The ship was hovering in space over the United States. Re-entry and landing at safe speed was a minute and a half trip, so it made sense they were all there. For Steve, it was strange. Half a dozen people, including SHIELD agents, with the super soldier serum were with him. He'd been unique for three years and the major part of a century and then… he wasn't. Made him feel relieved, but also more useless than everyone seemed to think. These people had been specialists, combat masters even before they'd used the serum. He'd just been a kid from Brooklyn. There were five more - An unconscious collection of super soldiers who were choking on Trent's poison gas. Two of his friends in PRIDE were hurriedly working on a cure and everyone felt sure that the super soldier serum would work.

The plan was simple, they'd drop down into atmosphere onto whatever city Trent attacked. Tina would locate and use a spell to break the enchantment, which went onto the list of the weirdest things to have happened since he thawed out, on Trent just as she had for Barton. They'd launch the… pocket nuclear weapons, which also went onto the list, that Andromeda was carrying into the alien fleet and shut the whole thing down. Then they'd rescue Erik Selvig.

Simple plan.

Steve tried not to fidget. Everyone was looking to him - He'd grown to be a legend across the time he'd been on ice. He couldn't help but feel everyone was wrong.

"Cap," Ward said. "He's hit the Triskellion, Pentagon, the White House, and The Capitol Building with bombings. Got a big beam in the sky in D.C."

"Head in to D.C." Captain America said. Confident, calm. Centered. That's what these people needed right now. Not the anxious energy of a man who spent most of his life asleep and was now tasked with saving his country from an alien armada.

—

The ship pulled up onto D.C. The grand buildings of the United States were in rubble - Trent had found some way to lay bombs near their foundations. Who was still alive and who was dead was a difficult question to answer and not for no reason. They'd count the dead when they got the chance. The beam was plowing upward from the National Mall.

There was a giant humanoid creature, three times the size of the Hulk, lumbering around the beam and glowing a similar shade of blue to the Tesseract, guarding it. It was standing in the rubble of the Lincoln Memorial on the far end of the reflecting pool. There were massive aliens streaming downward, worm-like from the sky, and some flying down on sleds.

Steve looked at Andromeda, who nodded, "Let's go!" He shouted and they opened the mouth of the ship. The ship itself hadn't been armed - It was a peaceful mission ship. But they'd managed to equip the soldiers with specialized guns and armor piercing bullets. The attackers were shredded by the bullets, which ripped through them, as the super-soldiers took aim and fired.

"Rumlow!" Cap said, "Covering fire! Minoru, we'll notify you when we find Trent!" And he led the other soldiers into a parachuting down to the ground. They scattered onto the ground, fire piercing through things. Rhodey followed close behind in his armor.

"Patriot, use the shrunken anti-air-missiles on those lizard worms!" The big blue one turned towards them. "Andromeda, you got any idea what that big blue guy does?"

"Move!"

And then the blue monster pointed both hands towards them and they only had a few moments to scatter before the blast left a crater in the ground. It was a big one too. "Bruce, now might be a good time to get angry."

"That's my secret Cap, I'm always angry." Bruce said over comms before dropping from the ship and plowing forward as a giant green brute. Thor followed after him.

"Anybody got eyes on Trent?"

"Not visible!" Andromeda said as she shrunk down and started to fly. It truly was an impressive little suit that Trent had made for her.

"Negative!" Ward said, blasting a few more of the drones in the face.

"Andromeda, focus on delivery! Take out those ships!"

"On it!"

The squad of super soldiers was pulling through, pushing deeper in, towards the monstrosity while eliminating attacks. The attackers were viciously outclassed by the professional soldiers who were attacking them, almost like they were drones. Steve himself managed to knock a few out with a relatively simple juke and began to wonder if they were people at all. They looked like people, they had the bodies of people, but they didn't quite act like people. It was a weird thing to see.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

Thor swept down and launched an electrical blast to clear the area around him. "Where is Selvig?"

"Don't know," Steve said, distressed. "We expected both of them to be here. We were choking off their potential avenues - It's this or nothing, but I haven't seen either"

The monstrosity aimed another blast towards them. Steve dodged out of the way fast enough, but Thor took the edge of the blast. Steve guessed he wasn't used to dodging around in fights. "Argh!" He cried as the blast hit. He went down. Steve dodged back and grabbed him before he got hit by another blast and dodged off. "That guy is so damn big!"

The Hulk plowed past them, leaping towards the monstrosity, which reached up a hand almost casually and slapped him to the ground in midair. The Hulk staggered back up, rolling out of the way of a blast that he apparently had the good sense to realize was dangerous. The monstrosity got fixated and tried to hit him again and again, blasting and turning to rubble the National Mall in the process. Steve and his crew of super-soldiers managed to put bullets through much of the enemy forces who were plowing through but there were far too many of them.

"In position, can't see Mike!"

"Andromeda, launch the attacks!"

"What if he's on the ship?"

"We're all going to die if you don't pull the trigger, I'm sorry Andromeda."

There wasn't any more hesitation than that. "Registered targets, firing now." It was an impressive act of self-sacrifice. The rockets streaked upward through the portal and into the enemy ranks. "They've hit." Andromeda said. The quietness of the explosions really drove home to Steve that the aliens were coming from space.

You're not in Kansas any more buddy, he thought to himself as the attackers all suddenly went dead around him.

----

Andromeda watched the nukes hit target with a sense of deep dread. She may have just killed the salvation of the whole world. It needed to be done, she told herself. It had to be done. She felt so anxious she just hovered, she didn't think to dodge or try to break the linkages between the earth and space. Her work was done. Her life was over.

Then a blue blast hit her. It slammed into her tiny form and she spiraled down in agony as her flying apparatus failed.

"Dear," she heard Mike's voice say. "I'm sort of impressed. You've really fucked this up for me."

Where had he been? How had she missed him? She looked around and caught sight of him sopping wet and in light armor. He'd been hiding in the reflecting pool. She staggered to her feet.

"I should've expected that Selvig wouldn't be able to spot you at that size. Goddamn it. This is what happens when I rush a plan, every damn time."

It was true. Mike's plans weren't the best when he was improvising them. The Wilders house proved that. "Mike, remember when we were stuck in that closet?"

Mike launched another blast that Andromeda barely dodged. It was surprisingly easy to jump extraordinarily fast. "Ah, are they listening in? If they knew I only loved you for Hydra, do you think they would trust you then?"

Andromeda was reeling and rolling as Mike tried to blast her again. "Nobody's going to buy that bullshit, Mike, at least come up with a plausible lie." Andromeda said, hoping nobody was listening anyway and launched forward, hitting Mike straight in the helmet. He staggered back and started to rally. She hit him another couple times and he went unconscious.

"Tina," Andromeda said, "The big guy's Selvig, try the enchantment breaker spell on him."

Suddenly, the monstrosity stopped and settled down, covering its face with its own hands.

Victor and Stark came down and figured out how to turn off the damn machine and its vibranium features. It was over.

She just had to hope Mike would wake up. They had a lot to talk about after this.