Caffeine Rush (Avengers Fanfic)

Chapter 12: Strange Lies and Lightning Strikes

It only took five minutes for the orange sparks to fly, opening a portal for the sorcerer Tony had nicknamed Gandalf to step through. Salt and pepper hair, facial hair similar to Tony's, blue robes, red cape, and wait, was that the Eye of Agamotto? I thought this was the Ancient One's universe, but why was Gandalf the Sorcerer Supreme?

I ran up to Gandalf and bombarded him with questions, "who are you? Why are you the Sorcerer Supreme? What happened to Grammy?"

"Stark, who is this?" Gandalf ignored me completely. I paused, took in that fact, and decided I didn't like it.

"He can't answer that question," I chimed in before Tony could, "answer mine and I'll answer yours."

He looked like one of those people who was straightforward, mostly serious but with a sense of humor like a tag on the end. I wasn't surprised when there was a sense of amusement when he introduced himself, "I am Doctor Steven Strange, Sorcerer Supreme, and who might you be?"

"I'm Rush, a multiversal speedster I'm sure Grammy told you a bit about."

"You're the kid that tried to steal a bunch of artifacts and left calling the Ancient One Grammy?"

"Forgot about that part, Grammy managed to convince me to leave without a single one that day. You wouldn't still happen to have those vaulting boots, would you? I wanted those so bad," I mumbled to myself, "just imagine what I could do if I wasn't confined to the ground."

Strange Gandalf sighed to himself and cleared his throat, "I'll consider it after this mess is over."

"Really!?" That was way more than I expected to get out of him. "Let's do this right now! It's just a dimensional rift, you can close it lickity split, no problem." I grabbed his arm and dragged him behind me as I led the way to the rift I had found by the harbor. I only dropped his arm when I noticed one of the creatures charging at us and blew it into the nearest wall with my speed before returning. "Nobody gets between me and those boots!" I sneered at the creature.

When I finally got Gandalf Strange to the rift, it didn't actually take him that long to close it. He opened the eye of Agamotto with a couple hand movements and reversed its opening before freezing it in time so that it couldn't reopen. A surprisingly easy solution for a troublesome problem. Now we just needed to clean up the rest of the creatures and we would be done here.

"I assume you can take it from here?" Confirmed Strange Gandalf.

"Yeah, I mean, what's a few—"

"Good, then I'll be taking my leave." He made the portal sparks start to appear.

"Wait! What about my—" the portal opened, he stepped through, and closed it behind him, "—boots. Gandalf! I will find you if I have to break into every building in New York!" I want those boots.

I returned to where the Avengers were cleaning up the last of the creatures super grumpy, and put more speed into my contributions than was strictly necessary. More than a few were explosively dismembered by my sudden sound-breaking bursts of speed before I could rein myself in. I was doing pretty good until a massive speedster cramp practically severed the nerves in my leg and sent me flying into a very hard cement wall. Bruises, broken ribs, hurt, pain. I moaned as I waited for my super adrenaline to dull the pain even just a little bit, and continued waiting when it didn't come right away. Nope, it wasn't coming, there was only pain.

I remained where I was, sprawled out in the concrete dent I had landed myself in, unable to get up and unwilling to try. The creatures, surprisingly, left me alone. I mean, they did have other things to worry about but I was fresh and free meat, an easy target.