Marvel's Secret Invasion Prose Novel, page 20
So, she had opened the cell, and in it she had found Jarvis, the Avengers’ butler, who… oh no, who had been around as always until just… yesterday, maybe?
He looked up at her with his usual dignity, got to his feet, adjusted his vest, and apologized for his appearance. “I believe it was the Skrulls, madam. I was assaulted, at any rate, by someone who resembled me entirely, though I cannot take credit for his extraordinary lack of manners. Tell me, does your presence here now indicate they have begun some bigger assault?”
“You could say that, Edwin,” Jessica had said. “And thanks for telling me who those spaceships belong to. Now let’s get you to the medical bay, okay?”
He fussed that away, saying he was fine, and urgently asked about the health of the other Avengers, both official and otherwise, as he always did with her. There was little to tell him. He’d only been in the cell for a couple of days, so the Skrulls’ penetration of the Tower had been something they’d only achieved recently. And she had actually met the Skrull Jarvis, who had seemed like the real thing in every respect. That sent a shiver through her. Luke and his team had been extremely concerned about the Skrull presence on Earth since before she’d fled the Sanctum Sanctorum, but she always said could they deal with Tony Stark being in their faces first. It seemed Luke had been right about that, damn it.
And now she and Jarvis stood in front of the big screens, baby Danielle in her arms, watching the media coverage of what was already being called the Battle of Central Park. There were drones in the air covering the whole conflict, zooming in from moment to moment on individual combat, the commentators chattering excitedly like this was wrestling rather than, you know, life or death for the planet Earth. She saw Luke going one-on-one with some huge Super-Skrull, letting it throw fire against his skin, taking blow after blow and giving as good as he got, shouting defiantly in its face all the while. And then they cut away, because Logan and the Skrull Queen—who looked like Jess (?!), the other Jessica, Jessica Drew, one of her closest friends… oh, no, come on, had that Jess been a Skrull? And now, oh dear god!—they were ripping each other to shreds, and that was obviously better TV, and hey, at least she wasn’t going to see the father of her child killed onscreen, but now she couldn’t see what was happening to him, and, and…
She made herself breathe slowly and deeply. She had nearly been lost in her memories then, nearly been back in that time with Killgrave. But this was different. Every time since had been different.
She felt powerless when she was not powerless.
She’d told herself she would never be made to feel powerless again. She had chosen not to be a super hero ever since Killgrave controlled her mind while she was in that damn costume. But now she needed to push all that down in her mind and pick a different path. And she could choose to do that. “Edwin,” she said, “there’s something I need to do.”
“Do I take it, madam, that this concerns the battle?”
“Yes. You see, I need to go help. I… have to go help.”
He nodded. “Indeed, madam.”
“So…” She looked at Danielle, asleep in her arms. She smelled her head. “I… I need you to look after her.”
“Of course, madam.”
“You… you understand what I’m asking?” She realized she was crying. Already, damn it. “I might not come back. None of us might. If that happens, or if they come here—”
“Then I shall do my duty, madam.” His expression reassuringly like something out of some old movie about fighting them on the beaches. “Whatever that requires. She will be safe with me.”
She took a deep breath and kissed her baby on the forehead. “Baby, Mommy has to go do the right thing for once in her life. I’m going to go help your daddy, and you’re going to stay with Uncle Edwin, okay?” Danielle just gurgled. Jessica quickly handed her to Jarvis and stepped away before she couldn’t.
She found her old hero costume where she’d seen it, with a little moment of shock that she’d quickly contained, weeks ago, in the enormous storehouse of super hero outfits Stark kept here, which included some very optimistic guesses as to who might one day want a new costume from him. She threw off her clothes and put them in a locker and tried the costume on.
It fit only thanks to it being made of Reed’s wonderful unstable molecules. Make that two reasons why Sue Storm stuck with him. Why the hell did all the people she and Luke knew do what they did in costume? She hated being in costume, ever since… ever since Killgrave the Purple Man had taken over her mind and made her take it off and had bent her to his will for months after. Yeah, she kept coming back to that.
But this was the opposite of that. This was her choosing to put it back on.
Just for today. Just to show the Skrulls, and show her own people, exactly who she stood with. She made herself look in the mirror and see the costume as her will, not her burden.
Running to the nearest window that opened, which was most of them, because of course it was, and, not even pausing to think that she hadn’t done this for a decade, she… threw herself out of it.
She yelled as she actually fell for a couple stories, but then she got it again soaring upward, and just for a moment that was amazing. And then the memories came back again. So she held them in again.
Then she set course for Central Park. It was hard to miss, given all the smoke and power blasts sending shadows flickering between the towers of the city and lightning flashing everywhere.
* * *
OF COURSE, as she got close the chaos increased. She dodged a couple of Skrull fliers on the way in, forcing her to land in a tree awkwardly, feeling ridiculously exposed in her costume, embarrassed to be here, but now she had a good view of the battlefield. She could find Luke—oh god, she hoped he was still alive—dive in beside him and there wouldn’t even be a moment of them having been split up by the law, not a moment of distrust, she would fight alongside him as a super hero. Just this once. And… and even though the enemy forces seemed overwhelming from up here, even though that they seemed to have pinned down the good guys somewhere on the other side of the park, they would find a way to win, damn it, and—
Suddenly, an enormous blast of energy hit the park in front of her, blinding her for a moment and sending her grabbing for the branches of the tree to stop herself from falling. There were cries from whatever media spectators had been in the streets on this side of the park, and from the huge volume of Skrulls in front of her… oh god, she blinked as she realized her eyesight was returning… those were alien screams.
There, in the middle of a smoking crater at the heart of the Skrull ranks, she could see what from this distance looked like a tiny figure, Skrulls running away from them in all directions, dozens of their bodies surrounding him in a circle of impact, forming a green splatter up the sides of the crater. He turned to address the fleeing hordes, and he shouted, his voice enormous. “My name is Noh-Varr!” he bellowed. “I am a warrior of the Kree! In the name of Captain Marvel, in the name of the Kree Empire, I am here to order the Skrull army on Earth to surrender!”
Well, great! Mind you, they paid him no attention, and he’d directed his call to surrender to like, the front row of grunts who were running to rally someone bigger, and she doubted they were going to pass the message on, but still!
Jessica flung herself into the air and used the confusion in the Skrull ranks to fly toward the other end of the park, dodging a couple more fliers on the way.
There was Luke!
Oh, thank god, there was Luke. He stood in tatters, his steel-hard skin still unbroken, calling for the Avengers and anyone else to gather to him, about to deal with another enormous rush from Skrulls down this side who hadn’t yet realized they now had a second front to deal with way back there.
She landed right beside him.
He spun, staring at her in horror. “Jess, no, you didn’t have to—where’s—”
“She’s safe. And yeah, I did.”
“This is the last place I expected to see you again.”
“I am an enigma wrapped in a riddle. Oh, and hey, I may not be picking up on some subtle clues here, but I think you might have been right about the Skrull thing.”
“She admitted I was right. Best day of my life.” He was so charming when he smiled like that.
“Hey, I need you to say it out loud. That it’s all okay. That we were never really apart?”
“We were always together. Always.” And he took a moment to gather her into his arms, and they had time for one kiss before the next wave of Skrulls was on them and they turned to meet it.
Together.
FORTY
CLINT BARTON
“HAVE AT thee!” Thor bellowed right in Clint’s ear, loud enough to make his hearing aid squeal.
“Hit ’em high and low, Howlers!” shouted Fury.
“Thunderbolts,” yelled Osborn, “you will be in the front line, or I will know why!”
Such noise, all around him. Shorting out both his earpieces. Which would be kind of welcome, apart from, you know, knowing what to pay attention to in the battle that raged all around him. Somewhere in the distance, Logan and the Skrull Queen were still hacking chunks out of each other. Clint and Kate had teamed up together, each on one side of Luke Cage, who, now with Jessica Jones beside him, yelled to all these would-be leaders of the Avengers left on the field to stay close on him. The two marksmen provided covering fire—Ronin and Hawkeye, drawing and letting loose throwing stars, staves and arrows at the Skrulls who broke through Osborn and Fury’s big guys on the front lines, who’d just been joined by Thor, who was literally sending Skrull bodies flying in all directions. Spider-Man and Maya and that new Cap ran interference, saving him and Kate ammo.
This could not last. He kept having to look around wildly. He could only see green flesh converging from all directions. It felt like there were isolated pockets of heroes now, everywhere on the field, of which theirs was the biggest. Any second a power blast was going to get through and—
Kate screamed as what his experience had told him was going to happen actually did. She staggered back, her chest armor on fire, collapsing in front of him.
He located the Skrull who’d done it, weapon still in its hand, aimed and threw a throwing star in a single thought, a single moment, nailing the monster in the eye. A second later they were down under the new Cap’s shield.
But there was Kate, lying on the ground, eyes closed, unmoving. He threw himself on her to snuff out the flames, and was about to start CPR because she didn’t seem to be breathing, damn it, his girl didn’t seem alive, come on Kate, come on—
Powerful hands hauled him to his feet. There stood the Vision, his broken face hanging off in pieces, one eye missing. “I will transport her to safety,” he said.
Clint barely had time to nod.
He grabbed her and flew straight up like a rocket and Clint could only stare after them for a second.
But there were sounds all around. Horrifying sounds.
Kate might be dead. Bobbi had been dead, then alive again, bringing his grief back to life, then she’d died again. There was no comfort for him now.
He saw Kate’s bow and quiver lying on the ground. Her own bow, not the Skrull one, which she must have discarded as soon as he’d given it to her. He grabbed it, and doing this felt just as weird and bad as it had in the Savage Land, but now… now…
He looked up and took down a Skrull warrior right in front of him with an arrow through the eye. He turned and loosed at every Skrull who was aiming up at the departing Vision, one two three! They all fell, spinning, arrows in their ears, throats and eyes.
He ran through the ranks of them, breaking past Thor, Spidey and Cap—even Osborn and Fury’s grunts—in clear space now, just running and shooting, letting his experience carry him, running through all the little vortices of fighting on the battlefield. The others probably shouted after him. He didn’t hear.
He realized what he was heading for as he ran, what the fury in his heart was rushing him toward.
There, ahead, was the Skrull Queen, a mass of continually transforming flesh, wounds folding themselves up and refilling as blow after blow landed on her; her own attacks ripping Logan apart, his flesh regrowing on metal, the two of them locked in combat, a bundle of meaningless fury.
No. You do not take my girl and live to keep fighting. He caught a flash of something white moving inside the Queen’s head. A skull? A brain? “You’re going to hear her name!” he shouted. “This is for Hawkeye!”
She swiveled an eye in his direction.
He loosed.
The arrow went straight through her head, brains flying out the other side. Caught at just the right angle, she spun from Logan’s grasp.
She hit the ground.
Was she dead?!
The Skrull ranks all cried out at once.
Logan swayed on his feet, staring as his face re-formed around his eyes. He looked almost sad that he hadn’t delivered the final blow.
Clint stood there too, swaying on his feet, aware it was just him and Logan, their own ranks far behind them and furious Skrulls surrounding them.
He slowly turned to face them. So, he would go down fighting. He had done what he came to do in her name. If he could just get over there to check the body, he had to make sure…
From behind them, but getting increasingly closer, Skrulls were shouting, power blasts echoing. “He is coming!” they screamed. “The Kree is here!”
The Skrulls didn’t know where to look. Some stared in disbelief at their Queen on the ground, waiting and waiting for her to rise, but others glared at the human forces with renewed anger and strength born of revenge. A scant few were looking behind them, to where whatever this was, blasting through their ranks, bodies flying into the air.
Logan started to run toward Clint, perhaps hoping to protect him, as the Wolverine’s body pulled itself together out of thin air.
But Clint had seen something, some serious-looking guards rushing to protect a Skrull combat engineer, or whatever it was who had pulled some kind of device from a backpack and was assembling it, a few ranks back. “Logan, go after whatever that is!” shouted Clint, and aimed and loosed in the same second, but one of the guards threw themselves in the way and took the shot. It staggered back, but others started to leap into the space, all of them obviously aware of the power of whatever this was going to be.
Logan turned and began hacking into them, but they were shouting “He loves you!” now and throwing themselves between their technician and anyone who might have an angle to fire on him. Clint took them down shot after shot, and Logan threw them aside as he hacked, but they also had to deal with furious Skrulls leaping at them, trying to claw at them or pull them back, and within seconds a hum of power rose, and suddenly there was a gurgling noise of some sort of signal being sent. Whatever that thing was, that Skrull had activated it.
Logan and Clint turned together at the sound of a gigantic scream.
“Oh god,” said Clint, “is that Jan?!”
FORTY-ONE
JANET VAN DYNE
JANET HAD continued her hit and run raids, getting more and more frustrated. So many different voices issuing commands, when they should have agreed on some sort of command structure as the first damn thing when they’d met at the edge of the park, before the Skrull Queen had dragged them into combat. They could have even done it in the Quinjet, and now they were being split up into separate clusters: some heroes fighting alone, exactly what the Skrulls wanted. She’d glimpsed what looked like a Kree soldier using very sophisticated weaponry, and the Skrulls didn’t seem to have planned for him. He was causing havoc, but one Kree couldn’t turn the tide. She needed to find some way to pull all their guys back together again on the field and, and—
She was suddenly seized by a deeply weird feeling that made her rush back to the center of Luke’s small group, safely through the blaze of Reed’s detector, and halt for a second, fluttering in mid-air. She felt like she had when her body first shrank, she realized, when she’d first felt her wings sprout from her back. There was something happening deep within her body, something beyond the everyday. Back then it had been wonderful, a fairy-tale transformation, but now, now it felt… wrong… dark…
And then she realized. She was starting to grow, but she hadn’t willed it. Lately she’d been avoiding using that ability too often because she hadn’t trained with it. And now it was happening.
She rushed upward, everyone on the ground growing smaller, her wings vanishing into her back, becoming another enormous target beside Cassie Lang, who looked over to her in shock. “Jan?!” Jessica Jones called to her from beside Luke Cage. “Jan, is something wrong?!”
Then the pain hit her. Enormous pain. System-wracking, complete blackout pain. But she could not afford that now. She had to stay on her feet, because her falling, her even moving too fast, could kill those she loved. “Cassie!” she tried to shout, but it came out as an enormous scream. Her vision fluttered with blood, but she could see Cassie stepping as best she could toward her.
She’d be here in a second. She had to stay upright until Cassie could help. But the pain, the pain!
And then she remembered.
“It’s an anniversary present,” he’d said.
Henry had said. Oh god.
* * *
THIS HAD been just a few weeks ago. He’d called her over to Camp Hammond and met with her in his office, placing a small case on the desk.
“Anniversary of what?” she said, kind of guardedly, because this was just the sort of nonsense a Henry feeling more confident in himself might try, him ever so gently starting to suggest maybe they should try again when no, absolutely not—
