Intertwine

67 - You Owe Me One, Snake

ALINA

"Guys, we've got something entering our airspace." Maria said, coming into the sitting room, her face white.

"What?" I shot to my feet, instantly alert. Steve stepped behind me, hands moved from in his pockets to crossed over each other.

"We've sent communications to all the Governments and the UN not to shoot it down. It's definitely extraterrestrial."

"Is it them?" Bucky asked, leaning forwards in his seat.

"We don't know." Maria said. "You can follow me if you want to keep up with it."

Some of us followed her to the main technology room which they had set up when the Ascendency had entered New York. Nat elected to go and set up precautions in case it wasn't them. There were computers everywhere, agents with headsets typing furiously away, and Nick Fury stood at the helm. He nodded to us and then went back to what he was doing.

"Here." Maria pointed to her computer screen. "You can see the ship." She showed us a small dot on a radar.

"Where's it headed?" I asked.

"New York." Tony said from over my shoulder, obviously understanding more of the technology than I did.

"Is there a place for it to land safely?" Steve asked.

"Central Park would be the obvious place, but that's out of action." Maria explained. "If it's them then the roof here would work, unless the craft is too big."

"Let's hope it's not too big then." Tony said. "Where's Thor?"

"Here." Thor said, striding into the room, hammer in hand. "Is it my brother?"

I relayed to him what we knew and what we didn't know and he nodded. We locked eyes. Both of us were an anxious as each other, both of us hoping that it would be them. Neither of us was prepared to show it.

"I'm going to the roof." He said, walking straight back out of the room.

"How long until it gets here?" I asked.

"At the speed it's going, ten minutes, maybe less." Maria explained, pointing out to me all the parts of the screen I might not understand.

"Tony?" I looked at him.

"On it." As he walked away he made a gesture with his arms. His suit flew onto him, attaching together until his helmet clicked on and covered his face.

"Steve, are you coming?" I asked. He nodded. Together we made our way to the roof, deciding to take the stairs as it was quicker if we ran. On the way up Steve stopped off at his room to grab his shield and threw me a gun. I looked at my watch. Five minutes to go.

We took the stairs two at a time, racing up them. We burst through the door at the top to see Thor and Tony already there, looking out at the sky.

Two minutes to go.

"Where's Aditi and Peter?" I asked Steve.

"Doing homework." He replied. "They'll be safe if this isn't them. If it's a threat."

One minute to go.

In the distance I saw a small black speck coming towards us, growing bigger with every second.

"They need to slow down or they'll crash." Tony said, his stance ready to fight.

"You underestimate the technology." Thor replied, but even he looked uncertain.

The black dot was now visibly an aircraft, black and made up of all sorts of strange angles. I took a couple of steps back as it raced towards us, sure that Tony was right and that it would crash. At the last moment it slowed down and lowered itself onto the rooftop.