stands_for_hope | Firebrand, Superman, Lois Lane, and the Avengers in... Unfortunately Lex Luthor Is An Asshole

He still only had his Hydra tac suit. But that was better than nothing. He'd received a text from a number he didn't recognise, but it had been signed 'Clint' - so the meaning was obvious. He went to the location he'd been told and there, he found a SHIELD cache.

Just what he needed.

Fully armed and as armoured as he could be, he took to the rooftops after texting Clark something he didn't think would be paid attention to.

not a foot outside the apartment damn it

But as he found an appropriate perch, he found--

"Hey there," said Clint not quite cheerfully. "Came as soon as I heard -- brought some friends, hope you don't mind."

"It's a good day to have friends," Jim answered, shaking Clint's hand.

The Falcon went flying overhead a moment later and lightning flashed as another red-caped man (this one blond) went flying through the air.

Jim's phone buzzed.

Are you with Clark? he's not here

Down below, one of the armed vehicles got it's gun sliced off by a familiar shield.

He was finding himself a good location, planting the legs of his rifle, when the phone went off, and he pulled it from his pocket -- and cursed quietly. Of course.

hes not here but clint sam thor are. shits happening cant type be careful

"Hawkeye," he said, "have you seen Superman? The real one."

He asked that while he carefully put his crosshairs on one of the soldiers below. If they were really Kryptonian, this would do nothing. However, he sincerely doubted that.

"No, not yet, but we've got more than one eye in the sky." Clint lifted a hand, to his earpiece. "Tony, sitrep?"

He was silent for a few seconds, listening, nodding while he aimed and fired an explosive arrow at the window slit of one of the APCs. They weren't quite as bombproof on the inside. But with the arrow fired, he paused. "Now that's interesting. There's some kind of radiation powering all this - and not all of it is real."

"Tony, do you think you can figure out where it's coming from?" came Steve's voice over the comms.

The shield went flying again, this time bouncing off of a soldier and knocking him a few feet before failing to bounce off of the next soldier it should have hit. Steve had to go diving after his shield to grab it.

The phone buzzed again with a message that he could check later. Tony Stark, however, was sent a message a moment later.

I'm in Luthorcorp Tower. I'm going to get in there and see if I can shut this down.

Because she couldn't find Clark she didn't know where he was and she needed to do something.

Jim muttered as he watched and shot. The armour was strong - stronger than he'd prefer. Everything would take a double tap, and a very exacting double-tap on top of that. He couldn't guarantee that possibility. And the fact that Steve's shield wasn't bouncing... Well, that told the story.

"I'm going down," Jim said to Clint.

"I'll keep you covered," Hawkeye agreed and tossed over an earpiece. "Here. Stay connected."

Jim nodded once, slotting the thing into his ear before, with the rifle slung over his shoulder, he jumped down, lowering himself from window to window without a moment's hesitation.

Meanwhile, overhead, clouds were gathering, the feeling of static building in the air. One of the APCs was hit by aimed lightning and was left as a husk.

When he hit the ground, Captain America gave him a fighter's grin before diving forward at one of the soldiers. It turned out to be a flesh and blood combatent, a blast bouncing off his shield before he knocked the man a shot to the head, spun around behind him, and took a shot between his legs to a much more lightly armored area between the man's legs. When he went down, Steve went for the next one.

Elsewhere, lightning struck the flying troops and the those that were real took the hit hard, a couple of them exploding before crashing to the ground.

Falcon's voice came over the comms: "Thor's takin' em down in the air so I'm gonna head to Lexcorp, see if I can help Lois."

"Careful, Falcon," Jim said as he fired his rifle at close range, metal arm taking the kick. It was backhanded, but it was the only way he could use it at this point. "He's got his own private army, if they aren't the ones in the suits."

The next in line, he hit, hard, with the butt of the rifle, swinging it like a mace. A Kryptonian should've stood up with the hit. This one didn't.

Clint was next on the comms. "I'm contacting city officials. These aren't real Kryptonians."

Thor's voice rang out, loud even over the comms.

"It seems our friend the Superman has been seen for his true colors."

Steve looked up into the sky in between smashing fake (and real) troops in the face with his shield.

"What's that mean, Thor? Do you have a visual on Superman?"

"Nah, but you don't need one! Glenmorgan Square's lit up with the picture of the hour," Falcon provided a moment later.

"Has anyone gotten to Lois yet?"

"Negative, Cap!"

"Iron Man, get to her or I will," Jim said, a bit of strain in his voice as he fought. It wasn't quite enough to get him completely breathless, but it was making an obvious distance. "That's my niece!"

The armour wasn't flawless. He was fighting like he'd been trained - exacting. Merciless. At least one opposing soldier got a knife under his helmet and through the underside of his jaw. They had stopped being worth his mercy when civilians had started to fall.

"On it," Tony said. "Almost there. With all the red up here, you'd think they'd miss one guy, but nope."

Which was when half of the troops started to flicker and fade into green outlines, much more obvious fakes. The remaining soldiers, the real ones, started to slow down and they were obviously panicking because this was Not According to Plan.

Something had changed, in the city and in the air. The people knew that this attack was no alien attack which was why they started fighting back, in earnest. It helped that their bullets could now function against the depowered armor on their attackers.

Their hero, the one that they'd been so cruel as to accuse of betrayal, punched out the 'leader' of the invasion as Jimmy Olsen, intrepid photographer, caught every frame of the fight and handed Superman back the S that had been torn from his chest. Reattached by a shot of laser vision, he smiled up at the lightning that arced overhead and threw up a wave to Falcon as he flew past.

"Got a visual on Superman! He's lookin' a little rough but he's up and fighting! And folks are fightin' with him!"

Edited 2014-06-26 00:21 (UTC)

Only Firebrand's eyes were visible, but when everything changed, a glimmer of pleasure - unpleasant, perhaps - came into his eyes. Suddenly, it was much easier to take opponents down, and he did so with impunity, now fighting to disable more than to kill. They fell, and they fell fast under his assault, just as they did under the others. "Nasha ochered," he murmured, and knocked them down, one after another, the rifle acting as a club.

Even Clint was smirking. Easier to shoot at things when you knew what was real and what wasn't. "I think I'm the only one here that speaks Russian, Jim," he said, though. "But hell yeah. Our turn."

"I'm at Lexcorp - something's up," Tony interrupted. "Moving in."

A man went flying past Firebrand; Captain America may or may not be feeling very similar.

A text message went out to all of them, the language jumbled; it appeared that the voice-to-text had been used.

Cups ton might makes a formidable explosive you lunatic sewage suicide bombers?

And then the window on the top floor of the Lexcorp building exploded out and a single figure went flying out... and then down.

"Shit--" Tony only said the one word before he swooped and caught her - not quite as gently as Clark would've, but the Iron Man suit wasn't really meant for gentleness. "I would've liked to make a better second impression. You okay?"

Jim was fighting his way toward the building, knocking down soldier after soldier as he went -- his phone had buzzed but he was too busy now to check it. But Jarvis threw the message onto Tony's HUD and--

"What's this about suicide bombers?"

Lois, looking very much the worse for wear, blood dripping down her forehead and from the corner of her lips, shook herself off and pointed down.

"I'm fine! But the soldiers, the real ones! They've all got a sliver of kryptonite and they're rigged to explode!"

Which was when a red and blue blur started going through the city, picking up every one of the soldiers he could find to toss them into the air.

"Shove 'em into the APCs!" Clint yelled into the comms. "Contain the ones we can't get to!"

"On it." And that was what Jim started to do, flinging all of them toward the APCs they'd come out of and only needing one arm to do it. While he did, he yelled to any nearby civilians -- "Get out of the area! They're rigged to explode!"

Once they were spread, Clark zipped between each one, pulling out the burning green kryptonite from their chestpieces, tossing it as far as he could before collecting them and heading for the ground. He landed about a block away from Jim, the soldiers tumbling away from him with less grace than he would have liked, but alive.

"Lois is safe, I'm going to see how many more of these I can get," Iron Man said over the comms, Lois placed near Clint.

"At least get people away from them," Clint agreed. "You, too, Thor, Sam - You're our fliers, make it quick!"

Jim kept an eye on Clark - even jogged over as he asked, "How long do we have?"

Thor followed Clark's example while Falcon just worked on civilians, unwilling to take an explosion to the face since he was quite human other than the wings on his back.

But even as Jim asked, the shards that Clark had thrown up exploded. Clark, looking very much as if he'd had an awful, terrible, no good, and very bad day, climbed to his feet and tried to shake himself off.

"I've got to-- Luthor--"

He gave Jim a wobbly smile for just a second before shooting back off into the sky.

"Chyort voz'mi," he muttered, even as he lifted his arm to protect him from what of the blast he couldn't really avoid. But the soldiers, it seemed, were mostly taken care of - except for those whose bombs hadn't exploded.

But it made him wonder if they'd even known. "I'm going to Lexcorp," he said over the comms. If Clark was there, who knew what Luthor would do to him.

The battle was pretty much over, so while there was some damage, it was easy enough to get through the streets and get to the building. Almost everyone was gone, which meant that there was no one there to block Jim's entrance.

When he got to the top, to Luthor's lab, it was to find Clark huddled on the ground near the entrance, as far from the glowing green apparatus that Luthor had used... and Luthor was out cold on the floor, blood drooling from his mouth but still clearly alive. Clark looked a little worse for wear as well, a couple of cuts on his cheek and jaw, but he was breathing. Alive. And despite a couple of tears, he looked strangely satisfied.

"He's... out. And I can hear the police on the way."

Edited 2014-06-26 01:29 (UTC)

He was armed to the teeth and I could have easily walked across and shot him. Put a bullet so simply into his brain and left him there. But he was vindictive enough to want Luthor to see him there and ready to kill him. What he did instead was go to him, pull a set of zip ties from one of his pockets, and bind Luthor hand and foot. Then he walked to where Clark was huddled and reached out to him. "Let's go," he spoke softly. "If the police are coming, we should let them do their jobs."

Clark nodded, obviously relieved, and he stood up, less shaky now than he'd been despite the presence of kryptonite in the room. He pointed across to it.

"We might want to grab that. There's a container..." he pointed beside it where the container actually sat.

Then he put his hand on Jim's shoulder.

"Lois?"

"Iron Man caught her. Put her with Clint. He'll take care of her from there." But he went over to do what Clark motioned done - kryptonite into a container and secured. As soon as the container was closed, he looked over to see if Clark looked better. "Is this all?"

The look of relief on his face when he heard she was with Clint was almost painful. He'd heard her be thrown, had heard her be caught, but then there'd been the explosions...

He spread his hands.

"That I know of. That he had anyway."

He offered an arm in a familiar gesture.

"I am so ready go to home."

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