The Lesser of Two Evils

It was the afternoon of a regular day. Somewhat of a regular day that turned into a hell it’s definitely not a regular day. That then turned into a holy shit I just fell from the sky regular day. And then it went even farther down of a regular day, so let’s just move on. I was sitting with my friend Jess in the learning center one day, say hi Jess.

‘Hello there,’ Jess salutes. She waves and smiles an I do the same as she leans over to whisper to me. Sorry Jess, the readers must know. ‘Hey, Alex, is breaking the fourth wall an infraction of copy write laws?’

‘Using smart words are we? I don’t’ think so. I’m pretty sure the Marvel people would never read this anyway. And there’s the fact that this is a fan fiction and everything is pretty much copyrighted,’ I respond. We stare at the sky as if Stan Lee may come back down to yell at us. No such luck.

Anyway, we were sitting down at the learning center, not like that Jess, side by side and all of the sudden the lights start flickering and the fire alarm goes off. I roll my eyes as the entire class gets up to leave and we walk pass the stairwell that leads to the basement and is closed off by tape. There’s some purple flashes and a big bang sounds. Jess and I turn our heads towards it but the class keeps on walking like nothing has happened.

“Should we….” I trail off while asking Jess.

“NONONONONONO-”

“Too bad,” I interrupt her protests as I go under the tape and look behind me for Jess to follow. “Go under,”

‘Hey Jess yo-NOT LIKE THAT! GO UNDER IT YOU HEATHEN!’

Jess falls and lands on her butt. I sigh and look up at the ceiling like ‘why me’ and ignore her as I turn around and work my way down the stairs. Jess has been left alone in the hallway. She looks left and right and then runs down the stairs after me. I nearly fall forwards as Jess runs into me and I turn around with a grunt to steady her.

‘Alex, you should punch me in the face.’

‘I should.’

‘Nonono, in real life.’

‘What?! NO! Yghyhghgybnhyujhjunnjh bjnh.’ (thumping own head on keyboard).

‘Hey, Alex, you have any lead?’ Harlie asks.

‘Ummmmmmm, I don’t even have a pencil. Why would I have lead?’ I sigh. ‘I guess I could look,’ I lazily look over at my bag and see a pen with a purple top. ’Here ye go,” I give the pen to Harlie.

‘Thanks,’

‘HEY! ALEX THAT’S MY PEN, YOU MORON!!!!!!!!!’ Jess intrudes. I laugh.

‘It is?’ Laughing some more. Jess looks over at me.

‘You’re a horrible human being,’ she states.

‘Who says I’m human?’

Anyway, I turn back around and continue walking down the steps. The lighting getting brighter and brighter the farther down we go. Reminds me of hell. We then see a portal powered by a strange looking electrical machine that is spurting out volts of electricity. The portal opening pulses with each gush of electrical current. The portal has a familiar symbol and it takes me a while to place it. It’s the SHIELD symbol, from the Avengers Marvel movies. Why would some like super fan put it here? I move towards the portal with my brow furrowed in confusion.

“Alexander, NO! FIRE HAZARD!” Jess screams at me. “We should go get Wyatt,”

“So the firefighter cadet is telling me that there’s a fire hazard?” I reply with a roll of my eyes.

“NO….The EMT cadet!!!””

‘Wait,’ I pause. ‘You’re an EMT cadet?’

‘Yeah, well not really an EMT cadet, just planning to go down the EMT path.’ She responds.

‘You know what, I don’t care.’ I wait a moment before raising my hand. ‘Wait, what should the teachers name be? Should I ask to use her real name?’

‘No. Do like Mrs. Cupcake or something,’ Jess responds, not faded by the sudden change in conversation.

‘Cupcake?’ My voice implies just how stupid I think Jess is at the moment. Which seems to happen a lot.

‘Hey, takes one to know one!’ Ah well, I might have said that out loud. Oops.. I get called on by “Mrs. Cupcake” and leave to go to the bathroom. Having a fourth wall convestion, continue reading without us.

“Whatever,” I respond with an un-amused tone. “I have an idea.”

“I bet it’s a bad idea. I bet money.” Jess says.

“What money? We’re broke high schoolers,” says the person with 30 dollars in his pocket right now. “Anyway, I was trying to say that since we don’t know what this portal thing a-ma-bob does, one of us should go through and then have the other person wait five minutes before following. If that person doesn’t come back before then,”

“Ok, but how do we decide who gets to go first?”

“Me, obviously. There’s no way I’m letting you go since there might be some not-so-good things on the other side,”

“But what if you get shot in the side with an arrow and start bleeding out….you know….hypothetically?”

‘Jess! Stop breaking the fourth wall where it’s not meant to be broken! Fix it.’

‘FINE.’

“But what if something bad happens to you?” I roll my eyes.

“Trust me, no one would want to keep me, and like I said before: follow me five minutes after. Can you handle that or do I need to attach you to the wall?”

Jess looks over at me.

‘What would you even attach me to the wall with?’ She asks.

‘I don’t know, just go with it. It’s supposed to be threatening,’

“I’m not letting you go,” she says, “I’ll go,” I frustratingly sigh and roll my eyes.

“You know what, I highly doubt that you could stop me, but because I’m such a nice person I won’t force myself past you. We can figure this out by…..a match of rock, paper, scissors, shoot.”

‘Really? That’s what you pick?’

‘You think of something better than we can do that,’

We play ⅔ and I win the first two with paper over rock and then rock over scissors. I am the king of this game!

“Fine,” Jess says ,”just be careful.” I roll my eyes with a small smile.

“Never and always,” I say, before jumping through the hypnotic, swirling gateway, only to find myself falling from the dark heart of space. Yay, I love darkness.

’How long were you falling for?’ Jess asks with a mischievous look on her face. I raise my eyebrows.

’About 30 minutes. Why do you want to knooooohhhh ha ha ha. I get it. Ok, moving on, let’s let them read for a while without breaking the fourth wall again so that they don’t kill us,”

After what seemed like forever falling in complete darkness there’s suddenly light all around me and I fall through clouds and the blueness of the sky. Wait….the sky! I start screaming as wind rips through my short blonde cut shaved head and the ground gets closer and closer faster than it looked like it should’ve. Especially faster than it looked like it would be in movies. I eventually stop screaming and my breathing is eradicated and I can hear my heartbeat in my ears and pounding in my head as the ground gets closer and closer and closer…..and closer. As I pass a gigantic building I look back up because of the firmility of it and see a gigantic A on it with like a half-ish circle. The Avengers Tower. I open my mouth in an O in awe before realizing that it’s not possible for me to be seeing that.

I try to think about this as something comes flying out from the Avengers balcony but then I look back at the ground and start screaming again. I close my eyes as my body is about to hit the ground and I brace for impact but I get hit in the side instead and I open my eyes in complete and utter surprise. Looking around me I see the ground getting farther away quite quickly and then I look behind me and see the Iron Man in his suit holding me by my armpits. I look back in front of me as we approach the Avengers Tower balcony and I take a deep relieved breath as he sets me down. When he places me on the balcony I’m at first on one knee before standing up right and starting to breathe normally-ish as I turn around to face him. This isn’t possible. The Avengers are fictional, they’re not real. How is this happening?

“Hey kid,” he starts, “you o-holy shit!” he exclaims once he sees my face. He holds up his hand beam laser thing and I hold up my hands and back up a few steps, knowing what that does and not wanting to be hit by it. I must be delusional. My eyes wide an as I hear the hand make the weapons sound we all know before he fires his laser beam thingy. He doesn’t actually fire it at me, I’m just trying to explain the sound. “YOU! JARVIS, this is her right? I’m not hallucinating?” He may not be, but I definitely am.

“Yeah I’m her,” I say in a very sarcastic yet confident voice.

‘Why would you do that?!’ Jess exclaims from across from me. I shrug as a response.

He fires at me and I fall to the ground on my bottom to dodge it. I quickly scramble up as he continues to fire at me and I run into the Tower as an alarm sounds within it. I’m so screwed. Like, royally screwed. As I’m dodging the Captain America shows up not in his suit, disappointment, but with his shield. When he sees me his face at first contorts in confusion before Stark fires at me again and I roll to the ground with a high pitched yelp.

“It’s her Cap,” Stark exclaims to him before firing at me again. Then Steve's face changes to realization and then goes to a very dangerous look. He’s in his Captain mode now. Ohhhhhhhhh I’m sooooo seriously screwed, I have just enough time to think before a frisbee of freedom comes flying at my face and I barely duck in time to miss it. I have the good sense to stay down as Stark fires at me because the shield flies back to Steve and I’m like, I thought he couldn’t do that without his suit. What the ever loving hell.

‘Wow I had no idea you had such good reflexes.’

‘Only when I’m about to die, And it’s basically just luck, adrenaline and me falling like an idiot. It reminds me of dodge ball.’

“Don’t get close to her, she’s too dangerous,” Steve says as Tony tries to fly closer to me. Stop misgendering me, it’s not ok! Why must my favorite characters try to kill me? My heart feels as if it’s breaking and my eyes sting with tears. I am not emotionally prepared for this.

That’s when Natasha shows up as I dodge freedom once again and I feel really stupid, ’cause none of this looks as cool as I’m making it sound. I’m basically just a flailing amoeba of limbs. It looks like...never mind. Not gonna even try.

“Surround her!” Natasha orders, instantly taking out her two handguns without hesitating and starts firing at me. Lucky me, freedom had come at me again and it blocked the bullets from me. I’m wondering why none of them are getting close enough to do hand-to-hand combat. Not that I’m complaining. Then I’m forced into the middle-ish area of the room and they close in around me. A bang sounds from above me and a piece of metal falls to the ground as Hawkeye jumps out of it while shooting an arrow at me. I’m too in awe at seeing my favorite character from Marvel to react fast enough and the arrow hits my side. I fall with a scream/cry of pain to the ground, laying flat as blood starts seeping out of the wound.

‘Yay! This is the part where I come in!’

“Not now Jess! Stop giving things away before they happen! There’s no suspense if you keep ruining it!’

‘Sorry,’

I grit my teeth in pain as they finally come closer to me and make a semi-circle around me. I look through a crack between them and see Sam, the Falcon, and Thor, the amazing hammer dude, enter behind them. Seeing them around me, Thor drops his hammer somewhat near the balcony and comes on over with Sam and joins the circle. Hawkeye comes up to me and tries to pull the arrow out but only succeeds in breaking of the tip and leaving the arrow head in my red covered side. Didn’t he ever pay attention in health class? You never try to pull out the impaled object. I guess since he shot me he kind of wants my to bleed out though. He tosses the stick onto the ground.

“Well,” Tony starts, “that was easier than I thought it would be.” That’s when I break and a tear falls from my eye and runs down my cheek. Being connected to fictional characters is never a good idea. Especially if they try to kill you. My breathing is strained as I feel high emotional pain contrasted to the extremely high physical pain. “So, what do we do now?” My eyes flicker to movement behind the Avengers and I see Jess standing there. When she sees me her expression is confused, but then it changes to awe as she looks around before changing to confusion again as she sees that I’m bleeding out now that Natasha’s body has moved to show my bleeding side. Shit no, she can’t be here! I look back at the Avengers and try to not have my face show any surprise or fear for her as they discuss what to do with me.

“Take her to SHIELD?” Steve questions.

“No, they wouldn’t be able to hold her.” Natasha answers while staring at into my fear filled eyes. “We could put her in a chamber and keep her in that until we get something more on how to stop her,” she pauses for a moment. “Get Vision here,” she orders Tony. I look back over at Jess’s face that has formed into concern and panic and complete ‘what the hell is going on? how the hell are the Avengers here? Are you seeing this?’ look. I widen my eyes in a warning look as she sees the hammer and I already know what she’s going to try and do. The Avenger voices are merely a background as I slightly shake my head no. That’s when Tony tell them to shut up and tilts his head as if he’s listening to something. That’s when the horrible realization comes to me and I nod at Jess to give her permission to. If this doesn’t work then we’re both dead. JARVIS as seen her and Tony turns around right as Jess silently runs to get the hammer.

“Don’t worry Alex, I’ll save you!” She cries as tries to pick it up while running and with both hands between her legs. But the hammer doesn’t move. Her eyes widen considerably as she flies forwards into a front flip, her hands slipping off of the hammer. She lands on her back with a thump and a groan of pain. You and me both Jess. You and me both. I start laughing on the ground before it comes to a sudden stop of pain, whimpering and wincing. All of the Avengers are now turned towards Jess, deciding that my bleeding out form is now less of a threat. Thank everything I don’t believe in that all of them turned, because I now have an idea. As Jess stiffly stands up and I nod my head towards the balcony.

‘Lead them there,’ I mouth to her. Hoping that she understands so that there will be some space between The Avengers and I. It kills me that I have no choice but to work against them. To me they are a part of my family, of my life, but to them I am a stranger that they need to kill. I have to remember that so that Jess doesn’t get hurt. Jess is a lot better than me at dodging things, at least she makes it look cooler. (She doesn’t, I think she may look worse then I did but don’t tell her that). As Stark fires at her, Natasha and Steve follow and try to get closer without getting hit by Stark as Hawkeye pulls another arrow. That asshole tries and I’ll kill him. Whether he’s my favorite favorite Avenger or not, no one messes with my friends. I look around for anything that might help and I see a gun on the kitchen counter. I remember this kitchen, obviously any Marvel fan would, it was the part when Tony was pouring alcohol into a cup while distracting Loki.

I bite my bottom lip super hard as I slowly, and skin ripping painfully, move to stand up. Once I get up I still have one hand around the wound as I limp towards the counter. I really thought I was going to get to it, I really did, but I tripped over my own feet and fall to the ground. As I land my arm reaches out towards the counter but misses it and it falls to the ground. When my hand moves down to the ground with my body I realize that the hammer has tipped over with the movement of my hand. I bite deeper into my lip and I draw blood.

Tears fall down my face as I stay silent with a great amount of pure will. I hastily look around and see that Sam and Thor haven’t moved to go after Jess but haven’t looked at me, so I calculate my chances of getting the hammer. That’s when I hear Jess scream and I don’t look over as Sam and Thor then run over to the opening of the balcony. I rush for the hammer and grab it, putting that wrist strap around my wrist. ’Cause where else would you put it? As I’m struggling with the strap Jess is in the middle of four Avengers, (Tony, Natasha, Thor, Sam) each one has a limb, and they swing her back and forth until she has enough momentum to fly towards me. I look up and see something long and big coming towards me.

“Alex, MOVE!” Jess screams but I’m too stunned to move fast enough and only have enough time to brace myself. Jess’s body hits me and I fall down with her on top of me and I give a cry of pain as she pushes the arrow tip farther into my already bloodied side.

“Jess,” a whisper that mixed itself with a whimper of pain as I stand up, holding up the hammer. One I can stand fully up and Jess stands next to me I push her to the kitchen. “Duck beside it and don’t come out,” I tell her.

“But Alex, you’re bleeding out! You could go into shock at any moment, and after that who knows when you’re internal organs will stop functioning properly or even shut down altogether. Not to mention the fact that yo-“

“Who cares about my stupid organs?! We don’t have many options, now go!” I raise my voice.

She reluctantly nods her head while looking at my oozing side. Half of my T-shirt is now drenched in hot, thick blood. She goes to the side and ducks her body behind it. When I look back at the Avengers they’re frozen, staring in disbelief at my hand and only then do I realize what this means. I’m worthy, when none of the other Avengers besides Captain America and Thor (Natasha unknown), can lift it themselves. Yayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy, such sarcasm.

I take a small breath and wince as it makes my side hurt before pulling the hammer back. “YEET!” I call out as I throw it at Tony and then it hits him faster than I thought was possible and he goes flying off the balcony with Thor’s hammer attached to his chest. Sam immediately goes and jumps off of the balcony after him and I hope that he gets to him in time. I really don’t want to be the person that kills Iron Man, and I don’t think I can handle the emotional pain of killing one of my favorite Avengers. Despite them wanting to kill me.

“Alex,” Jess whispers from beside the kitchen counter and I look over at her with a pained and tired expression as she throws the gun at me. The same one that used to be on said counter. My eyes quickly widen and I barely am able to catch it before holding it in front of me, as if I know how to use it, and aim it at the Avengers still there. Steve, Natasha, Thor, and Clint. What a group.

“Hold on!” I yell as I can tell the freedom frisbee is about to be thrown again and Natasha has her guns on me as Clint pulls an arrow. “What’s going on? Who do you think I am?”

Then Tony shows back up being dropped off by Sam and then the majestic (not really) Falcon lands next to him. The hammer nowhere in sight, probably on the ground somewhere.

‘Where the bloody hell else would it be?’ Jess asks me in my mind.

‘I didn’t ask for your opinion,’ I answer. “It is where it is and we don’t know that. I mean…..we do, but the reader doesn’t.’

“Who are you then?” Steve asks me.

“I’m Alexander Grace Farro, that’s my friend Jess Sarah Starkie, and we already know you guys. There’s only one problem,” well, multiple problems, but my bleeding out and dying isn’t really that important at the moment.

“And what’s that?” Stark’s arrogant and sarcastic like voice says. He trains his hands on me and has a bunch of tiny missiles and guns pop out of his suit. Goodness, this reminds me of the first Avengers movie when they captured Loki in the beginning.

“You all are supposed to be fictional.”

“What do you mean ‘fictional’?” Steve interrupts what Tony was about to say.

“To get here we went through a portal in our school’s basement, or wherever those steps had lead, and it had the SHIELD logo on it. I just assumed that it was a super fan or whatever that had put it there. To us, you guys are nothing but made up characters played by actors that were hired by Marvel. I could literally give you a play by play of your lives in the last few years.”

“You’re saying you’re from another dimension?”

“I don’t know, I’m not a science-y person like Banner or Tony, I’m actually failing science at the moment. But that’s not the point,”

“Then what is?” Steve’s Captain voice used to make me laugh. It doesn’t anymore now that it’s pointed at me.

“The point is when I said ‘yes’ to whoever you thought I was, I was joking. I was being sarcastic. We appeared, or at least I did, right before Stark caught me as I was falling from the sky. Which, by the way, is a terrible place for a portal to be.”

“So then what has our last few years been like?” Tony asks, his voice clearly as unbelieving as the truth sounds. I sigh and a whimper gets stuck in my throat as I curl into myself a tiny bit.

“The first Avengers movie Loki showed up, you hacked a jet or whatever Natasha was driving with another pilot and played a song, that was totally a you thing to do.” I chuckle at the nice memories. “Loki got out, mainly because Thor tackled him off of the jet, and then Tony and Rogers went after them and didn’t get him back. You guys were at the SHIELD base talking, when you’d gotten Loki back I think, and Thor had talked about Loki being family and Natasha had responded saying that ‘he’d killed 82 people in one day’,” I have to stop to choke a laugh before moving on. “Thor responded saying ‘he’s adopted’,” I can’t help laughing before groaning in pain and hearing Jess get up and move behind me but still staying kind of next to me as she laughs too.

“Go on,” Steve says. I lower the gun and put my good sided arm around Jess and she helps support me.

“Then Age of Ultron happened when Tony made a mistake and Bruce helped him. Ultron was made and you guys met some kids named Wanda and…..and Pietro.” I whisper the boy twins name. “Ultron lifted a city, and Clint gave Wanda an ultimatum. Leave out the door and become an Avenger, or stay in her place and he would send her brother for her.” I’m tearing up now, curse that movie. “She came out all badass and destroyed a bunch of robots. In the end, her brother had died saving Clint and the little boy that Clint was holding and trying to shield. I don’t remember if it was that movie or not, I don’t think it was, were Natasha dressed up as an old woman and kicked ass and then released all of SHIELDs files, along with HYDRAs I think. But in this movie Vision was made. Thor had helped bring him to life, before…..Pietro died. I’m going in a different order but that’s only because I’m remembering different things as I go on. Anyway,” I continue before they can say anything. “Since Thor’s hair is short and one of his eyes are gone I assume he fought his sister Death, which Loki helped with. God, I love Loki.” I clear my throat. “I don’t know how far you’ve gotten since then though. I would assume since he’s back Infinity War would’ve started, but it doesn’t look like it.” I look quizicuilly at Stark. “Is Peter-I mean Spider-man, are you still his father figure? Or do you not know Spider-man?” Then I look at Steve. “Is Bucky here? I thought you saved him after your Civil War against Tony?”

They all give each other looks. They know as well as I do that there’s no way I could know any of this unless I was telling the truth. I start getting dizzy really quickly and I wobble on my feet even though Jess tries to keep me balanced. Someone says something but it’s dulled and I blink my eyes to try and clear my blurry vision and I stumble. Jess steady me but it’s useless as I fall to the side, thankfully my good side, and I hump to the ground. The new wave of pain makes me pass out and darkness surrounds me, and the last thing I hear is Jess’s voice:

“Hurry, you need to take her to Mr. Banner,”

’ I really wish I was conscious to see their reaction to you saying Banners name, and I hope I don’t die,” I say to Jess.

’You know if you die or not,” she responds with a confused look.

‘Do I? Do I really?’

‘Whatever, Alex,’ I laugh and close my eyes. All in a good day’s work.