Simon Lewis and The Avengers

Staying

"Sir! We have another one, higher class, the upper east side, 96th street. We believe it's heading towards the hospital!" Agent Hill strode up to Fury, iPad in hand. The urgency of the situation betrayed her features only subtly.

"Make that two." Director Fury eyed the screens. Hill's head whipped round. Two.

"But-" Hill steeled herself, eyeing the two dots moving at abnormal speed eastbound. "We can't handle two."

"Well." Nick turned around dramatically. "I guess we'll have to assemble the avengers."

*~*

"You heard the man." Ironman spoke over the coms. "Cap, what d'ya say?"

Steve's mind rolled on autopilot. "The one up front poses the biggest threat to the hospital. So the Bane-Stark tech should head that way - Tony, Clint, Thor up front. Nat and I will take the second."

Tony nodded in agreement, flying off in the lead with Thor whilst the assassin followed along, relying on mostly cardio.

Steve and Nat were on either side of the road, a few miles down from where the demon was supposed to pass. But at the rate it was moving, they had only minutes to intercept it.

From a distance Steve saw it approaching and readied himself. Wait but this thing was not a demon sprinting towards them at the speed of a train. It was a man - a marked teenage boy wearing leather. Cap swung his shield and frisbeed it at the being, which struck him in the chest and Nat ran to hold him down. In the middle of the pavement Captain America pinned down a Shadowhunter, yet no passer-bys noticed them (thanks to the runes on the inside of his shield to glamour the area).

"Steve?" squinted the Shadowhunter with muscles and big glasses and the voice that sounded all too familiar.

"Son of a gun - Simon!" Steve yelled. Simon looked so different yet the same as he did a year ago, I mean Steve knew he'd gone to the Academy but he didn't - just, wow. Simon had colour in his cheeks from running, his chest was heaving from breathing, and his skin was tanned from being outside. He was just so unbelievably ... alive! And that's the first time Steve used it as a compliment.

"Sorry," Simon said - yep, that's him. "But I can't catch up right now. There's a demon I'm kinda hunting."

"Right." Steve got off Simon and hauled him to his feet. "Yeah. Same."

"How about we make it a double date?" Simon joked.

"Lead the way." Steve gestured to Simon.

The Shadowhunter began the highspeed chase, Nat and Steve followed on, and Steve chuckled to himself that he was having a hard time keeping up. As they made their way downtown, the dark demonic aura became increasingly concentrated. The Avengers had begun to take on otherworldly beings -namely, demons- but that didn't in any way mean that Steve had gotten used to the nauseating stench of death that bellowed from their forms. Of course, the glamour ensured the mundanes only smelt New York sewage.

Steve and Nat stopped to register the situation - the demon looked like it might have been human several millennia ago. The skeleton had pierced through what rotten flesh still clung there and the toxic ichor dripped off the sharpened bones. Runed blades and warlock magic were the only things powerful enough to harm a demon so Tony's diluted warlock tech could weaken the demon but it was more of a distraction. Hawkeye had runed arrows, provided by Annabel, but they didn't do as much damage as an angel blade. Like the blade strapped to Simon's back.

Hang on - Simon?

"Simon!" Steve yelled as the Shadowhunter charged into the fight with no apparent battle plan.