Avengers fic - Another Day Like Today - Chapter 4
Title: Another Day Like Today
Fandom(s): Avengers MCU, Doctor Who
Characters: Steve Rogers, Tony Stark, The Eleventh Doctor, Natasha Romanov, Clint Barton (more to come)
Pairings: None; Steve & Tony friendship
Rating: Teen
Warnings: Canon-appropriate violence, very mild angst in later chapters
Spoilers: Any and all MCU movies through The Avengers (2012) are fair game, as is anything through Series 6 of NuWho (though there isn't much spoilery of the latter)
Chapters: 4 of 9
Series: Part One of Only Time
Word Count: 1516
Summary: Cap, Hawkeye, and the Black Widow battle the alien attackers in the subway, and the Doctor recalls important information about the creatures.
Beta: cygna_hime -- Thank you! <3
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Steve waited until he was sure that Iron Man was clear of the platform before stepping to one side, behind a support column, and lowering his shield. The beam of energy he had been reflecting off the vibranium surface shot past him, striking the concrete floor for a handful of seconds before the alien - And when did 'aliens' become normal? Steve wondered; Is this gonna be an everyday thing now? - disengaged the weapon. The fluorescent lights embedded in the ceiling flickered a few times as they came back on.
"Looks like their weapons can disrupt electricity," he shouted to his team. It probably wouldn't matter much to Hawkeye, but he remembered that the Black Widow had some gear that might be affected.
"No, that's not quite right," came the Doctor's voice from a few yards behind him. Steve spared a glance over his shoulder, and spotted the smaller man ducked behind a garbage can, fiddling with some sort of device.
"You know these things, Doctor?" he called.
"Well, no," the Doctor began, "I mean yes, but - well listen, when you've been traveling the universe for over a thousand years, see if you remember every encounter with an alien race in perfect detail!"
"Anything you can tell us would be great," Steve prompted, rising from his half-crouch to throw his shield. He took the legs out from under one of the aliens assuming a bipedal posture, before it could leap at Black Widow. She spun around, landing in a crouch beside its head, and drove her knuckles into its throat with a wet crunch. The shield skittered along the concrete, collided with another support pillar, and was kicked up into the air. Steve caught it neatly as it flew past his head.
Two more aliens were converging on the Widow's position. They seemed to be focusing their efforts on her, though whether as the greatest threat or the most exposed target, Steve wasn't sure. She was holding her own out there, but most of her best moves were intended for opponents with only two arms and two legs. He glanced at his teammate's face; she swept her gaze over one of the aliens, planning in the space of a heartbeat how she would take the enemy down. The other alien was behind her, and Steve didn't have a clear shot from his position. He glanced up at the ceiling, estimated angles, and threw.
The shield spun edge-on into the ceiling, shattering one of the glowing fluorescent tubes overhead as it ricocheted and hurtled into the skull of the alien advancing on Black Widow. The alien dropped like a marionette with its strings cut, and the shield clattered away across the concrete.
"Go easy on the lights!" The sound of Hawkeye's voice, just loud enough to carry across the platform, distracted Steve from seeing the Widow dispatch her other assailant. "Trying to line up a shot really sucks when your team thinks the fight needs mood lighting."
The Doctor bolted to his feet - only to duck back down, narrowly avoiding a blast from one of the alien weapons. "That's it! Sucking!" he exclaimed. "You! You're brilliant - whoever you are; I don't think we've been formally introduced."
"You have something, Doctor?" Steve struggled to drag him back on task.
"Their weapons," the Doctor explained, "they don't disrupt energy, they absorb it. They're collection devices. The Ketaros use them to-"
Steve held up a hand to forestall the lengthy explanation he sensed coming. "Save the details for the debrief. What do I need to know now? Can those things hurt us?"
"They can't absorb energy from most forms of biological life," the Doctor replied. "Electromagnetic, some chemical, some radiation, but their energy collectors aren't optimized for living beings. Might feel a bit funny, but-"
"Good," Steve said, and darted out from cover toward his shield. It had landed facedown; he didn't even have to pause, snatching it up as he ran by. He kept his momentum up, barreling into one of the aliens that still had its gun. It fired a shot at him before he connected; the energy splashed over him, and a sensation like intense static cling crackled over the skin of his entire body, pulling at him. But otherwise, nothing happened. He collided with the alien, shield-first. It was like body-checking a horse, but he managed to knock it off-balance, and they went down in a tangle of limbs.
The alien held onto its weapon, holding it across its body with its upper set of arms to block Steve's blows. The lower arms began trying to pummel Steve's body around his shield. He got his knees under him, straddling the alien's abdomen, and aimed a couple of punches at its head. It brought the rifle up to intercept, and his fist grazed harmlessly off the metal.
He rose up on his knees, and then dropped back down hard, landing right where his opponent's solar plexus would be, if it were human. Apparently its anatomy was at least vaguely comparable, because the alien exhaled loudly into its breathing mask and its arms went limp for a moment. Steve took that opening, yanking away the gun and landing a quick series of punches to the alien's face and chest. He ended by slamming its head into the concrete floor beneath them until its muscles slackened and its eyes rolled back.
"Psst!" He glanced up; the Doctor had sneaked closer during the scuffle, and was hiding behind another support column. He waved for Steve to join him.
He rolled off the unconscious alien and was crouched by the Doctor's side a moment later. "You have something?"
The Doctor nodded; he was fussing with an odd device about the size of a cigar. "I think I've found the right setting to disrupt their energy collectors. If I can shut down their weapons, perhaps we can convince them to surrender."
Steve glanced over the top edge of his shield at the remaining aliens. The one whose gun had been blasted away by Iron Man had closed in on the Black Widow, while the others seemed to be searching the area, firing their weapons into walls, ceilings, and pretty much anything else on the platform. "These guys don't seem like the surrendering type," he observed, "and I doubt they speak English. But give it a try; it might at least prevent some property damage."
"Actually, the TARDIS telepathically translates any spoken language for me, so I'm not actually speaking-" The Doctor looked up at Steve. "You know what, why don't we just go ahead and save that bit of explanation for a better time, shall we? Let's try this." He stepped out from behind the column and leveled the device at one of the aliens. The tip glowed green, and the device let out a high-pitched whirring sound. The flashy high-tech visuals Steve had been expecting didn't happen, but the alien's weapon went dead in its hands. It growled down at the gun, trying to fire it a few times, with no effect.
Its still-armed compatriot leveled its weapon at the Doctor and fired. The green light at the end of his little device winked out as the Doctor was knocked off his feet by the blast of hungry energy. Then the alien whose gun had been disabled cast it aside with a clatter and advanced on him, clenching its four fists.
An arrow shaft sprouted from its breathing mask. The alien went down heavily, clutching at its face with its upper hands for a few moments, before it went still. The Doctor scuttled back behind the safety of the support pillar, where he began tinkering with his inert device. "Well that was a splendid idea while it lasted," he declared, smacking the side of the device with the heel of his hand.
With the civilian back behind cover (because no matter how many centuries' experience with time travel and aliens the man claimed to have, the Doctor was a civilian in Steve's mind), Steve shifted his attention back to the fight. Two of the aliens were still standing - no, make that one; the Black Widow had somersaulted over her opponent's head to land seated on its shoulders, her thighs around its head. She wrenched her hips around, and there was an audible pop as something important in the alien's neck gave out.
The last alien found itself on the wrong end of Steve's shield. It brought its weapon up to protect its head from the whirling disk, but the force of the impact knocked the rifle from its grasp. It wasn't ready for the overhead blow from a metal trash can that followed immediately after, and it toppled amid a rain of crumpled newspaper and fast food wrappers.
Steve set the heavily-dented garbage can back beside the pillar where he'd found it. "A SHIELD team should be here soon to clean up," he observed. "Let's round up the others and get back to Headquarters; the Doctor has some intel we're all going to need to hear."
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Fandom(s): Avengers MCU, Doctor Who
Characters: Steve Rogers, Tony Stark, The Eleventh Doctor, Natasha Romanov, Clint Barton (more to come)
Pairings: None; Steve & Tony friendship
Rating: Teen
Warnings: Canon-appropriate violence, very mild angst in later chapters
Spoilers: Any and all MCU movies through The Avengers (2012) are fair game, as is anything through Series 6 of NuWho (though there isn't much spoilery of the latter)
Chapters: 4 of 9
Series: Part One of Only Time
Word Count: 1516
Summary: Cap, Hawkeye, and the Black Widow battle the alien attackers in the subway, and the Doctor recalls important information about the creatures.
Beta: cygna_hime -- Thank you! <3
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Steve waited until he was sure that Iron Man was clear of the platform before stepping to one side, behind a support column, and lowering his shield. The beam of energy he had been reflecting off the vibranium surface shot past him, striking the concrete floor for a handful of seconds before the alien - And when did 'aliens' become normal? Steve wondered; Is this gonna be an everyday thing now? - disengaged the weapon. The fluorescent lights embedded in the ceiling flickered a few times as they came back on.
"Looks like their weapons can disrupt electricity," he shouted to his team. It probably wouldn't matter much to Hawkeye, but he remembered that the Black Widow had some gear that might be affected.
"No, that's not quite right," came the Doctor's voice from a few yards behind him. Steve spared a glance over his shoulder, and spotted the smaller man ducked behind a garbage can, fiddling with some sort of device.
"You know these things, Doctor?" he called.
"Well, no," the Doctor began, "I mean yes, but - well listen, when you've been traveling the universe for over a thousand years, see if you remember every encounter with an alien race in perfect detail!"
"Anything you can tell us would be great," Steve prompted, rising from his half-crouch to throw his shield. He took the legs out from under one of the aliens assuming a bipedal posture, before it could leap at Black Widow. She spun around, landing in a crouch beside its head, and drove her knuckles into its throat with a wet crunch. The shield skittered along the concrete, collided with another support pillar, and was kicked up into the air. Steve caught it neatly as it flew past his head.
Two more aliens were converging on the Widow's position. They seemed to be focusing their efforts on her, though whether as the greatest threat or the most exposed target, Steve wasn't sure. She was holding her own out there, but most of her best moves were intended for opponents with only two arms and two legs. He glanced at his teammate's face; she swept her gaze over one of the aliens, planning in the space of a heartbeat how she would take the enemy down. The other alien was behind her, and Steve didn't have a clear shot from his position. He glanced up at the ceiling, estimated angles, and threw.
The shield spun edge-on into the ceiling, shattering one of the glowing fluorescent tubes overhead as it ricocheted and hurtled into the skull of the alien advancing on Black Widow. The alien dropped like a marionette with its strings cut, and the shield clattered away across the concrete.
"Go easy on the lights!" The sound of Hawkeye's voice, just loud enough to carry across the platform, distracted Steve from seeing the Widow dispatch her other assailant. "Trying to line up a shot really sucks when your team thinks the fight needs mood lighting."
The Doctor bolted to his feet - only to duck back down, narrowly avoiding a blast from one of the alien weapons. "That's it! Sucking!" he exclaimed. "You! You're brilliant - whoever you are; I don't think we've been formally introduced."
"You have something, Doctor?" Steve struggled to drag him back on task.
"Their weapons," the Doctor explained, "they don't disrupt energy, they absorb it. They're collection devices. The Ketaros use them to-"
Steve held up a hand to forestall the lengthy explanation he sensed coming. "Save the details for the debrief. What do I need to know now? Can those things hurt us?"
"They can't absorb energy from most forms of biological life," the Doctor replied. "Electromagnetic, some chemical, some radiation, but their energy collectors aren't optimized for living beings. Might feel a bit funny, but-"
"Good," Steve said, and darted out from cover toward his shield. It had landed facedown; he didn't even have to pause, snatching it up as he ran by. He kept his momentum up, barreling into one of the aliens that still had its gun. It fired a shot at him before he connected; the energy splashed over him, and a sensation like intense static cling crackled over the skin of his entire body, pulling at him. But otherwise, nothing happened. He collided with the alien, shield-first. It was like body-checking a horse, but he managed to knock it off-balance, and they went down in a tangle of limbs.
The alien held onto its weapon, holding it across its body with its upper set of arms to block Steve's blows. The lower arms began trying to pummel Steve's body around his shield. He got his knees under him, straddling the alien's abdomen, and aimed a couple of punches at its head. It brought the rifle up to intercept, and his fist grazed harmlessly off the metal.
He rose up on his knees, and then dropped back down hard, landing right where his opponent's solar plexus would be, if it were human. Apparently its anatomy was at least vaguely comparable, because the alien exhaled loudly into its breathing mask and its arms went limp for a moment. Steve took that opening, yanking away the gun and landing a quick series of punches to the alien's face and chest. He ended by slamming its head into the concrete floor beneath them until its muscles slackened and its eyes rolled back.
"Psst!" He glanced up; the Doctor had sneaked closer during the scuffle, and was hiding behind another support column. He waved for Steve to join him.
He rolled off the unconscious alien and was crouched by the Doctor's side a moment later. "You have something?"
The Doctor nodded; he was fussing with an odd device about the size of a cigar. "I think I've found the right setting to disrupt their energy collectors. If I can shut down their weapons, perhaps we can convince them to surrender."
Steve glanced over the top edge of his shield at the remaining aliens. The one whose gun had been blasted away by Iron Man had closed in on the Black Widow, while the others seemed to be searching the area, firing their weapons into walls, ceilings, and pretty much anything else on the platform. "These guys don't seem like the surrendering type," he observed, "and I doubt they speak English. But give it a try; it might at least prevent some property damage."
"Actually, the TARDIS telepathically translates any spoken language for me, so I'm not actually speaking-" The Doctor looked up at Steve. "You know what, why don't we just go ahead and save that bit of explanation for a better time, shall we? Let's try this." He stepped out from behind the column and leveled the device at one of the aliens. The tip glowed green, and the device let out a high-pitched whirring sound. The flashy high-tech visuals Steve had been expecting didn't happen, but the alien's weapon went dead in its hands. It growled down at the gun, trying to fire it a few times, with no effect.
Its still-armed compatriot leveled its weapon at the Doctor and fired. The green light at the end of his little device winked out as the Doctor was knocked off his feet by the blast of hungry energy. Then the alien whose gun had been disabled cast it aside with a clatter and advanced on him, clenching its four fists.
An arrow shaft sprouted from its breathing mask. The alien went down heavily, clutching at its face with its upper hands for a few moments, before it went still. The Doctor scuttled back behind the safety of the support pillar, where he began tinkering with his inert device. "Well that was a splendid idea while it lasted," he declared, smacking the side of the device with the heel of his hand.
With the civilian back behind cover (because no matter how many centuries' experience with time travel and aliens the man claimed to have, the Doctor was a civilian in Steve's mind), Steve shifted his attention back to the fight. Two of the aliens were still standing - no, make that one; the Black Widow had somersaulted over her opponent's head to land seated on its shoulders, her thighs around its head. She wrenched her hips around, and there was an audible pop as something important in the alien's neck gave out.
The last alien found itself on the wrong end of Steve's shield. It brought its weapon up to protect its head from the whirling disk, but the force of the impact knocked the rifle from its grasp. It wasn't ready for the overhead blow from a metal trash can that followed immediately after, and it toppled amid a rain of crumpled newspaper and fast food wrappers.
Steve set the heavily-dented garbage can back beside the pillar where he'd found it. "A SHIELD team should be here soon to clean up," he observed. "Let's round up the others and get back to Headquarters; the Doctor has some intel we're all going to need to hear."
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8