Man Out of Time - A Captain America / Avengers Fanfiction

Chapter 5

You ever look forward to something so badly, and then when you got it, it was just okay?  Yeah .... just got back from seeing Winter Soldier, and while it was pretty good, it was just okay, not great.  Things I liked ... Chris Evans (always), Black Widow had a substantial part, and the superheroine parts of women was much more balanced with Maria Hill.  And ooh!  The Falcon!  Finally a bit of sweet, dark chocolate superhero to add a bit of variety!  What I didn't like ... not nearly enough conflicted Sebastian Stan ... wanted more Winter Soldier than they showed.  And expected to see a bit more of Sharon Carter (she was practically invisible).  Lately Marvel seems to be spending more time weaving in future plot threads for future cash-cow spinoff Marvel franchises than they do keeping the plot on track.  Too many spy-things going on, not enough genuine story.  The verdict ... go and see it ... but keep your expectations realistic.

Okay ... back to my legacy Man Out Of Time fanfiction, written just after Cap I and Avengers came out...

*****

A change of gears here. This is an Adventure/Romance story. Time for a bit of action!  Thanks to everyone who's read this so far and those who hit the big, gold happy star! 

Chapter 5

"The rumors are true," Nick Fury shouted, the rumble of the C-130 Hercules nearly drowning out his words. "Some Chitauri survived Iron Man's destruction of the mother ship and are attempting to regroup on Earth."

The Chitauri were the race of lizard-like aliens who had supported Loki's attempt to subjugate Earth, engineered by a mysterious hooded figure known only as 'The Other.'

"Where are we headed, Sir?" Clint Barton, codename Hawkeye asked. He grabbed at one of the wrist-straps hanging from a bar on the ceiling as turbulence threatened to toss him into Steve's lap.

"Micronesia," Fury said. "We're set to rendezvous with the helicarrier at eleven-hundred hours."

"Just show me where the new mother ship is," Tony Stark said, flashing Steve a cocky grin. "And I'll blow it out of the sky just like the last one." He held out the gauntlet of his Iron Man suit and pretended to aim the pulse reactor at an imaginary target. The high-pitched whine of a pulse reactor charging, and then powering down without discharging, could be heard above the rumble of the engines.

Natasha Romanov didn't say a word. She glanced down at her tool belt and began to slip all manner of deadly things into her cleverly constructed clothing. Assassin's bling, she liked to call it. All girls liked pretty, shiny things. Black Widow's baubles just happened to be lethal.

"I still can't figure out why these ones didn't drop mindlessly to the ground when we took out the mother ship over New York," Bruce Banner said with a frown. "Every Chitauri I've autopsied appeared to be part of a hive mind."

"They're like appendages," Tony Stark said, the tiny gears in his suit whirring as he extended and then curled up the mechanical arm of his suit. "Only enough circuitry to carry signals from the CPU. Not enough to think for themselves."

"What good are soldiers who can't think?" Hawkeye asked. Natasha gave him a bemused stare. So did Tony Stark. Stark had fended off an attempt by Hammer Industries to eliminate the Iron Man prototype with computerized drones.

"Captain?" Fury said, giving Steve a one-eyed stare. "Do you care to enlighten the others?"

Steve stared at his hands. Now all of a sudden he was the resident expert on the Chitauri? It wasn't until he'd gotten a good look at the technology the seven-foot reptilian invaders had been using after the showdown with Loki that he'd realized it looked familiar. Herr Klaiser. One of the Nazi bastards he'd pursued during the Great War and never been able to nail down. There had been crazy stories from traumatized French civilians about lizards devouring the brains of villagers and assuming their shapes. Stories discounted by the brass back in 1945, when Hitler was monster enough without concocting aliens from outer space to pull his strings. Steve still wasn't sure if what the French villagers had described was possible, but Banner's tests on the invaders and a dried tissue-sample Howard Stark had taken from a village Herr Klaiser had decimated all those years ago had similarities.