Caffeine Rush (Avengers Fanfic)

Chapter 10: What Took You So Long?

The radar in my suit tracked the Quinjet as it approached, but it was so slow that waiting for it to get here and land seemed rather pointless. I continued running and keeping the police from being attacked by the creatures with well timed blows that sent them flying purely from the impact force of my speed. When I noticed a small child hiding underneath a parked car, I sighed and flagged down the cop nearby to evacuate the boy. It was a pain that I couldn't do it myself but it would be worse if the child was hurt when I was trying to get him out of danger.

I protected the cop until both of them got past my speed perimeter before going to meet the newly landed Quinjet. The back door opened and most of the heroes within—sans Green Team—came blasting out like they were late to a party, well, I suppose they were in a sense. If I hadn't been here, London would have long been destroyed.

They came up short upon seeing me, like they were expecting to be the first ones on the scene and come out to a city on the brink of collapse. Well, surprise! They got me instead. I snorted at their surprised expressions and called, "what took you so long? Did you stop in a drive through on the way here?" I couldn't help rubbing my speed in their face, but why did I bring up food? That was a mistake, I was so hungry right now, having blown through most of my calorie reserves a while ago.

"How did you get here before us?" Tony grumbled, suit not yet activated.

"Speedster, remember?" I pointed at myself and in a rather arrogant manner, explained, "your fast is my ages ago." Oh, my attitude got bad when I was hungry, don't know if you noticed.

"Then, when did you get here?" Natasha asked, sounding more curious than anything, typical spy trying to get information out of everyone.

"I ran here in fifteen minutes. I've been keeping these creatures from destroying all of London and helping evacuate people for over an hour and a half now. So if you don't mind, I'm tired and running low on calories, and I'm gonna take a break in your Quinjet before I faint."

Cap'n Frosty stepped up, ready to take charge. "We'll take over . . . you did good, Rush." Why did that praise make me preen so much? It's not like I idolized the captain but he was the type of person that was always honest so when he complimented someone, you would know he meant it.

"Yo, Speedy Gonzalez!" Sam called from where he was leaning against the jet, pointing his thumb behind him into the jet, "I brought snacks, help yourself."

"Thanks, Sam!"

"You know my name?"

"Of course I do, next to the Green Team, you're my favorite! Well, I guess I have to include the tincan and family relations but that's pretty high on the list!" He didn't seem to know what to make of my answer and I can positively say that this was my first time seeing him actually speechless. But as I gave it some thought, I realized that I may have just said that everyone else was not on my favorite list and there was a distinct possibility that he was just shocked that I would say something like that to their faces. I did a mental shrug, just because they weren't headliners in my favorite list didn't mean they weren't on the top of someone else's. And I was hungry, I wasn't liable for anything I did or said to offend people on an empty stomach.

Steve, Thor, Nat, and Clint didn't seem affected by the statement, though I knew that Ronin wasn't appreciative of his lack of recognition—argh, Hawkeye. My personal opinion was that his suit was lacking a distinctive identity and that's why nobody remembered him, but what do I know? This wasn't even my universe and I had trouble keeping the difference in doppelgangers straight to begin with. Meanwhile, Tony preened like the smug peacock he was under being labeled a favorite and Wanda just looked confused, like she was trying to figure out how I existed, which was fair.

The seven of them acknowledged me as they charged into the battle, the Green Team staying behind until it was determined that either of them were needed. There hadn't been a Hulk summoning code green since I had been hired but Bruce always came with in case they encountered something they either needed to smash to pieces or someone who needed a hasty repair job—usually Clint, from what I had gathered. Though Loki was usually confined to the Quinjet when accompanying them on missions due to his rather poor reputation with the citizens of Midgard, they had still created a code magic, in case there was ever a situation where he was needed.

As I walked in, I came across both Green Team members looking like they just woke up and like they were trying to remember if I had been on the jet with them before they fell asleep. "Good morning, Green Team, I'm Rush, I don't mean to bother you but would you happen to know where Sam stashed his food? I'm about this close from fainting." I put my thumb and index finger about an inch apart.

Bruce blinked blearily behind his glasses before pointing at a cupboard underneath one of the cargo seats. I blitzed over there, opened it, piled everything into my arms, and speed ate through every bag of chips, chocolate bar, and pop-tart in his stash. It would be enough to keep me going but it wasn't enough to satisfy a speedster, though few things were without substantial quantity or specialized quality. I missed Uncle T's calorie packed snack bars, they were so good and I could eat a reasonable amount of them, not be hungry, and still run for hours.

"What are you?" Loki asked, looking at me like I was something he had never seen before, which to be fair, I was. To my recollection, the only other speedster in this universe was Quicksilver, who was introduced and then died after Loki had already been imprisoned on Asgard.

"Didn't I already introduce myself? I'm Rush." I answered. It wasn't the one he wanted.

"Not who, what are you?" He repeated, growing tense at detecting that I was purposefully misdirecting his words.

"One who doesn't want to answer the question himself, should not ask it." I countered, but then broke my serious act with a fit of laughter as his face tightened. "Oh relax, Loki dokie, I already know how blue you are underneath, it's my favorite color," I gestured at my suit, which perfectly matched his cobalt frostgiant skin. "I am what the multiverse refers to as a speedster. There aren't many of us but we are mighty."

"Multiverse?" Bruce asked, attention suddenly on me. Clearly he knew what it was, but I had looked and none of this world's scientists had figured out how to prove its existence.

"Well yeah, you didn't think I was from this one, did you? How boring would that be?" I threw myself into the bench seats and made myself comfortable, muttering, "stuck in a single universe, never able to glimpse the vastness of the future, the impacts of choices." I yawned extravagantly, "wake me up in ten minutes." And proceeded to doze off, falling into a deep sleep to get my full nights rest in before going at it again in ten minutes.

Bruce turned to Loki and asked, "you think she's crazy too, right?"

"It's certainly a possibility," Loki mused, "but she knew I was a frostgiant, that's not common knowledge, there must be a reason that she knows, what it is remains to be seen."

Loki woke me abruptly ten minutes later with an unfriendly jostle of my shoulder. "Get up, lazy peacock."

"Peacock? You're one to talk." I grumbled, rubbing my eyes and taking in a large lungful of air. I stood up, stretched myself out and folded myself into a deep and elegant bow, "thank you for your hospitality, Green Team, but if you'll excuse me, I have a battle to keep inside the city limits."

I zipped to the battleground and found a right mess of things. My perimeter had been broken, no, not just broken, but practically disintegrated by the creatures as the Avengers struggled to contain them. Tony spotted me from the air and called, "what took you so long, Andretti?"

"What the hell happened? I was gone for fifteen minutes!"