A Taste of Vengeance

If I ever was grateful for one thing, it was for my super strength. Super strength did a lot of things for me, besides being able to beat people up, for move really heavy things. One of those extra things, was to withstand a hit that would have shattered every bone in my body if I had not been super, because when Tony snatched me out of the sky, I was sure he had forgotten his suit was made of iron, not quilted northern.

The hit was jarring and I only just heard him apologize as we gained altitude, my mind whirling. My body hurt as we stopped, and I turned to see Loki glaring at us, ready to shoot us with his Gandalf staff of power, but Tony blasted him backwards with his thruster.

Light caught my eye and I glanced upwards, seeing the white beam of the tesseract shooting up into the sky, breaking it apart like tissue paper. The sky began to transform then, going black and opening, as if someone were peeling away the edges. Stars aligned the small, clear piece of sky and I suddenly realized as creatures flew in that this was a portal, and this was the army Loki had been talking about.

“Right,” Tony mumbled. “Army.”

“Tony, throw me onto the balcony,” I demanded, looking as Loki began to get up inside the building.

“What? No, you’re not taking him on alone.”

“Tony.” My voice was stern. “Do it.”

He hesitated before yelling, “God dammit, kid,” and throwing me towards his balcony.

I hit the concrete with a grunt but rolled to my feet. The screams from the people below were carried on the wind to my sharp ears. Loki watched as I approached and barred his teeth, sending a blast of magical voodoo power from his stick, which I blocked easily with a thrust of my palm. I was pissed off, and I was ready for this.

Loki tried the blast again with the same result. He couldn’t blast me out into the sky as long as I had my telekinesis, but I knew I couldn’t shoot him with my gun as long as he was a god. The bullets would bounce off of him just like they would bounce off of me. We would have to do this old school.

“Let’s say you and I go a couple rounds?” I asked, removing my guns from my belt and tossing them to the floor. They clattered loudly and I raised my hands, showing they were empty. “Let’s see how powerful you are without all the little tricks and gadgets.”

“Why should I?” he asked, not taking the bait.

“What?” I leered at him. “Afraid to get beat by an inferior mortal? You could never beat your brother, after all.” My jibe was met with the satisfying sound of the scepter being tossed on the ground. I silently fist pumped that I had guessed right; Loki didn’t think I was a big enough threat to worry about the scepter being on the ground. Now I was hoping I wasn’t wrong.

I charged first but when I ran into him, he wasn’t there. I growled as I was strong from behind. So he was going to use doppelgangers, that little bitch. I felt him grab my ponytail but I twisted under it, bring it to the front as I thrust my palm up, hitting him in the chest with the force of Thor’s hammer. He was knocked back several feet and I ran at him as he stood.

Loki twisted away from me, thrusting his elbow backwards and driving it into my back with a cracking force, making me grunt as I stuck my left arm out backwards, snatching the back of his hair and throwing him to the ground to the left of me. he had my arm in his grip, though and pulled me down with him, rolling over on top of me.

For a split second I worried he had me, but I threw my head forward, hitting him with a telekinetic head but, causing him to fall back as I punched him square in the jaw. He caught my arm before I could pull it back, though and pulled it as if to turn me over, but I rolled my body with the pull, gaining the upper ground as I kneed him in the ribs. I suspected I would land on top but he threw me harder than I would have imagined, landing me on the tile floor several yards away with the wind knocked out of me.

“Holy shit,” I grumbled, getting up.

For a few moments I thought I was dizzy, because I watched as several different Loki’s approached me, cackling at me. I shook my head and realized that I wasn’t dizzy, there really were more than one of him coming at me, ready to attack. I frowned, knowing this wasn’t fair play so I decided that if he was going to cheat, so was I.

I threw a tiny explosive on the floor, so small that he clearly had no idea what it was, all of his clones leaning to look at it. I rolled behind the couch and plugged my ears as it exploded, causing the floor to rumble and for me to shift forward from it’s power.

I quickly jumped up to find a single Loki on the ground, blackened and very unhappy about the explosive. He began to stand but I loomed over him, pressing my foot in the middle of his chest and shoving him back down roughly, his head hitting the concrete.

“That was for Phil, bitch.” I kicked him in the jaw then, pissed when I didn’t hear the desired crack, but knew it would suffice when he looked somewhat pained.

“And that?” he asked, voice rugged.

“For good measure.”

Loki thrust his hand out and his scepter came to him immediately. I ran from him then, knowing this fight was over, now that he was pissed and knew that we couldn’t beat one another on our own. I snatched my guns with my mind and placed them in their rightful spots.

“Hey Thor!” I yelled, knowing he was about to land. I ran right at the edge of the building. “Do me a favor and catch me!” I shouted the last part as I jumped off of the building.

For a few split seconds, I thought maybe Point Break didn’t here me, or maybe I had just shouted it to late. But when my hope had almost diminished, and the fear of falling and splattering into the concrete almost set in, Thor caught me, much more lightly than Tony had, as well. I felt the laughter in his chest as we plummeted toward the ground so quickly that I closed my eyes, heart pounding in my chest.

But Thor simply set me on the ground daintily, as if I were some delicate and rare flower. I thanked him with a thumbs up and a nod before he flew upwards, going to face his brother one on one. I hoped that maybe I had roughed up Loki a bit and cause him to be off his game. I also knew that I could have pissed Loki off and made it worse for Thor.

I began yelling at civilians to get out of the way and get under cover. I had no idea where Barton, Romanoff and Rogers were, but they were a bit behind the plan here. I turned as a woman screamed and pointed up into the sky, pointing my gun but lowering as I watched the jet my companions were in lose control as Barton attempted to land it with no wings and without killing him.

I dove out of the way as the aircraft hit the ground, uprooting concrete and hitting several cars. I ran around to the back where Steve came out, shield hosted and both assassins behind him. Steve smiled at me, running up to me and kissing me briefly.

“Are you drunk or do you normally drive that bad?” I asked Barton as we beginning running through the throng of people, knowing we had to get back up to Stark Tower.

“Shut up, Bane… what the hell?”

All four of us stopped dead in our tracks, looking up to the sky where the portal was open. A huge metal ship came into few, opening it’s maw and letting out a roar that shook the city, causing us to wobble in it’s terror. It was like a giant, plated, flying, Liopleurodon, and it sound extremely pissed off and extremely dangerous. Any hope I had stored in my soul vanished at the sight of the beast, and I looked at the others, wondering how on earth we were supposed to defeat that thing.

“Flying Godzilla,” I commented, nodding my head. “Logical.”