Man Out of Time - A Captain America / Avengers Fanfiction

Chapter 73

Chapter 73

Everything was black. Her first conscious thought as she fought her way through the fog was that somebody was wiping her forehead with a cloth.

"Steve?"

She threw up. Or at least she tried to throw up. But there was nothing in her stomach. The Chitauri fed their computer-drones intravenously. She dry heaved, only stomach acid burning her throat.

"Bernice! You've got to wake up and fly this ship or we're all toast!"

"Steve?"

She felt hands move her hair away from her face.

'Bernice. You must snap out of it. You are frightening the drones. If you show the guardians any weakness, they will kill you.'

"Bernice … c'mon kid! Anybody that could take down that nasty bug thing down can tough their way through a few … electrodes. C'mon! We're taking heavy fire!" The voice was shaking her body.

'If you want to see your mate again,' the Friend said into her mind. 'You must wake up and fly this ship.'

Her eyelids felt as though they were glued shut. She forced them open, gagging once again as the light hit her cerebral cortex and she had the strange juxtaposition of looking both into the brilliant blue eyes and furrowed forehead that stared into her eyes with concern, and simultaneously looking into the landscape that she knew was nothing but a computer simulation. Chitauri. Mothership. Alien attack. They had just stolen it.

"Natasha," Bernice mumbled.

"Either you're one hell of an actress," Natasha looked relieved. "Or you really are Steve Rogers wife. Shit! You didn't tell me that was going to happen!"

Bernice took in the thick cables now streaming out of every part of her body. The ones that had needed to hook into her cerebral cortex had, thankfully or unthankfully, been drilled in by the Other earlier and she had already been given whatever medical treatment these monsters used to help their human computer drones recover. So had the smaller electrodes that were attached to monitor her bodily functions. But dozens of additional cables had been drilled into her muscles. She flexed a finger and felt the ship respond.

Something hit the ship and she cried out in pain. She could feel the ship's pain! She recalled having been somewhat aware of what went on within the ship when she had been a computer drone, but not like this! It felt as though the ship were an extension of her body. A second RPG hit the mothership. They were taking fire!

'How do I fly this thing?' she asked the Friend.

'Picture what you -want- to do whenever somebody fires a gun at you,' the Friend said. 'Run! Straight up into low Earth orbit! The ship will sense where you want it to go and make the engines move you in that direction.'

"You'd better hang on!" Bernice told Natasha aloud.

She pictured she was Superman leaping up out of a phone booth. No! She knew real superheroes! Not that DC Comics crap! Tony Stark. She pictured she was her boss putting jumping into the air and ordering JARVIS to fire the rockets at the feet and hands of his Iron Man suit. Yes … that did it. She could feel the ship respond as she both pictured, and also physically moved her hands and feet ever so slightly, just enough to strengthen the control she had over the ship's systems.

"C'mon … move!" she hissed, trying to will the thrusters to fire when she'd never so much as flown an airplane before, never mind a football-stadium sized spaceship. The mothership jerked like a drunken sailor, throwing the guardians to one side of the bridge. It wobbled, and then began to shudder and hum as the ship began to move.