Two Hours into the Invasion

 

Victoria was catching her breath. Most of the main buildings close to the actual beacon were successfully taken care of, either by her own doing or thanks to the police detachments that went into them after Cap got them to cooperate and do their job instead of firing against the aliens in a blind rage.

Her supplies were low now. She had lost her batons and used up the tasers. One knife had broken after trying to take it out from an alien corpse, so she only had one remaining. Her backpack, previously full of all kinds of medical supplies dwindled as time went on. With every evacuation effort, someone got injured. Falling debris, exploding cars, alien grenades even. She did the best she could, but she was only trained in first aid by the nurses, and that was on her previous life, so long ago she might've misremembered a step or two on the process.

But with most of the evacuation done, all that was left was to stall the invading forces as the Avengers tried to bring their numbers low enough for them to send someone to recover the Scepter. Or at least so she thought.

The movie didn't mention the battle lasted this long, she was expecting a few hours, yes, but deep down she wanted to be pleasantly surprised with maybe half an hour of actual combat. Now she understood her wish was a little naive.

This was an impromptu militia sent to invade a primitive planet, but it was an alien force nonetheless. Being aided by a God of Asgard, at that. Wishing that the fight would be over in less than a day was just outright stupid.

"Okay.....Okay..." She calmed herself. 

Victoria was hiding inside one of the abandoned buildings, trying to catch her breath, as she sent another pulse. She felt Iron Man driving another of the big creatures around, the Hulk continuing his tireless rampage, but slowly getting overwhelmed by firepower, Captain America and Thor were back to back, and things didn't look very well.

But she knew where she had to go, and what she had to do.

They had their moment, their bonds, their shared experience of what they had to do to keep this planet safe. And now it was time for Victoria to keep a nuke from being launched into New York City. Sure, she could've stepped back and retreated from the fighting, gone back to Queens, and just relaxed until the next big moment in the timeline, but no. She wasn't the type of person able to just sit at home and watch all the horrors that were predestined to happen to go on unperturbed simply because she was too scared to help.

Victoria was determined to change the fate of this universe. There would be no snap, and there would be no final goodbye of a hero because they would not lose. They couldn't afford to.

So she wasn't about to take any chances with this. If the council was as stupid as Nick Fury described them, then she wouldn't have a second chance to regret her choices. Or a third one, for that matter.

Instead, she stood up and approached a group of dead Aliens she felt from her previous pulse. Concentrating, she raised six of their weapons around her. It was the largest number of simultaneous objects she could hold, apparently, so her focus was starting to strain her brain quite a bit. 

She felt the iron taste of her blood as she rushed through the streets, blasting her way through the wreckage that surrounded the Quinjet. She exchanged two of the blasters for a larger piece of armored hull, using it as a shield as she kept on charging straight for Stark Tower's vicinity.

Then she sent out another pulse, feeling how a battalion of space bikes were charging one of the buildings she was familiar with. 

'Shit!' She exclaimed in her mind, rushing into the main entrance.

She ran, charging through the staircase one floor after another until she felt the explosions above, and felt the silhouette of Hawkeye approaching the window at a very dangerous speed. Victoria raised her hand and slowed him down, only after he had broken the glass of course, so he could escape the squadron of vehicles that were now head-hunting him without need to get injured in the process.

Before he could say a word to her though, Victoria ran towards the window and jumped. Falling only a few centimeters before the hull piece tumbled under her feet. It felt weird being able to levitate on top of something she controlled, but it wasn't the worst feeling ever. Clint was still in the fight, and she could keep going.

Next was...The bank!

She rushed through the air as she flung the hull piece, and herself, directly at the building. She aimed for one of the windows in the upper levels. Victoria knew the Captain could deal with it, but she'd rather keep their injuries to a minimum as well. Victoria had done what she wanted to do, now all that was left was to make sure the process of getting rid of the nuke and closing the portal was done safely.

And that meant taking no chances with events like these that could easily deviate from canon.

Well, to hell with canon! Victoria burst through the window and had half a second to examine her surroundings as she tumbled through the ceramic floors. Four aliens, one with a grenade attached to his belt. She felt their presence, and they felt hers, as she raised the four blasters she still had at hand and fired all at once.

They didn't stand a chance, as eight shots rang out and all four dropped to the floor with plasma burns on their chests and necks. Since Captain America would come charging in as well, she simply took the grenade in her hand and jumped on top of the improvised silver surfer implement, charging through the same window she entered from.

Immediately outside, she put that grenade to good use. Cooking it for a few seconds before launching it with telekinesis in the face of another flying whale that was about to be charged by an unlikely duo.

Unbeknownst to her, Steve would have a bit of an awkward moment with the people gathered at the bank, but that wasn't something to worry about when she still had to help out some more, so she sent out another pulse as she flew through the air unimpeded.

Thor and Hulk took out the flying whale she had disoriented before Loki was knocked into the tower and the Hulk charged right for him. Victoria would've wanted to be the one to beat up the God of trickery, but decided against it, as there were more pressing matters. That meant the talk Fury had with the council was already over with, and soon there would be a plane with a nuke in the air.

She didn't want to put Iron Man at risk in this situation, but what else could she do to help?

Evacuation measures were taken, she kept civilians from becoming easy targets in the streets, and a few situations were dealt with before they became an issue later...Victoria felt as if she was no longer needed there.

The battle would be over in a few minutes, all that was left was...Get to Loki, maybe present herself to the Avengers? But that would be a little selfish no? She still wasn't very sure about it all but she decided to give her public image a try at least.

Like a worry had been taken off her shoulders. A heavy weight that didn't allow her to breathe properly was just gone.

Instead, all she felt was glee as she sensed Iron Man guiding that missile upwards into the sky. But she also felt Black Widow's grip loosening around the scepter. In the movie she was forced to let the portal close before they were certain Iron Man had fallen through, maybe she could keep that worry from happening? It would be a nice gesture, she thought.

So Victoria flung herself through the air again, landing in a nearby building, not wanting to reveal herself just yet. Instead, she raised her right hand and tugged on the scepter, keeping it from forcing the assassin to close the portal. It was only when she saw the armored Avenger falling through the sky that she let go, and the portal was closed as the scepter and the tesseract touched.

Victoria sent a pulse, she felt the Hulk not looking at where the man was falling...So she decided to take this little matter into her own hands as well.

She jumped on top of her piece of metal and flung herself across the street, using her left hand to control its speed as she raised her right to catch the Avenger in her invisible force's grasp. Gently lowering herself and Iron Man down to ground level, where she was welcomed by an array of confused glares, and one particularly familiar gaze she couldn't help but smile at.

"Good job, everyone." Were the words that broke that awkward silence.

Before it returned yet again as the Avengers present seemed to be at a lack of words for the situation presented in front of them. Well, if a girl suddenly came down from the sky carrying an unconscious Iron Man with the power of her mind, while riding a very thoroughly burnt piece of a jet's hull, even Victoria would be left confused and utterly befuddled.

Thankfully the silence was broken again after a few seconds.

"Would you kindly put me down?" The robotic voice came from the man she was holding up like a silver platter.

"Oh, certainly." And so she did.

Despite the mischievous idea of letting him fall face first on the ground that was very quickly growing inside her mind, Victoria gently turned him until he was resting on his feet, and just then did she allow her telekinesis to stop affecting the man.

Then, it was Steve's turn to react, as he snapped his fingers and pointed at her.

"You're the girl from the bus." Thor looked at him weirdly, and despite having a helmet covering his face, Iron Man seemed to have a very similar expression.

"So....You know this kid or what?" Tony asked, still too tired to move, apparently the joints of the armor locked it in place so he didn't have to walk.

'I'd be tired too if I had almost been thrown across entire galaxies because some Illuminati wanted to nuke the city.' Victoria thought.

"I had the honor of meeting the Captain once before. However, I have to admit that he wasn't aware of my abilities back then." Victoria smiled, though she knew they were cutting close on time, so she added a little comment into her turn to speak. "I do think you guys are missing a big problem you have to deal with."

Steve seemed a little disoriented still, but Iron Man caught the meaning behind her words immediately. Pointing up at the penthouse of Stark Tower. 

"Big Evil God?" He said.

Thor seemed to twitch at this but made no comments on his choice of words. Victoria sent a pulse, Loki was still knocked out, they could reach him easily within five minutes give or take.

"Come on, I got a place I wanna hit on the way back. You guys good with Shawarma?" Tony snapped them all out of the little state of confusion.

Only for the Hulk to grunt and roar out loud. Big guys was hangry apparently.

"I'll take that as a yes," Tony said before starting to walk towards the tower.

Victoria was about to turn and walk away since her job was done and all, she even got to talk with the Avengers! She could just go home and relax for the rest of the week, skipping a few classes wouldn't be a big pro-

"Come on kid." Steve had put a hand on her shoulder, one with a particularly fierce grip. "You got some things to explain too."

Victoria couldn't refuse those words, so she simply sighed tiredly and followed the rest of the team.

But hey, maybe she could "get dragged" into the shawarma place as well. Free food was so very welcome.

She used her cape to clean the blood trails that were drying out around her eyes and mouth as she walked, she'd need a nice long shower after this.

And a quick call to Jess too, hopefully, there wasn't much footage of Victoria in action. Oh god, she had forgotten to use a mask!

'Well...There goes my secret identity. Shit!'

She facepalmed as she was guided up to the elevator, riding it all the way up where a very confused Loki looked at the intimidating pose the team would be presenting him when he woke up. 

But the myriad of trouble she would be in thanks to this stunt she pulled aside, she got to witness the entire team assembled!

That counted as a win, right?