dont_bug_me:

Sydney stared as her own reflection in the full length mirror.  Gray skin, green hair, weird yellow eyes, wings, three-toed feet, overly jointed fingers, wings, tiny antenna...  And there was more there too, she could tell, things waiting for her to figure out.  Little trace of who she had been, physically, remained.

She wondered if she was even technically human anymore. 

But for the moment, she could forgive it all.

Because she was walking.  Without mechanical assistance of any kind.

dont_bug_me:

Days had passed since SHIELD medical had taken Sydney away.  Nothing they could do had been able to penetrate the cocoon, or even scan within it.  There had also been some kind of jurisdictional dispute with SWORD, but Fury could outscary and outmaneuver Brand in his sleep.

So far, it had been quiet.

But quiet, in the life of super-heroes, only lasts for so long.  Today... today the cocoon was beginning to crack.

dont_bug_me:

Sydney seriously could not remember a time when she had felt lower.  Her first feel outing with the Thunderbolts and she'd barely had time to do anything before both her armor and she herself had been taken out of the fight.  At least the SWORD medics had been able to patch her up and given her an otherwise clean bill of health.  The other T-Bolts had checked out fine too, before being given a clean bill of health, and the SWORD troops, after bringing in a piece of heavy ordinance, had routed the rest of the bugs (though not without  a few injuries of their own) and confiscated the ship.

Now, a couple days later, Sydney was hunched over a table in the lab, working on designs for her suit.

She had to be better.  She had to have some kind of purpose here.  Because right now?  She wasn't seeing it.  Not with Stark here.  Who needed her second-rate gear when there was genuine Stark-tech around?

nextgen_cosmic:

The ship's flight was ungainly, as it tore through Earth's atmosphere.  It had exited hyperspace too near the planet to have been stopped by SWORD's orbital monitoring station, and no one would risk detonating an unknown quantity while it was in the atmosphere.  It was ugly and utilitarian, clearly not Kree, Skrull, Shi'ar, Kymellian, Snark, or belonging to any of the other major galactic races. 

But it was there just the same, and it was screaming over the skies of Boston, heading toward the harbor.

SPLASH!!!

The ship hit the waters of Boston Harbor hard, sinking several boats in the process, before bobbing back toward the surface, it's hull pining as its metal cooled, sending showers of steam into the atmosphere.

A SWORD team was already on its way, but this "landing" would not go unnoticed by others.