Shadow Of Darkness: Avengers x Male Reader

Chapter 9: Taking Flight

A/N: I know there's been like a bunch of questions around (Y/N)'s age. Around the time I first started writing this I was obviously writing this with a darker tone to what I usually write, so I kind of wanted him to be older than other characters I've written. At one point I think I settled on like 24, but after a bunch of jumbling and plotting I've decided on 22. Or something around that. If you go back to the Prologue I added a date of birth. If anyone wants to gauge the age off of that, judging by when Avengers 1 takes place (which I'm pretty sure is early 2012), that'd be kinda helpful, haha. But, this author note is turning into an author essay, so I'll end it here. Enjoy.

3rd Person POV

"New York? Why would Loki be there?" (Y/N) raised an eyebrow, holding onto one of the rails on the quinjet's ceiling so he didn't fall.

"He needs Stark's tower to power the Tesseract." Steve said in a much simpler version of how Tony had explained it to him.

"Then let's blow up Stark's tower." (Y/N) said as if it was the obvious fix.

"Yeah, and have it collapse on civilians. Good idea." Clint gave him a thumbs up from the cockpit, making the man narrow his eyes.

"I'm sorry, what was that, Robin Hood? I fix your brain and you thank me like this?" (Y/N) huffed.

"I'm not criticising, I just think your ideas are terrible. Now sit down, we're approaching the city now." Clint waved a hand, ushering him to a seat with a hidden smirk as the other man growled at him.

"Sit down. We're approaching the city." (Y/N) mimicked as he sat down, a moody look on his face. Steve sighed, lightly patting his back.

The quinjet bounded over the buildings of New York City as it cleared the water, flying towards Stark Tower as a plume of blue energy shot into the sky. To make matters worse were the aliens bursting down from the rift the thing was creating.

"That looks like it's gonna be an issue." Natasha said in a musical tone.

"Can you fly? Help deal with those things in the air?" Steve shook (Y/N)'s shoulder to get his attention. The man looked to Steve like he was crazy, squinting and swivelling his head around like he had heard aliens existed. Oh, wait. He just had.

"Steve, I think you're greatly overestimating my powers. I mess with minds and people's fears. Yes, I can sort of fly (if you count smokey Death Eater gliding as flight). But my abilities are made for one on one battles. That's a fucking space army, pal." (Y/N) pointed his finger out the front window at the aliens.

"Listen. I know, but I need you to do your best and help us here. You're probably the strongest one here, so I'm trusting you with this. Okay?" Steve put his other hand on the man's other shoulder, speaking directly to him and making sure he understood.

(Y/N) locked eyes with the Captain, part of him wanting to be annoyed. But there was another part of him that was somewhat warmed by the speech. The two paused in that position for a few moments, making Clint glance back after hearing the silence.

"Damn, he's pretty good at that pep talk thing." (Y/N) hummed, looking to Clint who shook his head and went back to flying. Erebus got to his feet, patting Steve's arm as he stretched. "Oh, hey. Pass me your shield for a sec."