Summary: High above New York, an Angel and a Demon contemplate an alien invasion over a nice glass of rosé.

Hug thanks to alistra for betaing!!


*****


“You again? People are going to talk, you know.”

He hasn’t even turned; angelic vision seems to encompass the full 360 degrees. But the tone of his voice and a subtle shift in his wings make it clear that her presence is welcome. His wings are black now; for a moment she wonders idly whether he has chosen the colour in a nod to her, knowing she would come. The falling dusk, she notices, gives them an almost purple sheen.

Finally, he faces her; the smile in his eyes belies the diffidence of his earlier words.

“Yeah, well,” she says as she sits down beside him, careful not to dislodge the bottle of wine and two glasses that have materialized on the ledge between them. “There aren’t that many conversation partners around this planet with shared life experiences. Besides, I thought you called?”

She inspects the label on the bottle. Pointe du Diable Rosé, its colour deepened by the early evening light. He knows what she likes and is happy to indulge her; the hard edges of his own ascetic nature have long since been worn down by the delights and sensations this world has in abundance. And like her, he spends more and more time in corporeal form to enjoy them.

“I suppose I did,” he finally admits. “Although it wasn’t entirely conscious.”

She lets this slide; denial of their close association continues to be a bit of a thing for him.

“I like your new wings,” she says. “Black suits you. The white was a little … insipid.”

He chuckles as he reaches for the bottle, removes the cork with a flick of his fingers and starts pouring.

“I thought you’d appreciate the visual.” He hands her a glass. “Nice locks.”

Her hair, she knows, shines as a halo of flame in the day’s dying light. She’d hoped he would appreciate its humanizing softness; as it turns out, he seems to be fighting an impulse to touch it.

The view from where they are sitting, near the top of the Chrysler Building, is breathtaking. All of New York is laid out before them; windows and metal surfaces are beginning to pick up a fiery gleam as the sun sinks beneath the city’s jagged skyline. Above them, the normally silver scallops of the roof are bathed in gold and the gargoyles that jut out at the corners look ready to leap to life.

“So what are we celebrating tonight?” she asks, twirling the glass between her fingers and nudging her chin towards the bottle.

He shrugs; the movement causes his wings to rustle. The sound is both ominous and familiar, slightly threatening yet oddly comforting. It stirs something else in her, too, but she represses that thought as quickly as it arises: Reenacting the original sin is not for the likes of them. Perhaps they have both started to identify a little too much with their latest human avatars.

She struggles a little to remember her original question as he answers.

“The end of the world. Coming the day after tomorrow, around teatime. Or so I’m given to understand.”

“Again?” she frowns. “Also, I wouldn’t call that cause for rejoicing, exactly. I thought we were against that sort of thing now.”

He takes a sip of his wine and briefly closes his eyes as he savours the taste. The ability to feel joy for either of them had once been limited to responding to praise from their Masters, but appears to have gone curiously astray on this remarkable little planet. She, too, dips her long and sensitive tongue into the blush-coloured liquid, enjoying the little shiver of pleasure the act provokes.

She pulls her mind back to the discussion just in time to hear him speak.

“We are against global destruction, you and I, yes. But it looks like your side is bringing some big guns this time, and I have a feeling that mine’s either been asleep at the switch, or worse, is cheering on the doom for some stupid political reason. And as for the humans, they were completely oblivious until a few hours ago. Sometimes I even wonder whether their … SHIELD hasn’t been infiltrated by… Well, you know.”

His jaw sets for a moment before he continues.

“Snakes.”

He draws out the sibilant sound in what she knows is a direct challenge, his crystal eyes boring hard into her smoky ones; her breath hisses reflexively in response. Sometimes, despite the millennia of mutual tolerance and, eventually, friendship, the old instincts occasionally rear up.

“You said my side is bringing ‘big guns’?” she says, a little snippily. “Might I remind you, most of the messes we’ve cleaned up over the years couldn’t have gotten started without your people either looking the other way, or actively helping.”

She sheathes her claws and smoothens the scales on her back before she responds.

“So what does Armageddon look like this time? World War? Genocide? Insurrection? Global pandemic?”

“Alien invasion,” he says drily. “Leading to war, crimes against humanity, pestilence and really bad political takes. Something for everyone.”

“And you know this how?”

“Barton,” he shrugs, naming the human he’d chosen to watch within SHIELD - the man who’s personal aesthetic, she suspects, influenced the change in his wings. “He’s currently inhabited by one of the aliens.”



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