Chapter 6- Fast Food Delivery

Falcon -

Sam breathed a sigh of relief as the quinjet landed on Avengers Tower. It had been an exciting day and they weren't even lldone yet. Apparently there were two more misplaced heroes to track down.

The last two members of the Justice League sounded a little harder to pin down then the rest. Sam wasn't even sure he believed Batman when he described J'onn J'onzz's abilities. Honestly the idea of a telepathic Skrull gave him the willies. And the Flash? Well, it's hard to pin down someone who could be across the globe before they could ping his location.

Everyone filed out of the jet, and just milled about for a minute. Last to leave the jet, Tony and Batman had their heads together, discussing a plan that didn't involve flying all over the world searching for a red streak or a shapeshifter. Batman had mentioned that all of the Justice League heroes should still have their communicators, so if they could pick up their frequency with a Stark satellite, maybe they could just tell the last two to come to New York. Sam offered to help, but Tony waved him off.

"We got this Sam. It'll only take a minute to lock on the signal," he said with a glare at the Batman. "I don't even need his help, but I guess he doesn't trust me."

"Don't feel bad," Superman said with a smile, looking up from his conversation with the guy with the glowing ring. "He doesn't trust anyone."

Batman didn't respond, instead striding away, leaving Tony to hurry to catch up before the man disappeared.

Steve Rogers looked around, considering the heroes milling around. "Why don't we give our guests a tour of the Tower? I'm afraid they might be here for a while."

Wonderwoman matched his smile. "That sounds fascinating," she said warmly. "We could all use some freshening up as well, if it's not too much trouble."

Steve smiled warmly at the Amazon. "Of course." He turned to Sam, "Falcon, would you mind rustling up dinner for all of us? I don't think any of us want to cook tonight."

"Of course, cap!" Sam agreed quickly. He turned to consider his teammates, knowing he would need help when the food arrived, but only Thor and Hulk were left. Hawkeye and Black Widow had apparently pulled a disappearing act.

Steve followed his gaze and chuckled. "They must have gone to give Fury their report. Why don't you take Hulk and Thor to help you bring everything up?"

Sam shot Steve a look of disbelief with a little bit of pleading. "Really?" His voice might have squeaked a little bit, but he would deny it.

Steve shrugged but didn't say anything else as he led the Justice League to the elevator. He didn't even have the grace to look apologetic. Superman nodded in thanks as he followed Cap, and Diana smiled in sympathy, but the other two didn't say anything as they moved with purpose after the rest. They hadn't said much on the flight, so Sam hadn't gotten to know them yet. The hawk-woman, in particular, seemed pretty intimidating.

"Fiiiine," Sam groaned. "Come on, guys. You can help carry everything inside after I call for take out."

Thor and Hulk exchanged looks. Finally Hulk nodded. "Okay, but you have to get me extra egg rolls from the place I like, not the one Stark usually orders from."

"I want the sticks of bread and cheese," Thor announced. It took a second for Sam to figure out he meant cheesy bread sticks, which he could order from Clint's favorite pizza place. Sam could order pasta from there too, so it was a good choice for a lot of filling food.

"Done and done," Sam agreed as he led the way to the kitchen where they kept all the takeout menus.

The amount of food needed to satisfy the Avengers on a normal day was impressive, but with a whole new team of superheroes, they needed an insane amount of food. To keep from over-taxing any one restaurant, Sam ordered from six, but since they couldn't just let the delivery people inside, he left instructions for the delivery people to just leave the food with him at the front door. With the promises of extra egg rolls, he convinced the two heavy hitters on the team to wait with him downstairs.

Luckily, partially due to Tony's habit of generous tipping, they didn't have to wait long. Sam breathed a sigh of relief when the first delivery girl arrived after only 20 minutes, because it kept Hulk and Thor from starting a new contest of strength. Sara, a 17 year old with bright pink hair, had been there many times before, but she still couldn't take her eyes off Thor as she dropped off several heavy bags of Chinese food. After her came Kevin, a 30 something guy whose only aspiration was to be a professional gamer and delivered for several restaurants to make ends meet. Sam liked him but tried to cut any conversation short because he could and would go on forever about the latest games and after he spoiled one for Hulk, he wasn't as welcome as he used to be. No one spoils an ending for the Hulk. Thankfully two other delivery people came while Kevin was still unloading and everything else arrived in a rush of activity and delicious smells.

The three Avengers considered the mountain of take out containers, bags, and pizza boxes. Even considering that weight wasn't really an issue, the logistics of carrying it all was intimidating. I'm

"Maybe we should call for the others?" Sam said with concern. He had to admit to himself that maybe he hadn't thought this through.

Hulk snorted. "Don't need help."

"Nay, we can overcome this challenge," Thor said confidently. "We will not be bested by take-out!"

Visions of dropped Chinese, Greek, Italian and three other nationalities (Sam kinda forgot what all he ordered) flashed before his eyes as Hulk started to pick up some of the bags. "Wait, no, let's talk about this," Falcon urged.

Hulk actually rolled his eyes. He started hanging the bags off his massive fingers before stacking the pizza boxes and some of the tin food containers as high as he could. For a giant green rage monster, he was surprisingly juvenile sometimes and Thor was only encouraging him. The problem happened when Thor stopped paying attention to Hulk's antics to create his own stack of takeout. The god got distracted when he started to dig into one bag to check for something, so he didn't move out of the way of his teammate and they knocked shoulders. Any other time, this would have resulted in a good natured fight or even just been ignored, but this time it jostled Hulk just enough for him to lose control of his armload of food. Falcon reached out in vain to stop the massacre, but he knew there was nothing he could do except see his fears come to life. The falling food was bad enough, but he knew Steve would be disappointed. He couldn't take Captain America being disappointed in him.

Suddenly there was a red blur and a whoosh of wind that knocked Sam on his butt. It was like a red tornado spun around the three surprised heroes. Sam blinked, only closing his eyes for a second to protect them from the wind. When he opened the again he saw all of the food was once again stacked neatly on the ground. Sam rubbed his eyes in disbelief and turned to look at his teammates who were equally astounded.

"Oh thank goodness," Sam breathed as he took a mental inventory of the food. It was all safe, well most of it.

A man in a red suit with a lighting bolt on his chest and a mask with more lighting bolts over his ears was eating a container of beef and broccoli almost quicker than the eye could follow.

"Sorry, hope you don't mind me helping myself, fast metabolism, you know," the stranger said through a mouthful. "You're the local heroes, right? Don't suppose you've seen any of my friends? Big guy in a red cape, creepy guy in a batsuit, hot chick with wings and a temper? Anybody?"

The man was talking so fast, and with his mouth full, making it hard to understand him, but Sam finally spoke up to halt the flow of words. "You're the Flash, I take it? Yeah, your friends are upstairs trying to figure out how to find you."

"Stop eating our food," Hulk demanded, making a swipe for the Chinese food container.

Flash darted out of reach before finishing the last bite and tossing the empty container into a nearby trash can. He missed so he dashed to throw it away properly before returning to stand in front of them, moving in just a blink of an eye. "Littering is a crime," he said seriously.

"I like you, little man. I am Thor, the Thunderer," Thor announced, because of course he did. He probably liked the guy just because of the lightning bolts. "Let us bring our burdens upstairs so we may feast and share tales of our epic battles. I'm sure the League of Justice has as many to share as the Avengers."

The speedster grinned and moved to help carry the takeout inside a little more carefully this time. "Oh man, do we ever! Anybody mention the time we fought the Greek god of the underworld? See, Hades had a thing for Diana's mom…"