#originally this was gonna be like. four gifs. and then it turned into this monstrosity.

[necroticboop]

GARGOYLES : 2 / ∞ ↳ David Xanatos & Fox's relationship

[essiefreds]

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8, Part 9, Part 10, Part 11, Part 12, Part 13, Part 14, Part 15, Part 16, Part 17, Part 18,  Part 19, Part 20, Part 21, Part 22

I felt really bad about cutting Thor out of that second GIF. 

Word Count: 2244

Tagged:  @hotemotionalmess, @justtolkienabout, @uservalkyrie, @writing-for-a-chance, @hufflepeople, @alexfayer, @guaibi

You frowned as you peered through one of the glass doors that led into Stark Tower after testing it, and finding it locked. The main lobby appeared to be empty, from what you could see through the icy-tinted glass.

“Uh, it doesn’t look like there’s anybody here,” you said into your phone, which you had pressed to your ear. Director Fury had called you, asking you to head to the tower and see what was going on there. You hadn’t asked why, merely followed orders, but now, seeing that it was empty, you had to wonder what was going on.

“Boss? What’s happening?”

“You should probably get away from the tower, Y/LN,” Fury said, rather than answer your question.

You started to ask why, but before you could, a boom echoed off of the buildings that surrounded you. You snapped your mouth shut, and moved away from the building. Your eyes widened.

“What am I looking at, Director?” you demanded, standing a the bottom of Stark Tower and gazing up. A beam of light was shooting into the sky, seeming to penetrate the blue. As you watched, the beam did tear a hole into the sky, a vortex forming where it was aimed. Almost at once, disgusting, beetle-looking things started to pour from the hole. Your eyes widened.

“That, Agent, is your alien invasion,” Director Fury replied from the other end of the phone call.

“Well, uh, what the fuck are we going to do about them?” you exclaimed, running for cover as the aliens swooped towards the street. There seemed to be a never ending stream of them. If Loki had wanted an army, he’d gotten one.

“Don’t worry,” Fury said, “Earth’s mightiest heroes are on the job.”

Before you could ask further questions, the call ended, leaving you to stand against the outer wall of Stark Tower, watching as the aliens descended onto New York City. Nearby, a car burst into flames as one of the aliens blasted it with some kind of energy ray.

You did your best not to scream, but it was difficult, when the dozens of people around you already were. Police cars were already roaring into place at intersections, to try and stop the aliens from moving further into Manhattan. Officers climbed from the vehicles, holding guns. You watched as one of the ships blew apart one of the cars, taking the two officers that had climbed out of it with it, and winced.

“This is super not good,” you mumbled under you breath, looking around, trying to figure out what there was for you to do.

Before you could make a decision, there was a thunderous boom from the top of Stark Tower, shaking the entirety of the building. Reflexively, you stepped away from it, and into the direct line of fire of one of the alien ships.

“Fuck,” you said, and dove sideways, out of the way of the energy wave that exploded the ground where you’d stood only moments before.

Gritty asphalt dug into your elbows as you pushed yourself up on them, blinking at the alien ship as it swooped on down the street. Your ears were ringing, and you shook your head, doing you best to gather your senses again. You needed to get the hell out of the street.

You started to stumble to a standing position, and as you gained your feet, they left the ground. Wind roared past your ears as you were, quite literally, flown down the street, and shoved down an alley.

“What the hell -?” You spun around, only to catch sight of a red streak exiting the alley in the opposite direction. You frowned to yourself, but only for a moment, because the dots connected in your head quick enough for you to decipher that that had probably been Iron Man.

I won’t be hearing the end of that, ever, you thought to yourself, and you hurried back to the end of the alley, to poke your head out onto the street again.

Havoc and chaos reigned. People ran, screeching, in all directions, like rats. Alien ships coasted around in the sky, destroying everything in sight. Glass on buildings shattered, cars leapt into the air and slammed back down on the street. Large pieces of rubble hit the ground, people narrowly avoiding them.

And a quinjet streaked through the sky, headed straight for the street.

You dove back into the alley, and covered your ears as the quinjet made impact with the ground, squeezing your eyes shut. When you opened them again, you were able to confirm that the jet was indeed one of SHIELD’s, and you hurried out of the alley towards it. The ramp opened.

“Rogers!”

Steve looked startled by the call of his name, and even more startled to see you running towards him. He was dressed in full-on Captain America get-up. If the situation hadn’t been so dire, you would’ve laughed at him. You didn’t however, because there was no time for laughter. Aliens were attacking Manhattan.

Most importantly, however, he held a shield in one of his hands. You’d heard legends about Captain America’s shield, and you decided that you would not be leaving the area in which you could see the shield, because you had sudden faith that it would be the only thing protecting your ass from said aliens.

“When we joked about an alien invasion, it was supposed to stay a joke!” you yelled at him, stopping at the bottom of the ramp as he was flanked by two of SHIELD’s agents, Natasha Romanoff and Clint Barton. Both looked ready for a fight.

“Chitauri,” Steve said, and you blinked at him. “That’s what the aliens are called.”

“Who cares?” you shouted, and he nodded in agreement.

“Yeah, let’s… c’mon.”

The four of you raced down the street to an intersection, and came to a stop as a sound exploded from overhead. All four of your gazes turned upwards, and you felt the color drain from your face as a monstrosity of all proportions pushed its way out of the tear that had been ripped into the sky.

“What the fuck is that?”

Nothing good,” Barton answered, pulling an arrow out of the quiver on his back.

The giant alien thing moved slowly across the sky, passing over your heads. Aliens, Chitauri leapt off the sides of it, onto the buildings it passed. The Chitauri slid down the buildings, leveling the guns that they wielded on nearby objects that were not of alien origin, and started firing.

“Stark, are you seeing this?” Steve asked, touching a device that he had in his ear.

“I’m seeing, still working on believing,” came Stark’s voice from the device. “Where’s Banner? Has he shown up yet?”

“Banner?” Steve asked, frowning at the rest of you.

“Just keep me posted,” Stark responded.

Steve lowered his hand, and gestured. “Let’s follow it,” he said, and then he took off at a sprint further down the street, Romanoff and Barton following close behind him. You had no choice but to follow, even though everything inside of you was telling you to run away from the giant alien thing.

You supposed you weren’t one of Earth’s mightiest heroes for that exact reason, however.

Steve led the three of you to a pair of overturned taxis, and helped you around to the opposite side of them. From this vantage, you had a nice view of the aliens destroying things further down the street, with a man at the head of them that you assumed was Loki.

A person was hurled through the air, and hit the ground hard near where the taxis were. You winced.

“Those people need assistance,” Steve said.

“We got this,” Romanoff said, pulling out two guns and firing away at the aliens closest to where you were. “Go!”

“You think you can hold them off?” Steve asked Barton.

“Captain,” Barton replied, readying one of his arrows, “it would be my genuine pleasure.” He fired the arrow, and it landed neatly in one of the alien’s heads.

Steve turned to you, and you frowned at the expression on his face. “You’re going to leave me here, aren’t you?”

“I have to help those people,” he responded, and he placed a hand on your cheek, meeting your eyes. “You said you can fight.”

“Yes,” you replied automatically.

“Good, because you’re going to need to.”

Almost at once, a gun was thrust in your direction by Romanoff, who was still shooting at the Chitauri using her other hand. You took the weapon, eyeing it, and then you returned your attention to Steve. He was watching you, concern in his eyes.

“It’s gonna be fine,” you decided for him, and you forced a smile. “Yeah?”

“Yeah,” he agreed, and then, because you didn’t have time for much else, he placed a kiss on your forehead. Then he was out of sight, leaving you to turn around to face the aliens that were attacking your city. Your city.

“Bastards,”  you cursed under your breath, and leveled the gun you’d been given at one of the Chitauri. It had been a second since you’d actually fired a weapon, but all of the training that you’d gone through both as your father’s daughter, and as an initiate to SHIELD came pouring back into you. When you pulled the trigger, it was with absolute certainty that you would hit your target.

And you did. The Chitauri blasted apart, and you grinned to yourself. Yeah, you could fight. You could fight well.

Eventually, you reconnaissanced with other members of the team back in a more central part of Manhattan. Steve looked a little worse for wear, but the man who arrived by spinning hammer looked immaculate. You would find out that his name was Thor, and later you’d learn that he was Loki’s demi-god brother, but for now, you had other business.

“What’s the story upstairs?” Steve asked, gazing upwards as he directed the question at Thor.

“The powers surrounding the cube are impenetrable,” he replied, and your eyes widened at the sound of his voice. Thankfully, Steve didn’t notice.

“Thor’s right,” Stark said, his voice coming from the earpieces that Steve, Barton, and Romanoff were wearing. “We gotta deal with these guys.”

“How do we do this?” Romanoff asked, looking at the rest of you.

“As a team,” Steve answered. You glanced at him, not at all surprised to see how easily he had settled into the role of, well, captain. It was kind of a turn on, actually.

No, no, focus, you thought to yourself, shaking your head. Honestly Y/N.

When you’d returned to the present, it was in time to notice a new arrival. Dr. Bruce Banner, whom you recognized from a file that you’d read about the Avengers Initiative, rode in on a motorbike. He hopped off of it a few steps away from your group, glancing around at the destruction that had been, and was currently being, caused.

“Well, this all seems horrible,” he commented idly, joining you.

“I’ve seen worse,” Romanoff commented.

“Sorry,” he apologized, but she shook her head.

“No, we could use a little worse.”

“Stark, we got him,” Steve said into his earpiece.

“Then tell him to suit up. I’m bringing the party to you.”

Without really thinking about it, you sidled closer to Steve, even as Banner walked away from where you all were standing. Gazes lifted skyward, as Iron Man zoomed around a building, the big ugly following behind him.

The big ugly barreled down the street towards where all of you were standing. You reached over and grabbed Steve’s arm, holding the gun tightly in your other hand. Banner started to move down the street towards the monster, even as it continued to race forward.

“Dr. Banner, now might be a really good time for you to get angry,” Steve said, readying his shield. He held it out in front of the both of you.

“That’s my secret, Captain,” Banner responded. “I’m always angry.”

And so the fight went on.

This time, you did not leave Steve’s side, if you could avoid it. You continued to fire your gun, but all weapons run out of ammunition at some point. Steve used his shield in a variety of ways, both offensive and defensive. You were almost positive some of the things he did with the thing should not have been possible, not that you were complaining, because at the end of it all, you were still breathing.

You were a little beat up, though, you weren’t gonna lie. Chitauri energy blasts sucked, and were very powerful. One had managed to singe your shoulder.

“Ouch, shit,” you cursed, immediately reaching up to grab your shoulder as Steve threw his shield at the Chitauri that had hit you. It flew to him, like a boomerang, and he turned towards you, looking worried.

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah, fine, just… a burn.” You touched the wound, which was already an ugly black color, and hissed. “Uh… probably gonna need to get it checked out, though.”

Your vision blurred as pain receptors all over your body went into shock as a delayed reaction to the injury on your shoulder. You shouldn’t have touched it, you realized, as your eyes rolled backwards into your head. You didn’t know it, but you fainted, and Steve almost didn’t catch you before you hit the ground.

But he did.