually the reporter had made it to the bank entrance leading into the Vanderbilt building. Naturally, most of the entrance had been blocked off by what looked like man-made barriers of office desks, chairs, shelves, and cabinets, so Jamie had to take the long way around through an emergency exit. She could hear voices inside upon entering through a back hallway. It made sense. Jamie figured most of the building probably evacuated to the first floor and were stuck between hunkering down or making the dash across the block towards where the 42nd and Grand Central staircase down to the subway. Having actually made it to her destination unscathed for the most part, the reporter abandoned the center of the bank where people had gathered and found her way up to the emergency stair well. But as she began to ascend, large explosions rocked the building- from the outside coming in. Jamie held onto the walls of the small stairwell as screams erupted and a large plume of dust kicked up through the door behind her, effectively cutting her off from the lobby of people she'd just passed.
Forgetting the photos, the redhead dashed back towards where the crumbled part of the building had blocked the entrance to the lobby. Inside, she could hear people screaming and the all-too sinister sounds of the crying and screeching aliens that had now made it inside. Jamie's blood was rushing and her heart dropped when she realized that they were trapped and there was no way of getting to anyone from where she was. She was useless.
Slowly, her eyes drifted back towards the emergency stairwell... She also could've sworn she'd seen that there was an upstairs balcony above the lobby of people. Surely, she'd be able to get to people through there.
Going against every anxious in her body was telling her to keep going, to forget about saving strangers and to focus on covering the news, Jamie stopped at the third floor and slowly crept in the shadows along the balcony behind pillars to find the heinous scene playing out before her. Standing along the metal railing, just a few yards away from where she stood herself, were three of the eerily looking aliens dressed in their brass metal armor holding glowing purple guns, aimed down at the crowd of dozens of civilians down below. She examined the surroundings... there weren't any visible exits from her vantage point and nothing she could grab to distract or stop them. She still had her stun gun, but she was pretty sure that was a one time, surprise attack use only. Taking on three aliens with three alien guns as a puny human with one puny human weapon... she'd be dead the second she left the safety of her exit doorway.
But just when all hope seemed lost, a bright flash of red, white, and blue struck across one of the aliens' chests, knocking him back as the other two whipped away from the crowd to face the assailant.
As Jamie stretched her neck around the wall corner to get a peek, the aliens opened fire with their weapons- bright flashes of blue blasted against the wall where a blue figure ducked behind an overturned desk unseen by the reporter who immediately whipped out her digital camera once more.
The alien gunfire stopped when a desk rammed into the extraterrestrials, pinning them against the railing. Jamie watched on in awe as Captain America- the same uniformed man she'd seen earlier, looking a bit more beat up- came bounding over the table to fight them off, punching and knocking one over the railing into the crowd below. "Everyone, clear out!" he'd shouted just before the second alien jumped to grab him from behind.
Simultaneously, Jamie watched the third alien who'd been knocked down jump back to its feet, it's arm with a built-in weapon attached raised to aim. For a moment, Jamie readied her camera to capture what she thought might be the final moments of a historic living legend she'd written about just days ago, but it didn't look like he was ready to go without a fight. Doing a flip over his captor, Captain America jumped over the alien's shoulder just as the other fired a shot into it's chest.
Dropping the corpse, the Captain revealed himself without a helmet, the blue garment having been ripped off by the alien moments before.
Jamie thought she'd been hallucinating because for a second she could've sworn that the disheveled head of blond hair with that unmistakable pair of blue eyes looked familiar...
The moment passed as quick as it came when the remaining alien dove down for a device Jamie had noted it had dropped earlier- a pulsating blue device. It was when Jamie realized that the pulsating sound she'd been hearing since the explosion had trapped the people earlier wasn't from the alien guns... it was from the device they'd set to explode. It was a bomb and these creatures were aiming for mass casualties.
"It's a bomb!" the warning shout left Jamie's mouth before she could help it. "Get down!" she cried out towards the crowd below as the Captain dove back towards the discarded shield he'd thrown earlier. As the remaining alien tossed the device at him, Jamie threw herself down in the same breath Captain America threw himself up behind the shield and took on the brunt of the bright blue blast that shook the bank to its core.
Taking a deep breath after regaining her bearings and realizing she'd survived the explosion, Jamie had to shake her head and chuckle softly. Way more effective than a stun gun. Down below, it sounded as though the Fire Department had finally gotten through the barrier as they began to evacuate the crowd out and towards Grand Central. But Jamie couldn't leave... not yet.
Taking advantage of her current adrenaline rush, Jamie pushed herself further up the emergency stairwell. Her rushing blood and anxious nerves fueled her further up to floor eight, twelve, twenty, thirty two, forty five, fifty seven, sixty, seven one, and finally up to 89 where she found a Roof Access doorway. By the time she was out into the open air of atop the New York City skyline, she had completely forgotten about how out of breath she was or how sore her calves felt. Her eyes fell on the glowing blue portal with the dark black abyss at the center, a few aliens still shooting out sporadically. It made her skin crawl as an explosion rang out in the distance.
Completely mesmerized by the site, Jamie fished out the digital camera. She'd begun taking photos of the portal when she started to pan down towards Stark Tower, smoking and half-charred from the Attack, the destruction along Park Ave beneath her and the rest of the buildings and skyscrapers along the skyline around her. Seeing the City she'd known as her home since undergrad was heartbreaking. Knowing how many people wouldn't come out of this unscathed made her physically ill as she tried to remember what she was doing up here with this frightening view.
Turning her attention back towards the Portal, Jamie nearly missed the sound of the approaching thrusters of the Iron Man suit. She'd seen it dozens of times before; in Los Angeles at the Stark Labs during Stane's attack, in action in Monaco during Vanko's attack on the raceway, zipping through the Expo during Hammer's attack in Flushing. But this time was different, even Jamie could feel it as she noted the added white rocket the Hotrod red and gold suit looked to be carrying as he drifted up along Stark Tower towards the Portal until... he vanished inside.
Jamie lowered her camera and watched on with her own two eyes. What was Stark doing?
She didn't have much time to ponder the question when an explosion hitting the Vanderbilt building a few floors beneath her caused her to jump in fright. Almost as if on cue, one of the aliens from a flying chariot landed a few yards atop the roof across from her. She froze. Shit. When the growling creature raised it's weapon, the only option she had was to throw herself down to the floor behind a nearby air duct. But as pain sprouted against the side of her body that hit the hard floor, an even sharper pain lit her exposed side up with a searing pain unlike anything she'd ever felt before. Crying out in pain on her stomach, Jamie realized that she'd been hit.
"Mmm," the young woman whimpered as she crawled the rest of the way behind the duct for cover. This is where I die, this is where I die... The horrifying sentiment repeated in Jamie's head as she tried to think of a way out of this and only continued with the even more daunting realization that there wasn't one. This was it. Jamie Elizabeth Archer was going to be shot and killed by an alien on the Vanderbilt Skyscraper rooftop. It was a truth, and a death, she was ready to accept.
Thunk!
The loud crash came from behind her. Could it have been... Allowing curiosity to get the better of her, Jamie threw caution to the wind and actually peered around the edge of the duct. When she didn't immediately see her alien attacker, she thought maybe it miraculously decided to simply leave her be. The young woman blanched when she caught sight of the limp alien body a few yards away and put it together that it really had miraculously dropped dead instead. Which meant...
Jamie's eyes shot back towards the closing portal. Padding around her, the reporter managed to yank up her nearby camera- blood splattered across the lens she quickly had to swipe away with the non-bloody part of her shirt- before aligning it with her eye to capture the shot of an unconscious Iron Man suit falling limply from the now sealed wormhole in the sky.
It was as if the weight of the world had fallen off of her shoulders. With that photo, Jamie knew she'd have a story for JJ and pictures for Logan. Only, what she'd be able to do with this dead, she wasn't quite sure.
1:30 p.m.
The WHiH Newsroom erupted into cheers, shouts, and cries of relief as everyone inside watched the live footage of Tony Stark's Iron Man flying through the wormhole with a Nuke on his back and falling out of it after it closed.
They'd done it. This rag-tag team of Enhanced Individuals sent in by this mysterious organization had saved New York City, and quite possibly the world, from an alien invasion. No one was sure if they could do it, but they had. It was surreal to think that super-powered heroes that shot lightning from metal hammers, turned into big green monsters, and flew nukes into wormholes had existed on this planet before this enormous Battle. But it was still slightly outweighed by the far more surrealistic reality that a wormhole had opened up as an army of flying aliens tried to destroy the city.
Still seated in her anchor chair as the rest of her staff all but threw a mini-celebration party in the nearby office space, Chess Roberts was trying her best to hold back the anxiety-induced vomit she knew was bound to come up sooner or later. Prisha had gotten her some V8 juice to help nurse the leftover effects of her hangover and it turned out that crackers really did help with the nausea.
Eventually, she was joined in the empty studio by her Executive Producer. "What a fucking world we live in," Clay let out an overdramatic sigh as he approached, his headset haphazardly hanging off his ears and around his neck. They were completely alone in here besides the off-air cameras. Even the cameramen and PAs had all run off to rejoice with one another in the office. Neither Anchorwoman or EP blamed them.
"Aliens and superheroes," Chess nodded idly, her hands clasped atop the desk. "We're never going to go back to regular news again, are we?"
Clay winced. Slowly, he made it to the desk and sat on the counter beside her. "The world's never going to be the same again."
She threw back a swig of her tomato juice, wishing it were actually tequila this time. "I need a drink," Chess stated. "And a time share somewhere far away for, like, a week... maybe two." After today, she deserved it. Everyone in that newsroom deserved it after the workload they'd be taking on for the nightly news run that was still supposed to be up in half an hour. But for now... they'd just revel in this victory.
Clay crossed his arms and shrugged. "Hawaii's nice this time of year. Not burning down or full of alien corpses in the streets."
"It's bad out there." It wasn't a question. Chess saw the footage, she didn't need to be told it was bad. But it was her job to find out just how bad it was.
A grim look passed over Clay's face. Even in the dark studio, it was easy to see the darkness in his eyes. "They're saying the casualties are in the three hundreds, including civilians, soldiers, and law enforcement. Injuries probably thousands..."
"We survived," the anchorwoman supplied with a faint ghost of a grin across her face. "Isn't that worth something?"
Clay stayed shaking his head. "It'll cost billions to rebuild alone..." he sounded defeated already.
Chess, however, felt a spark light to life in her chest as she twisted in her spinning chair. "Well then," she boasted as she pushed herself from her seat, brushing aside the momentary vertigo. "What are we waiting for?" She beamed in the face of her confuddled Executive Producer. Chess merely threw her hands up as she made her way towards the office doors to go rally her team back up for Round 2. "Faith can only go so far. We've gotta put in some work along the way, too, y'know?"
1:45 p.m.
As if it were an afterthought to her bleeding out on the roof, Jamie fished out her cell phone as she felt her body begin to shut down and her consciousness start to drift in and out.
J: Vanderbilt - floor 89
J: take the camera
J: around Saturns rings
As the last message sent out to Logan, the cell phone slowly slid out of Jamie's palm onto the roof floor.
Sitting up against the air duct, Jamie had the perfect view of the New York City skyline. Billows of smoke coming out from various points and the tell-tale sound of passing cop cars now became the background to the end of her life. Fitting. One last time, her hand came up to rest against her collarbone where her rings should've been.
Shame... a whisper that sounded like a remnant of her past echoed in the back of her mind as the brightness of the sun faded out entirely, The last thing you'll ever feel in your life will be disappointment. It isn't something you can grow out of after all. Huh...
"This phantom life sharpens like an image,
But it sharpens like a knife."
- Who We Are by Hozier
a/n: SHE'S DEAD! just kidding, lol.
please give me feedback. I live for it.
