Caffeine Rush (Avengers Fanfic)

Chapter 11: Better Call Gandalf

"What happened? These things are really fast is what happened!" Sam called as he passed by while chasing one of the creatures.

I crossed my arms in disbelief and snorted, "no they're not." They ran maybe as fast as the average greyhound, which was only like thirty or forty miles an hour.

"Says the speedster who crossed an ocean at Mach 20," snarked Natasha, who I hadn't even noticed was only a short ways away from me, shooting these creatures with bullets and electric shocks and missing on more than one occasion. She had somehow snuck up on me without me even noticing, but I wasn't concerned, it was a spy thing. On multiversal speedster terms, her observation wasn't even that impressive.

Sam came swooping back, still chasing that same creature, "yeah, most of us aren't that fast! We run miles in four minutes not four seconds!"

I snorted a second time, "you're underestimating me, I can run twelve miles in four seconds, not one." Quickly chasing down his creature, I sent it flying into the nearest wall with the force of my speed punch. Not because I was particularly strong, really my strength was rather average for a twenty-something woman, but the force behind running at high speeds tended to be similar to a car crash and no one enjoyed getting hit by a car.

He hovered right in front of where I was casually standing like I hadn't moved an inch and gave me a dirty look, "show off."

"Look whose talking," I shot right back, gesturing to his incredibly flash suit and jetpack wings. Instructing CASS to send another comm request to Stark, I grumbled when it was rejected again. I had probably sent him a dozen by now but nothing, was he an idiot or just not paying attention? Giving up, I instructed CASS to spam him with requests until he accepted.

Deciding these people could deal with the creatures without me, I resumed my previous task of keeping a perimeter so that no more city destruction occurred. Aside from creating a speed wall, I looked out for everyone's backs, fast enough to make sure everyone could hold their own or intervene if I noticed a struggle or a sneak attack. I kept a closer eye on Clint, knowing his track record for getting injured, returning the arrows from the downed creatures I passed by so that he never had an empty quiver and making sure no creature was able to get close enough for an attack. No other Avenger needed quite the degree of watchfulness as he did, though I found myself saving Sam on more than one occasion as his guns were only about fifty percent effective on these creatures.

Cap only needed a single save from me when I noticed a creature sneaking up on him that he hadn't noticed. Thor never needed my help, he muscled his way out of everything. Nat asked me to restock her ammo, but that was it, she was pretty self-sufficient. Auntie Wanda was only distracted enough for creatures to overwhelm her when she caught sight of my speed trail so I mostly stayed away from her. Tony was somewhere on the scale between Sam and Wanda, he had his armor but was often distracted by something which required a well-timed assistance.

On one such occasion, a creature jumped at him while he wasn't paying attention and nearly knocked him out of the air. "Where's your head at, Tony?" I called after intercepting the creature, forcing it out of its trajectory by crashing into it myself. He was about to respond but I put up a hand, "hold that thought!" and went to rescue Clint from a creature that had attacked him while I was helping Tony. Darting back in seven seconds flat, I quipped, "sorry, I may be amazing but I don't have super hearing and I'm not connected to your comm network. Someone keeps rejecting my requests."

I could tell he had that confused crinkle he got when something didn't make sense and he was trying to figure it out. Finally, it seemed to occur to him what I was talking about. "Is that what those pop ups were? I've been trying to figure out how to block those."

I facepalmed, "you don't block them, Tony, you accept them."

"Oh, is that right?" Tony sassed back, "I had no idea."

"If I could smack you right now without breaking my hand, I totally would." I teased in the friendly banter sort of way.

I ran off before he could clapback at me, doing my best to keep up with the influx of creatures that seemed to come in never ending waves. Occasionally, the Avengers' voices would float through my comm, sometimes I payed attention to what they were saying and sometimes it was just too slow for the speed I was running at to focus on. When I stopped a moment to catch my breath, I finally caught onto Tony trying to catch my attention, "Rush, I know you're on the comm link now, frickin' respond already!"

"Huh? What is it? I was running too fast to hear what you were saying. Let me check my settings real quick." I explained before finding a safe spot for me to check in with CASS, who quickly fixed the issue and sped up their voices to match with the speed I was using. "Fixed!"

"Are you paying attention at all?"

"No, sorry, I was fixing my comm settings so that I could pay attention. I'm all ears now, go ahead!" I kept running to check and see if they were working properly as he explained whatever it was he wanted my attention for.

Cap cut in before Tony could sass me back. "New task, these things just keep coming so find wherever they're coming from and we'll hold the fort here. Understood?"

"Yes, captain, sir!" I ran up to him and stopped for only the time it took to salute him before running off to do my task.

I searched high and low for the source of the creatures, even down to the spaces between walls but found nothing until I came to an alley that was bordering on the harbor. "Um, guys, I've got good news and bad news. Good news is I found the source, bad news is that we'll need a dimensional sorcerer to stop it. So um, you wouldn't happen to know any, would you?"

"Depends on what you consider a dimensional sorcerer. Do we need to call a Code Magic?" came Clint's voice over the comm.

"Loki doesn't have that kind of sorcery. Do you seriously not know any wizards with orange space magic?" I asked incredulously. "They are literally in every universe!"

"Gandalf doesn't like when I call him for something we can deal with ourselves," Tony said.

"Trust me, this is something only the space magicians can do. The creatures are coming from a dimensional portal they're supposed to deal with, calling one seems appropriate for the occasion. So you better call whoever Gandalf is and tell 'em to get their ass over here."

"Got it. FRIDAY, get a hold of Gandalf and tell him Mario Andretti sent for him." That was a sentence that I never thought I'd hear, but really, it was Tony, so I should have expected it.