Chapter Forty Six: The Avengers

The TARDIS materialised on top of a glass table on the flight deck of the Helicarrier with its usual wheezing engines, leaving several people with a lot of questions. The door creaked open, and an exasperated sigh could be heard from inside. "Every bloody time," a female British voice complained. "Seven hundred years of time and space—you'd think he'd be able to fly this thing by now." 

"Oi!" a male voice shot back. "I fly her perfectly!" 

The owner of the female voice revealed herself, tying her long ginger hair back into a braid. "You landed on a table!" She turned to see most of S.H.I.E.L.D. staring at her, including several oddly dressed individuals who either had superpowers or a distinct lack of fashion sense. "Oh. Hi..." 

Nick Fury raised his eyebrows at her. "Where is the Doctor?" Beside him stood a fierce-looking brunette agent, Maria Hill, her hand already resting on her gun. 

"Oi, relax, he's fine," McKenzie assured him, accepting a hand off the table. "Well, I mean, he's a crap pilot but that's nothing new." 

The Doctor poked his head out of the doors, indignant. "Oi!" Then he saw the table he'd landed the TARDIS on. "Oh... Fury, great to see you. Er, sorry about the box." 

Fury just rolled his eye, turning to McKenzie. "My name is Nick Fury, I'm the Director of S.H.I.E.L.D."

"McKenzie Di Angelo," she returned, shaking his hand. "I, er, I actually know all your names. I kinda read up on you on the way." 

"Oh, excellent," Fury said, with more than just a hint of sarcasm. "Doctor, what part of 'classified' wasn't clear to you?" 

The Doctor winced. "Yeah, yeah, I know, but she can help in ways I can't." 

"What does that even mean?" Fury demanded. "She's a child—worse, she's a civilian." 

"Please feel free to check this out at any point," McKenzie said from behind them, making them both turn. Fury's eyes widened at what his colleagues had already seen: the brilliant white wings, the silver flames engulfing each fist. "If it helps, I punched a werewolf once." 

The agent at Fury's other flank—Phil Coulson—raised his eyebrows, smiling. "Man, I'm gonna need some more trading cards." 

Fury narrowed his eyes at the ginger, uncertain of her powers. But if she was with the Doctor, then surely she was good? "Welcome to S.H.I.E.L.D., Miss Di Angelo." 

She met his eyes with an equally distrusting look which, if anything, made him more inclined to trust her. "Copy that." 

***

A little while later, Steve, Thor, Bruce, Natasha, McKenzie and the Doctor watched on holographic screens projected from the table as Director Fury talked to the enemy, the Asgardian Loki. 

"In case it's unclear," Fury continued, "you try to escape, you so much as scratch that glass—" He pushed a button which opened the hull below Loki's cell. "Thirty thousand feet, straight down in a steel trap. You get how that works?" He pointed at Loki. "Ant." Then he pointed to the button that would seal his fate. "Boot." 

Loki laughed. "It's an impressive cage. Not built, I think, for me."

"Built for something a lot stronger than you," Fury assured him. 

"Oh, I know." Loki smirked into the security camera, knowing he must have an audience. "The mindless beast makes play to be the man. How desperate are you that you call these lost creatures to defend you?" 

"How desperate am I?" Fury echoed. "You threaten my world with war, you steal a force you can't hope to control, you talk about peace and you kill 'cause it's fun. You have made me very desperate. You might not be glad you did." 

"Oh, it burns you to have come so close," Loki realised. "To have the Tesseract, to have power, unlimited power. And what for? A warm light for all mankind to share, and then be reminded what real power looks like." 

Fury rolled his eyes. "Yeah, well, you let me know if Real Power wants a magazine or somethin'." He left the room. 

On the flight deck, Bruce sighed. "He really grows on you, doesn't he?" 

"Loki's gonna drag this out," Steve realised. "So, Thor, what's his play?" 

"He has an army called the Chitauri, that none on Asgard or any world know," Thor explained, crossing his muscled arms. "He means to lead them against your people. They will win him the Earth in return, I suspect, for the Tesseract." 

"An army from outer space," Steve muttered under his breath, shaking his head. 

"It's more common than you think," McKenzie put in apologetically. 

"So he's building another portal," Bruce assumed. "That's what he needs Erik Selvig for." 

Thor's eyes widened. "Selvig?" 

"He's an astrophysicist," Bruce clarified. 

"He's a friend," Thor corrected, his tone betraying a note of worry. 

Natasha nodded. "Loki has him under some kind of spell, along with one of ours."

"Why did Loki just let you take him?" McKenzie frowned. "He's hardly leading an army from here. What's he planning?" 

Bruce shook his head. "I don't think we should be focussing on Loki. That guy's brain is a bag full of cats, you could smell the crazy on him."

"Have care how you speak," Thor warned. "Loki is beyond reason, but he is of Asgard, and he is my brother." 

"He killed eighty people in two days," Natasha pointed out. 

Thor shifted on his feet. "He's adopted." 

"Iridium," the Doctor mused, inspecting the report on a holographic screen. "What did they need the iridium for?" 

"It's a stabilising agent." They each turned to see a man who could only be Tony Stark walking in. As he did, the other superheroes rolled their eyes. "Means the portal won't collapse on itself like it did at S.H.I.E.L.D." He punched Thor in the arm playfully. "No hard feelings, Point Break, you've got a mean swing." Then he turned back to the table. "Also, it means the portal can open as wide, and stay open as long, as Loki wants." He pointed to an agent on the other side of the room. "That man is playing Gallaga. Thought we didn't notice, but we did." 

McKenzie raised a hand. "Did everyone else get weirdly irritated then, or is it just me?" 

Tony ignored her, covering one eye to look at Fury's semicircle of screens. "How does Fury even see these?" 

Maria Hill's stony expression gave nothing away. "He turns." 

Tony blew out a breath. "Sounds exhausting." He turned to McKenzie and the Doctor, looking confused. "Who're they?" 

"Help," the Doctor deadpanned. 

"He's the Doctor, I'm McKenzie. What is it you do?" 

"That's a joke, right?" Tony assumed. 

McKenzie smiled sweetly. "Well, I know your name and I know you've got a massively inflated sense of self-importance. Is there anything else?" 

Steve tilted his head. "No, that's pretty much it." 

"Anyway," Tony said pointedly, rolling his eyes. "The rest of the materials, Agent Barton could get his hands on pretty easily. Only major component he still needs is a power source. A high energy density, something to kick start the cube."

Maria Hill frowned. "When did you become an expert in thermonuclear astrophysics?"

"Last night," Tony replied nonchalantly. "The packet, Selvig's notes, the Extraction Theory papers. Am I the only one who did the reading?" McKenzie raised her hand, shrugging. 

"Does Loki need any particular kind of power source?" Steve asked.

McKenzie shrugged. "Well, judging by the experiments he was doing, he's going to have to heat the cube to a hundred and twenty million Kelvin just to break the Coulomb barrier." 

"Unless Selvig figured out how to stabilise the quantum tunnelling effect," the Doctor pointed out. 

Bruce raised his eyebrows. "Well, if he could do that, he could achieve heavy ion fusion at any reactor on the planet." 

Tony beamed, clapping them on the back. "Finally, some people who speak English." 

Steve blinked. "Is that what just happened?" 

"It's good to meet you, Dr Banner," McKenzie smiled, shaking his hand. "I came across your work on anti-electron collisions last year, and I'm telling you, it's a great read." 

"And entirely on the right track," the Doctor agreed. "Completely unparalleled." 

"And I'm a big fan of the way you lose control and turn into an enormous green rage monster," Tony added.

Bruce, who had been looking quite pleased with the interest, stared. "Thanks?" 

"Dr Banner is only here to track the cube," Fury stated as he rejoined them. "I was hoping you two might join him." 

"Let's start with that stick of his," Steve suggested. "It may be magic, but it works an awful lot like a HYDRA weapon." 

"I don't know about that, but it is powered by the cube," Fury confirmed. "And I'd like to know how Loki used it to turn two of the sharpest men I know into his personal flying monkeys." 

"Monkeys?" Thor echoed, frowning. "I don't..." 

"I do!" Steve exclaimed, smiling. "I understood that reference." 

***

Later, the scientists and engineers had relocated to a lab on another level of the Helicarrier. 

"The gamma readings are definitely consistent with Selvig's reports on the Tesseract," Bruce reported, reading the analysis of Loki's sceptre. "But it's gonna take weeks to process." 

"You know, if you bypass their mainframe and direct a reroute to the Homer cluster, you can clock this thing around six hundred teraflops, right?" McKenzie told him, absent-mindedly toasting a marshmallow in her hand before popping it into her mouth. 

Bruce stared. The Doctor looked up from the equipment he was examining, grinning. "Yeah, I told you she was good." 

"I only packed a toothbrush," Bruce sighed. 

"You know, you guys should come by Stark Towers sometime," Tony offered. "Top ten floor, all R and D. You'd love it, it's candy land." 

"Thanks, but the last time I was in New York, I kinda... broke Harlem," Bruce admitted. 

Tony shrugged. "Well, I promise a stress-free environment. No tension, no surprises." He jabbed Bruce in the side with a pen.

"Ow," Bruce complained. 

The others peered at him, waiting for him to go green. "Nothing?" 

"Hey! Are you nuts?!" Steve demanded, storming in. 

"Jury's out," Tony shrugged, turning back to Bruce. "You've really got a lid on it, haven't you? What's your secret? Mellow jazz? Bongo drums? Huge bag of weed?" 

Steve shook his head, exasperated. "Is everything a joke to you?" 

"Funny things are," Tony retorted. 

"Threatening the safety of everyone on this ship isn't funny," Steve pointed out. "No offence, Doc."

"No, it's... it's all right," Bruce told him. "I wouldn't have come aboard if I couldn't handle pointy things."

"You're tiptoeing," the Doctor grinned. "I'd love to see you strut."

"I'd love to see you four focus on the problem," Steve stressed.

"Oh, you think we're not?" McKenzie asked coolly, and for the first time, Steve saw something dangerous in the sharpness of her eyes. "Why did Fury call us all here, and why now? Why not when they first lost Barton and Selvig? He thinks I'm a child with the weapons of a general so why isn't he worried what I'll do? Obviously he doesn't trust me, so why is no one guarding me? What isn't he telling us?" She shook her head. "We can't do the equation unless we have all the variables." 

Steve blinked in surprise. "You think Fury's hiding something?" 

"He's a spy, Captain," Tony pointed out. "He's the spy. His secrets have secrets. It's bugging him too, isn't it?" He pointed to Bruce, who made a face. 

"Uh, I just wanna finish my work here and—"

"Dr Banner?" Steve asked expectantly. 

Bruce sighed. "'A warm light for all mankind to share'. Loki's jab at Fury about the cube."

Steve nodded. "I heard it."

Bruce pointed to Tony. "Well, I think that was meant for you. Even if Barton didn't tell Loki about the tower, it's posted all over the news."

"The Stark Tower?" Steve raised his eyebrows. "That big, ugly..." Tony shot him a look. "Building in New York?"

"It's powered by an arc reactor, a self-sustaining energy source," the Doctor explained. "That building will run itself for, what, a year?"

"It's just the prototype," Tony confirmed. "I'm kind of the only name in clean energy right now. That's what he's getting at."

"So why didn't S.H.I.E.L.D. bring him in on the Tesseract project?" McKenzie asked pointedly. "I mean, what are they even doing in the energy business in the first place?" 

Tony made a face. "Good point, MK. I should probably look into that once my decryption program finishes breaking into all of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s secure files." 

"MK?" McKenzie asked, raising her eyebrows. 

At the same time, Steve went, "I'm sorry, did you say...?" 

"JARVIS has been running it since I hit the bridge," Tony explained, nodding. "In a few hours, I'll know every dirty secret S.H.I.E.L.D. has ever tried to hide. Blueberry?" He offered the Captain a paper bag. 

Steve shook his head, rolling his eyes. "Yet you're confused about why they didn't want you around." 

The Doctor snorted. "If they want our help, we need the intelligence." 

"I think Loki's trying to wind us up," Steve decided. "This is a man who means to start a war, and if we don't stay focussed, he'll succeed. We have orders. We should follow them." 

Tony wrinkled his nose. "Following's not really my style."

Steve couldn't resist. "And you're all about style, aren't you?"

"Of the people in this room, which one is: A, wearing a spangly suit; and B, not of any use?" Tony shot back.

Bruce rolled his eyes. "Steve, tell me none of this smells a little funky to you."

"Just find the cube." And with that, he left.

Tony frowned. "That's the guy my dad never shut up about? I'm wondering if they shouldn't have kept him on ice."

"He's not wrong about Loki," the Doctor pointed out. "He does have the jump on us."

McKenzie shook her head. "What he's got is a stick of dynamite. It's gonna blow up in his face, and we're gonna be there when it does."

Bruce raised an eyebrow. "Yeah. I'll read all about it."

"Or you'll be suiting up with the rest of us," Tony suggested.

Bruce chuckled, shaking his head. "No, you see, I don't get a suit of armour. I'm exposed, like a nerve. It's a nightmare."

"You know," the Doctor began, pointing to Tony. "He's got a cluster of shrapnel trying every second to crawl its way into his heart. The only thing stopping it is the mini arc reactor in his chest. Steve went to sleep in WW2, and woke up in 2011. Thor is constantly fighting his brother to keep everyone else he loves safe. Natasha was kidnapped and made into a master assassin, and now the man who saved her has been taken. If he survives, Barton's gonna wake up knowing he killed a lot of people for the man he tried to fight. Kez here died to save my life and mutated into who-knows-what, and now she'll never see her family again. I lost my entire planet in an interplanetary war nobody ever won. We're all messed up."

"But you can control it. You'll all walk away from this pretty much the same as you walked into it," Bruce pointed out.

McKenzie half-smiled. "Because we learned how. The hard way, when something terrible happened and we had a choice to stay hidden, stay safe, or to step up and fight. We all chose this, for better or for worse, and now we're gonna do what we have to do, not because Nick Fury tells us to, but because we know in our hearts it's the right thing to do. And you know that too."

Bruce shook his head. "It's different."

"Hey, I read all about your accident," Tony began. "That much gamma exposure should have killed you."

"So you're saying that the Hulk... the Other Guy saved my life?" Bruce tilted his head. "That's nice. It's a nice sentiment. Saved it for what?"

Tony shrugged. "I guess we'll find out."

"You might not enjoy that."

"And you just might."

***

Loki smiled, turning to see Natasha Romanoff standing outside his cell with a schooled expression. "There's not many people who can sneak up on me."

Natasha stepped closer. "But you figured I'd come," she pointed out.

"After," Loki acknowledged. "After whatever tortures Fury can concoct, you would appear as a friend, as a balm. And I would cooperate."

"I want to know what you've done to Agent Barton," she requested.

Loki smirked. "I would say I've expanded his mind."

"And once you've won, once you're king of the mountain, what happens to his mind?" Natasha questioned.

"Is this love, Agent Romanoff?" Loki inquired.

She shook her head definitely. "Love is for children. I owe him a debt."

"Tell me."

After a moment's consideration, Natasha pulled up a chair and sat down. "Before I worked for S.H.I.E.L.D., I... well, I made a name for myself. I have a very specific skill set. I didn't care who I used it for, or on. I got on S.H.I.E.L.D.'s radar in a bad way. Agent Barton was sent to kill me. He made a different call."

"And what will you do if I vow to spare him?" Loki asked.

She allowed herself a small scoff. "Not let you out."

"No, but I like this. Your world in the balance, and you bargain for one man," he grinned.

"Regimes fall every day," Natasha pointed out. "I tend not to weep over that. I'm Russian. Or I was."

"And what are you now?"

She stood up. "It's really not that complicated. I got red in my ledger. I'd like to wipe it out."

Loki smirked. "Can you? Can you wipe out that much red? Dreykov's daughter, Sao Paulo, the hospital fire?" Natasha's calm demeanour started to crack. "Barton told me everything. Your ledger is dripping, it's gushing red, and you think saving a man no more virtuous than yourself will change anything? This is the basest sentimentality. This is a child at prayer—pathetic! You lie and kill in the service of liars and killers. You pretend to be separate, to have your own code, something that makes up for the horrors. But they are a part of you, and they will never go away!" He paused, watching her eyes, wide in fear. "...I won't touch Barton. Not until I make him kill you! Slowly, intimately, in every way he knows you fear! And then he'll wake just long enough to see his good work, and when he screams, I'll split his skull! This is my bargain, you mewling quim!"

Natasha turned and took several steps away, pretending to cry. "You're a monster," she accused softly.

Loki chuckled. "Oh no. You brought the monster."

Instantly, Natasha dropped the façade, turning back to the demigod with a carefully blank expression. "So, Banner... that's your play." 

"...What?" 

Natasha spoke through the comms system. "Loki means to unleash the Hulk. Keep Banner in the lab, I'm on my way. Send Thor as well." At the door, she turned back to Loki, flashing the stunned Asgardian a smirk. "Thank you for your co-operation." 

***

"What are you doing, Mr Stark?" Fury demanded, striding into the lab. 

Tony shrugged. "Kind of been wondering the same thing about you." 

"You're supposed to be locating the Tesseract," Fury stated icily.

"And we are," Bruce assured him. "The model's locked and we're sweeping for the signature now. When we get a hit, we'll have the location within half a mile." 

"And you'll get your cube back, no fuss," the Doctor finished, before pointing at the tablet McKenzie was holding. "What's Phase 2?" 

Steve marched in and dumped a huge gun onto the table. "Phase 2 is S.H.I.E.L.D. using the cube to make weapons." He glanced across at Tony. "Sorry, the computer was moving a little slow for me."

Fury sighed. "Rogers, we gathered everything related to the Tesseract. This does not mean that we're—"

"Really, Nick, 'cause these look a whole lot like blueprints for the weapons," McKenzie interrupted, showing him the tablet screen. "Designed by S.H.I.E.L.D. technicians." 

Steve shook his head. "I was wrong, Director. The world hasn't changed a bit." 

"Did you know about this?" Bruce asked, and they all turned to see Thor and Natasha in the doorway. 

"You wanna think about removing yourself from this environment, Dr Banner?" she suggested. 

Bruce snorted. "I was in Calcutta. I was pretty well-removed." 

"Loki's manipulating you," Natasha tried. 

The Doctor raised his eyebrows. "And you've been doing what, exactly?" 

"He didn't come here because I bat my eyelashes at him," Natasha scoffed.

"Yeah, and I'm not leaving because suddenly you got a little twitchy," Bruce countered. "I'd like to know why S.H.I.E.L.D. is using the Tesseract to build weapons of mass destruction." 

Fury hesitated, then pointed to Thor. "Because of him." 

Thor missed a beat. "Me?" 

"Last year, Earth had a visitor from another planet who had a grudge that levelled a small town," Fury explained. "We learned not only are we not alone, but we are hopelessly, hilariously outgunned." 

"My people want nothing but peace with your planet," Thor assured him. 

"But you're not the only people out there, are you?" Fury pointed out. "I mean, who even knows where Tinkerbell over there came from."

McKenzie blinked. "London, actually." 

Fury rolled his eyes. "The point is, you're not the only threat. The world's filling up with people who can't be matched—they can't be controlled." 

"Like you controlled the cube?" Steve asked pointedly. 

Thor shook his head. "Your work with the Tesseract is what drew Loki to it, and his allies. It is the signal to all the realms that the Earth is ready for a higher form of war." 

"A higher form?" Steve echoed, confused. 

"You forced our hand," Fury protested. "We had to come up with something." 

Tony rolled his eyes. "A nuclear deterrent, 'cause that always calms things right down." 

"Remind me again how you made your fortune, Stark?" Fury snapped.

"I'm sure if he still made weapons, Stark would be neck deep—" Steve tried.

Tony cut him off. "Wait! Wait! Hold on! How is this now about me?"

Steve rose to the bait. "I'm sorry, isn't everything?"

"I thought humans were more evolved than this," Thor jeered.

"Excuse me, did we come to your planet and start blowing stuff up?" Fury shot back.

"You speak of control, yet you court chaos," Thor continued.

"It's his MO, isn't it? I mean, what are we, a team? No, no, no. We're a chemical mixture that makes chaos," Bruce corrected. "We're... we're a time bomb."

"You need to step away," Fury ordered.

"Why shouldn't the guy let off a little steam?" Tony asked, putting his hand on Steve's shoulder.

"You know damn well why!" the Captain exclaimed, throwing his hand off. "Back off!"

"Oh, I'm starting to want you to make me."

"Yeah, big man in a suit of armour. Take that off, what are you?" Steve questioned.

"Genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist," Tony rattled off. Natasha tilted her head, acknowledging it.

Steve shook his head. "I know guys with none of that worth ten of you. I've seen the footage. The only thing you really fight for is yourself. You're not the guy to make the sacrifice play, to lay down on a wire and let the other guy crawl over you."

Tony held up a finger. "I think I would just cut the wire."

"Always a way out." Steve scoffed. "You know, you may not be a threat, but you better stop pretending to be a hero."

"A hero, like you? You're a laboratory experiment, Rogers. Everything special about you came out of a bottle."

"Put on the suit, let's go a few rounds."

Thor laughed at them. "You people are so petty, and tiny."

The Doctor rolled his eyes. "Yeah, this is a team."

"Agent Romanoff, would you escort Dr Banner to his..." Fury trailed off.

"Where?" Bruce snorted. "You're renting my room."

Fury shook his head. "The cage was just—"

"In case you need to kill me, but you can't!" Bruce finished for him. "I know, I tried." Everyone else quietened, watching the scientist. "I got low. I didn't see an end, so I put a bullet in my mouth and the Other Guy spit it out. So I moved on, I focused on helping people. I was good until you dragged me back into this freak show and put everyone here at risk. You wanna know my secret, Agent Romanoff? You wanna know how I stay calm?" Fury unhooked his gun as Bruce unconsciously grabbed Loki's sceptre.

"Dr Banner, put down the sceptre," Steve ordered carefully.

At the same time, the computer pinged with a signal showing the Tesseract's location. Bruce put the sceptre down and walked over to check it. "Sorry, kids. You don't get to see my party trick after all."

"You've located the Tesseract?" Thor assumed.

"I can get there faster," Tony claimed, and McKenzie rolled her eyes.

Steve sighed. "Look, all of us..."

"The Tesseract belongs on Asgard, no human is a match for it," Thor stated.

Tony turned to leave, but Steve stopped him. "You're not going alone!"

"You gonna stop me?" Tony snorted.

"Put on the suit, let's find out," Steve shot back.

"I'm not afraid to hit an old man," Tony assured him.

"Put on the suit."

At that moment, McKenzie noticed an alert flashing on the tablet in her lap. "Oh my God," she whispered, just before one of the ship's engines blew up. Everyone was thrown to the ground, and in the ruckus, it was hard to see who was still in the ship and who had crashed through the glass window. 

"Put on the suit!" Steve ordered.

"Yep!" Tony agreed, and the pair helped each other out of the lab.

The Doctor and Fury had been thrown towards the other wall, and quickly left to go help out on the flight deck, the Time Lord looking back worriedly at the shattered window. Outside, McKenzie caught Thor's hand in her own as they plummeted towards the Earth, and used all her wings' strength to haul them back into the Helicarrier. 

"I am in your debt, my Lady," Thor stated as he helped her to her feet.

She smiled tensely, panting. "Well, you're welcome. But I think we have other problems." The Hulk's roar echoed through the Helicarrier, and the pair immediately jumped down through the floor to follow Natasha and help her survive the Hulk's attack.

They found her corner by the huge, green creature, who was about to deliver his final blow, but Thor swung his hammer and ploughed into the Hulk, driving him away. McKenzie took a minute to check Natasha would survive before running after Thor and the Hulk to join the fight.

"We're not your enemies, Banner!" Thor was yelling as he struggled against the Hulk's strength. "Try to think!"

Suddenly the Hulk punched Thor, sending him flying across the ship at an incredible speed. McKenzie took up the baton, forming an energy cage around the Hulk. "Bruce! Listen to me! We are your friends! You have to take control!" The Hulk broke out of the cage, and McKenzie was knocked back into a stack of equipment, winded. As the Hulk prepared to charge, Thor dashed in front of the girl, holding out his hand, calling to Mjölnir. He used it to uppercut the Hulk just as it reached him, sending it crashing back into the lab. Thor and McKenzie followed, teaming up to attack the Hulk from two sides, with hammer and energy. A S.H.I.E.L.D. pilot began shooting at the creature through the broken window, causing it to lash out as it turned, slamming McKenzie back to the ground. As the Hulk jumped through the window to deal with the pilot, Thor leapt over to cover the redhead's body with his own from the gunfire that was now spraying all over the lab as the plane was hijacked, then fell to Earth.

"You okay?" McKenzie asked Thor as the gunfire stopped and they got to their feet, Thor grabbing Mjölnir.

"I am fine, Lady." He looked around at the destruction. "This is Loki's doing. He plans to escape." After sharing a look, the two ran off to Loki's cage.

As they reached the cell, they saw Loki standing in the open doorway, about to escape. Without hesitation, they charged him down, only to find themselves running right through the illusion, trapping themselves in the cell.

Loki smirked. "Are you ever not going to fall for that?" Thor used Mjölnir to try and break the glass, cracking it. "The humans think us immortal. Should we test that?" As Loki's hand hovered over the button to release the cell, Agent Coulson appeared in the doorway, carrying the Phase 2 gun Steve had found. 

"Move away, please," he ordered pleasantly, and Loki did so, his eyes fixed on the gun. "You like this? We started working on the prototype after you sent the Destroyer. Even I don't know what it does. Do you wanna find out?" Before he could shoot, Loki appeared behind him, stabbing him through the heart with the sceptre. 

"No!" Thor and McKenzie cried. Loki turned back to them, and released the cell, letting them fall right out of the bottom of the Helicarrier. He turned away, ready to join his soldiers, when he heard a quiet, pained voice. 

"You're going to lose..."

Loki smirked, turning back to Coulson. "Am I?" 

Coulson managed a slight nod. "It's in your nature." 

"Your heroes are scattered, your floating fortress falls from the sky..." Loki chuckled. "Where is my disadvantage?" 

"You lack conviction," Coulson told him. 

Loki's brow furrowed. "I don't think I—" He cut himself off as Coulson pulled the trigger on the gun, sending the Asgardian crashing through the wall. 

Coulson smiled weakly. "So that's what it does." 

***

Once the battle was over, Steve, Tony and the Doctor gathered around the glass table on the flight deck. Fury stood in front of them, sliding a set of bloodstained Captain America trading cards towards Steve. "These were in Phil Coulson's jacket. Guess he never did get you to sign them." He sighed. "We're dead in the air up here. Our communications, location of the cube, Banner, Thor, Di Angelo... I got nothing for you. Lost my one good eye. Maybe I had that coming.

"Yes, we were going to build an arsenal with the Tesseract. I never put all my chips on that number though, because I was playing something riskier. There was an idea—some of you know this—called the Avengers Initiative. The idea was to bring together a group of remarkable people to see if they could become something more. See if they could work together when we needed them to, to fight the battles we never could. Phil Coulson died still believing in that idea, in heroes." Tony walked out abruptly, and Fury sighed. "Well, it's an old-fashioned notion." 

***

Having knocked Agent Clint Barton out as he attacked the ship, Natasha had him strapped down in the infirmary while he shook off Loki's mind control.

"Clint. You're gonna be all right," Natasha told him as she saw him strain against the restraints.

"You know that?" he asked. "Is that what you know? I got... I gotta go in though. I gotta flush him out."

"We don't have that long, it's gonna take time."

Clint frowned, sweat beading on his forehead. "I don't understand. Have you ever had someone take your brain and play? Pull you out and send something else in? Do you know what it's like to be unmade?"

Natasha looked down. "You know that I do."

Clint winced, then changed the subject. "Why am I back? How did you get him out?"

"Cognitive recalibration," she replied, before smiling at his confused expression. "I hit you really hard in the head."

"Thanks." He looked at her seriously as she undid his restraints. "Tasha, how many agents?"

"Don't." She shook her head, sitting down next to him on the bed. "Don't do that to yourself, Clint. This is Loki. This is monsters and magic and nothing we were ever trained for."

"Loki, he got away?" Clint assumed.

"Yeah," Natasha admitted. "I don't suppose you know where?"

He shook his head. "I didn't need to know. I didn't ask. He's gonna make his play soon though. Today."

"We gotta stop him," Natasha said determinedly.

"Yeah? Who's we?"

"I don't know. Whoever's left."

Clint shrugged. "Well, if I put an arrow in Loki's eye socket, I'd sleep better I suppose."

Natasha smiled, nudging him. "Now you sound like you."

"But you don't. You're a spy, not a soldier. Now you want to wade into a war. Why? What did Loki do to you?" Clint asked.

"He didn't, I just..."

He raised his eyebrows expectantly. "Natasha."

She sighed. "I've been compromised. I got red in my ledger," she said, referring to Coulson's death. "I'd like to wipe it out.

***

Steve and the Doctor had found Tony standing by where Loki's cell should have been, looking down into the shaft Thor and McKenzie fell down.

"Was he married?" Steve asked, talking about Agent Coulson.

Tony shook his head. "No. There was a uh... cellist, I think."

"I'm sorry," the Doctor said sincerely. "He seemed like a good man."

"He was an idiot," Tony countered bluntly.

"Why? For believing?" Steve questioned, shocked.

"For taking on Loki alone," Tony replied matter-of-factly.

"He was doing his job," Steve pointed out.

"He was out of his league. He should have waited. He should have..." Tony trailed off, looking down again.

"Sometimes there isn't a way out, Tony," the Doctor stated quietly.

"Right. How did that work out for him?"

"Is this the first time you've lost a soldier?" Steve inquired.

"We are not soldiers!" Tony corrected heatedly. "I am not marching to Fury's fife."

"Neither are we," Steve assured him. "He's got the same blood on his hands that Loki does, but right now we gotta put that behind us and get this done. Now, Loki needs a power source, if we can put together a list..."

"He made it personal," the Doctor mused, frowning.

"That's not the point."

"That is the point," Tony said, pointing at the Doctor. "That's Loki's point. He hit us all right where we live. Why?"

"To tear us apart," Steve shrugged.

"He had to conquer his greed, but he knows he has to take us out to win, right? That's what he wants," the Doctor continued. "He wants to beat us, he wants to be seen doing it. He wants an audience."

"Right. I caught his act in Stuttgart," Steve nodded, picking it up now.

"Yeah," Tony agreed. "That's just previews, this is... this is the opening night. And Loki, he's a full-tail diva. He wants flowers, he wants parades, he wants a monument built to the skies with his name plastered—!" They all looked at each other in understanding. "Son of a bitch."

***

"Time to go," the Doctor said, poking his head into the infirmary where Natasha sat on the bed, Clint using the bathroom to freshen up after the mind control.

"Go where?" Natasha asked, frowning as she stood up.

"I'll tell you on the way. Can you fly one of those jets?"

Clint walked in, drying his hands. "I can."

The Doctor looked at Natasha, confused. "Clint Barton," she said by way of explanation. "We're good."

"You got a suit?" the Time Lord inquired.

"Yeah."

"Then suit up." The Doctor grinned suddenly. "Welcome back."

Later, they met up with Steve and boarded a jet. A young S.H.I.E.L.D. pilot tried to stand in their way, despite Steve, Natasha, and Clint being fully suited up for war, the Doctor still in pinstripes and converse. "You guys aren't authorised to be in here."

Steve held up his shield. "Son, just don't."

***

Thor and McKenzie were tumbling back and forth inside the glass cell as they fell to the Earth, constantly banging against the sides and each other. When they collided for the tenth time, Thor managed to grab onto McKenzie and brace himself against one side of the cell. Then, the next time they fell, he pushed off and used Mjölnir to smash through the glass and hit the ground soon after, McKenzie throwing up a forcefield to ensure they weren't killed.

"Ugh," McKenzie groaned as she sat up, allowing Thor to reach behind her for Mjölnir. They had landed in a corn field. "Let's never do that again."

Thor grinned at her reaction, holding out his hand to pull her up, before holding her to him as he swung his hammer, lightning crackling. "Come, Lady. We must go." And with that, a fork of lightning struck them and they flew off to New York.

***

Tony landed at the top of his tower, clad in the Iron Man suit. Nearby Dr Erik Selvig was overseeing the device he had created, powered by the Tesseract. 

"Sir, I took off the arc reactor," JARVIS reported. "The device is already self-sustained."

"Shut it down, Dr Selvig," Tony ordered.

"It's too late!" Selvig cried, shaking his head. "It can't stop now. He wants to show us something! A new universe!"

"Okay." Tony used his suit to shoot at the device, but an invisible barrier threw him somersaulting back until he regained his footing. The Tesseract shot a constant stream of blue energy into the sky, opening a portal to deep space.

"The barrier is pure energy," JARVIS reported. "It's unbreachable. The Mark VII is not ready to be deployed."

"Skip the spinning rims, we're on the clock." Tony landed on his balcony and JARVIS removed the suit, before he walked into the penthouse where Loki was waiting.

"Please tell me you're going to appeal to my humanity," Loki smirked.

"Uh... actually, I'm planning to threaten you," Tony corrected.

Loki chuckled. "You should have left your armour on for that."

"Yeah, it's seen a bit of mileage. You've got the blue stick of destiny. Would you like a drink?" Tony offered as he headed to his bar.

"Stalling me won't change anything," Loki stated, unamused.

Tony shook his head. "No, no, no! Threatening. No drink? You sure? I'm having one."

"The Chitauri are coming, nothing will change that. What have I to fear?" Loki inquired.

"The Avengers," Tony replied. "It's what we call ourselves, sort of like a team. 'Earth's Mightiest Heroes' type of thing."

"Yes, I've met them." Loki was clearly not impressed.

"Yeah, it takes us a while to get any traction, I'll give you that one. But let's do a head count here. Your brother, the demigod; a super soldier, a living legend who kind of lives up to the legend; a man with breath-taking anger management issues; a couple of master assassins; the last of the Time Lords; an angel warrior who is one of a kind in the entire universe, and you, big fella, you've managed to piss off every single one of them." As Loki turned away, Tony slipped on his Iron Man suit homing bracelets.

"That was the plan," Loki informed him.

"Not a great plan," Tony evaluated. "When they come, and they will, they'll come for you."

"I have an army."

"We have a Hulk."

"I thought the beast had wandered off," Loki pointed out.

Tony shook his head irritably. "You're missing the point. There's no throne. There is no version of this where you come out on top. Maybe your army comes, and maybe it's all too much for us, but it's all on you. Because if we can't protect the Earth, you can be damned well sure we'll avenge it."

Loki frowned. "How will your friends have time for me when they're so busy fighting you?" He tapped Tony in the chest with his sceptre, but it just made a metallic clinking noise because of his mechanical heart. "It should work," the demigod muttered.

"Well, performance issues, you know," Tony shrugged nonchalantly. In anger, Loki grabbed him by the throat and threw him across the room. "JARVIS, any time now," Tony groaned.

Loki grabbed him by the throat again. "You will all fall before me." He threw Tony out the window.

As he fell, Tony's homing bracelets flashed red, and his suit flew out the window past Loki and built itself up around the man's body. It closed up just before he would've hit the ground, and he flew back up to Loki's height. "And there's one other person you pissed off! His name is Phil." Tony blasted the demigod back, then headed up to clash with the Chitauri army. As Thor dropped down to reason with his brother, an armour-clad McKenzie joined Tony in the sky, firing up her energies. 

"Right," she sighed. "Army."

"MK!" Tony cheered like a child.

"That's not my name," she replied, but she was smiling as they both used energy beams to take down Chitauri warriors as the pair flew up through them to the portal.

Suddenly, Natasha spoke up with comms through Tony's suit. "Stark, we're heading north-east."

"What, did you stop for drive-thru?" Tony asked sarcastically. "All right, swing up park, me and MK'll lay 'em out for you." The pair swooped down, drawing Chitauri fire down to Central Park, where Natasha shot the warriors down, Clint piloting the jet. As they swung round for an encore though, Loki blasted at them with the sceptre, destroying one wing. Clint managed to land the jet somewhat safely, and he, Natasha, Steve and the Doctor exited. As they did so, they noticed a huge worm-like ship—a Chitauri Leviathan—coming through the portal, flanked by more warriors.

"Stark, are you seeing this?" Steve asked through comms.

"Seeing, still working on believing," Tony replied as he and McKenzie shot up stray Chitauri from the group they'd unleashed on Central Park. "Where's Banner? Has he shown up yet?"

Steve's brow furrowed. "Banner?"

"Just keep me posted," Tony requested. He flew to the side of the Leviathan, while McKenzie had gone back up to try and lessen the amount of Chitauri reaching city-height. "JARVIS, find me a soft spot."

Down on the streets, Steve, Clint, Natasha and the Doctor were fighting a legion of their own. Steve noticed police staring at the Chitauri in horror. "Those people need assistance down there."

"We got this. It's good. Go!" Natasha told him, snapping the neck of a Chitauri warrior.

"You think you can hold them off?" He asked the Doctor and Clint.

"Captain," Clint smiled. "It would be my genuine pleasure." He and Natasha began shooting with arrows and bullets respectively, while the Doctor used his sonic to disable a warrior, stealing its spear to shoot with. The Captain, assured they'd be okay, ran off to give the police orders.

"Just like Budapest all over again," Natasha remarked as she and Clint fought side by side, the Doctor covering their backs.

Clint snorted. "You and I remember Budapest very differently." He ran over to a bus full of terrified civilians and began helping them out of the windows.

On the next street, Steve jumped onto a car in front of the police sergeant. "I need men in these buildings. There are people inside that can run into the line of fire. You take them through the basement or through the subway, you keep them off the streets. I need a perimeter as far back as 39th," he commanded.

"Why the hell should I take orders from you?" the sergeant demanded.

For a moment, Steve just stared at him, then two Chitauri attacked and the officers watched in awe as Steve fended them off with ease.

The police sergeant grabbed his radio. "I need men in these buildings, lead the people down and away from the streets. I want a perimeter as far as 39th."

High above, McKenzie shot a concentrated energy beam into the Leviathan's eye, making it turn to her and bite at her. She flinched. "Shit. What was step two?"

Steve saw the Leviathan when he made his way back to Natasha, Clint, and the Doctor as Thor dropped down to help them. "What's the story upstairs?" Steve questioned. 

"The power surrounding the Tesseract is impenetrable," Thor reported, knocking a Chitauri warrior for six.

"Thor is right," Tony agreed, fighting above them. "We gotta deal with these guys."

"How do we do this?" Natasha asked, look around as they hit a clear spot.

"As a team," Steve stated.

"I have unfinished business with Loki," Thor put in.

"Yeah, get in line," Clint told him, collecting arrows from the fallen soldiers around them.

"Save it," the Doctor advised. "Loki's going to keep this fight focused on us, and that's what we need. Without him these creatures could run wild. We got Stark and Kez up top, they're gonna need us to..." He trailed off as Bruce Banner drove up on a motorbike.

"So," Bruce said, dismounting. "This all seems... horrible."

"I've seen worse," Natasha said pointedly.

"Sorry."

"No, we could use a little worse," the agent admitted.

Steve looked up. "Stark, we got him."

"Banner?"

"Just like you said."

"Tell him to suit up," Tony replied. He laughed. "MK says she's bringing the party to us."

The girl turned a corner mid-air closely followed by the Leviathan. "I did not say party! I repeat, not a party!" she yelled, using her energies to augment her flight.

"You know, I agree with her," Clint stated, watching the flying girl with wide eyes as she reached Stark and punched him in the arm, jolting him a good foot away.

"Dr Banner," Steve began. "Now might be a really good time for you to get angry."

Bruce smiled at him, before ambling toward the ship which was getting closer and closer and showing no signs of slowing down. "That's my secret, Captain. I'm always angry." He swiftly transformed into the Hulk and punched the Leviathan in the nose, stopping it still as its back end flew up into the air with the momentum. As the two flying realised the ship would crush the others, McKenzie dashed down to shelter behind a car with Clint, throwing up a forcefield over them, and Tony shot a few explosives into the Leviathan's stomach. It blew, the Doctor and Thor hiding behind a nearby building, while Steve protected himself and Natasha with his shield.

Once the Leviathan was destroyed, everyone stood up, and Tony touched down so they were standing in an eight-point star, catching their breath while they had the chance.

"Guys," Natasha said, and they all looked up to see hundreds more Leviathans flying through the portal.

"Call it, Cap," Tony said.

"All right listen up. Until we can close that portal up there, we gotta use containment. Barton, I want you up on that roof, eyes on everything. Call out patterns and strays. Stark, Di Angelo, you got the perimeter. Anything gets more than three blocks out, you turn it back or you turn it to ash."

Clint eyed McKenzie as Tony flew off. "Wanna give me a lift?" he asked.

"Sure," she replied, grabbing him round his waist and flying up to the roof Steve had indicated. "You're Clint Barton, right?" He nodded. "McKenzie Di Angelo. Congrats on not being dead." With that, McKenzie took off, going in the opposite direction to Tony.

Back on the ground, Steve continued. "Thor, you've gotta try and bottleneck that portal, slow them down. You've got the lightning, so light the bastards up." He turned to Natasha and the Doctor. "You and me, we stay here on the ground, keep the fighting here. And Hulk, smash!"

Up at skyscraper height, Clint called out through comms. "McKenzie, you've got a lot of strings on your tail."

"Just trying to keep them off the streets," she explained.

"Well, they can't bank worth a damn. Find a tight corner."

McKenzie smiled. "Thank you." Clint watched as she sped up, flying into the entrance of a multi-storey car park followed by a large squadron, and came out the top alone a few minutes later. She flew back to him, landing on his roof to shoot up some Chitauri with him. "Anything else?"

"Thor's taking a squadron down on 6th," Clint replied.

They both jumped as Tony piped up. "And he didn't invite me," he complained. A moment later, they saw a red-gold blur zipping across the skyline, and Clint and McKenzie burst out laughing.

Down on the streets, the Doctor, Steve, and Natasha were tiresomely finishing off a legion of the alien soldiers.

"Captain, none of this is going to mean a thing if we don't close that portal," the Doctor pointed out.

"Our biggest guns couldn't touch it," Steve pointed out.

"Well, maybe it's not about guns," Natasha suggested.

Steve caught on. "You wanna get up there, you're gonna need a ride."

"I got a ride. I could use a lift though."

"Are you sure about this?" the Doctor checked.

"Yeah, it's gonna be fun," Natasha shrugged. She backed up, then took a running jump onto a car, launching herself onto Steve's shield as he thrust it up, allowing her to catch onto the back of an open-top two-beast Chitauri ship and commandeer it.

Tony flew up behind her, laying waste to the Chitauri following her ship, before making his way down to Steve and the Doctor. The Time Lord let loose a shrill sonic blast with his screwdriver, temporarily incapacitating the soldiers, then Tony shot an energy beam at Cap's shield so he could use the reflected beam to obliterate the surrounding enemy. Clint and McKenzie began shooting at the Chitauri coming up behind Thor and the Hulk, who were riding a Leviathan. The Hulk ripped a huge piece of armour off the creature, slamming it into the Leviathan's back, before Thor summoned lightning to Mjölnir, using it to electrocute the shard of armour, and therefore the Leviathan. The pair rode it down to the ground, then stood on its back for a while, catching their breath. The Hulk punched Thor, sending him flying as revenge for their earlier fight. He smirked.

Back on the streets, Steve and the Doctor were fighting off a legion of yet more Chitauri warriors, when Clint's voice filtered through the comms.

"Captain, the bank on 42nd, past Madison. They caught a lot of civilians in there."

"You got this?" Steve asked the Doctor, who speared yet another warrior.

"Go," the Time Lord ordered, before launching back into battle.

"I'm on it," Steve told Clint, jogging off.

High above, Natasha was being shot at by new energy beams. She looked back to see who it was, and groaned. "Oh. You." She accelerated, leading Loki on a wild chase, ducking between buildings.

Clint and McKenzie spotted this from their building.

"Nat, what are you doing?" Clint asked, laughing in amazement at the ship she'd commandeered.

"Uh... a little help?" Natasha requested, ducking another energy blast.

Immediately, Clint nocked an explosive arrow, pointing it at Loki. He smiled. "I've got him." He fired, and the arrow went perfectly straight, almost hitting Loki in the eye, but he caught it just in time, smirking. Clint smirked right back as the arrow exploded, sending Loki falling down to the balcony of Stark Tower. Natasha, on the other hand, landed with a roll on the roof.

Loki hadn't done much more than crawl into Tony's penthouse when the Hulk jumped through the window, roaring at the demigod. Before the Hulk could attack, Loki jumped to his feet, angry. "Enough! You are, all of you, beneath me! I am a god, you dull creature, and I will not be b—!" The Hulk grabbed Loki by his legs and slammed him into the floor repeatedly, before smacking him down one last time, so hard that he'd burrowed about a foot into Stark's concrete floor.

The Hulk walked off, smirking. "Puny god."

Loki whimpered in pain.

Up on the roof, Natasha got to her feet. "Dr Selvig," she called, approaching him.

"Loki's sceptre, the energy... the Tesseract can't fight. You can't protect against yourself," Erik told her disjointedly, his mind control dissipating due to Loki's distraction.

"It's not your fault. You didn't know what you were doing," Natasha assured him.

"Well, actually I think I did," Erik contradicted her. "I built in a safety to cut the power source."

"Loki's sceptre," Natasha realised.

Erik nodded. "It might be able to close the portal." He looked down to the balcony. "And I'm looking right at it."

Down on the streets of Manhattan, the Doctor was single-handedly destroying a large squadron of Chitauri warriors, almost being overwhelmed when Thor crashed down out of nowhere and smashed the soldiers creeping up behind the Time Lord to bits. Then Steve appeared, kicking a Chitauri's head clean off before continuing to behead them by throwing his shield like a Frisbee.

Around 30 feet higher, Tony flew alongside a Chitauri Leviathan, using his laser to try and penetrate the shell.

"Sir, we will lose power before you cut through that shell," JARVIS informed him.

Instead, Tony flew round to in front of the Leviathan, staring down its maw as it closed in. "JARVIS, you ever hear the tale of Jonah?"

"I wouldn't consider him a role model," JARVIS replied dryly with his British accent, well aware that his warning wouldn't be heeded.

Sure enough, Tony dove straight into the Leviathan's mouth, blowing it up from the inside before collapsing on a street, winded. He looked up at the Chitauri soldiers surrounding him irritably.

On the rooftop of an office building, Clint fired his last arrow, before using his bow to club down a Chitauri trying to strangle McKenzie. He then grabbed an arrow from a nearby corpse, switched it to a grappling line in his quiver, and held out his arm to McKenzie, who was panting and massaging her neck.

"Come on," he implored. "You're exhausted." Nodding, McKenzie wrapped her arms around him, and together, they jumped off the side of the building, freefalling until Clint shot the grapple at the building so they could swing through a window into an office. They groaned, then laughed at each other, then groaned again, because laughing hurt.

Down at the base of the office block, the Hulk was being whaled on by thousands of Chitauri energy blasts, none of them managing to do more than irritate him further.

Tony ran past, fighting off Chitauri soldiers as he went.

"Stark, are you hearing me? We have a missile headed straight for the city," Director Fury spoke through the comms.

"How long?" Tony sighed.

"Three minutes, at best. Stay low and wipe out the missile."

Tony groaned. "JARVIS, put everything we got into the thrusters."

"I just did," JARVIS replied. Tony shot up off the streets and into the sky in search of a missile to deal with.

As the red-gold suit flew past, a Chitauri soldier chucked a beeping grenade into the floor Clint and McKenzie were catching their breath in. They stared at it in horror.

A few seconds later, the pair jumped out of the window holding onto each other. The force of the explosion slammed into them, forcing them to hit the corner of another building. McKenzie let out a cry of pain, one wing at an awkward angle, but she stubbornly used the other to manage their fall as best she could, the pair crashing into the ground painfully.

Clint rolled off her as quickly as he could, kneeling by her side. "Roll over," he ordered, ignoring her claims that she was fine. He sighed in relief as he gently ran his fingers around the base of the injured wing. "It's just dislocated. I gotta put it back though. Brace yourself." With a yelp from McKenzie, he shunted the wing back into place, before rubbing her shoulders gently to try and relax her. Being tense would only make it hurt more. "There. Done."

On the street adjacent, Steve, Thor, and the Doctor were battling side by side. As one they threw their weapons—shield, hammer, Chitauri spear—to destroy a few of the soldiers swarming them. The Doctor and Thor caught their weapons, but just as Cap turned, a Chitauri energy blast struck him down. Thor upturned a car, throwing it at the horde, while the Doctor used his sonic screwdriver again to incapacitate the warriors as Steve recovered.

Thor gave him a hand up. "You ready for another bout?"

"What? You gettin' sleepy?" Steve raised his shield back up.

Up on the roof of Stark Tower, Natasha had retrieved Loki's sceptre. Erik nodded at her, and she used it to slowly break into the energy barrier, nearly touching the Tesseract.

"I can close it!" she shouted. "Can anybody hear me? I can shut the portal down!"

"Do it!" Steve ordered as Clint and McKenzie staggered onto their street, looking a little worse for wear.

"No, wait!" Tony interrupted.

"Stark, these things are still coming," the Doctor reminded him as he walked over to the ginger.

"I got a nuke coming in, it's gonna blow in less than a minute. And I know just where to put it," Tony explained. They all watched as he grabbed hold of the missile and changed its course, shooting straight up towards the portal.

"Stark, you know that's a one way trip, right?" Steve asked quietly. There was no reply as Tony flung himself and the missile through the portal.

Nothing happened for a good few minutes until, finally, finally, the Chitauri soldiers and Leviathans seemed to lose power, collapsing to the ground, dead. The remaining Avengers—Steve, Thor, the Hulk, Natasha, Clint, McKenzie and the Doctor—watched the portal, hoping they'd see a small figure come back out.

"Come on, Stark," Natasha muttered, shifting uneasily.

After five minutes, Steve shook his head. "Close it."

Without hesitation, Natasha stabbed at the Tesseract and drew the sceptre back out. The Tesseract's energy beam shut off, and the portal closed. Everyone looked down, realising their loss, until Clint grinned. "Guys, look. He did it." Having the best eyesight of them all, he'd seen what they now did. A tiny figure falling from the sky. And falling. And falling.

"Son of a gun!" Steve smiled, shaking his head.

"He's not slowing down," Thor realised, beginning to swing his hammer to leap up, but the Hulk beat him to it, snagging Tony out of the air and sliding down a building to land flat on the ground, Iron side up. The Hulk threw him off, and the others rushed over. The Doctor pulled off Tony's mask and threw it to the side, revealing Tony's face. He appeared to be dead.

The Hulk roared at him, making everyone else recoil. Tony startled awake. "What the hell? What just happened?" He looked around at the men surrounding him. "Please tell me nobody kissed me?"

Steve smiled, looking up at Natasha on the roof of Stark Tower, and nodded. "We won."

"All right. Hey. All right. Good job, guys. Let's just not come in tomorrow. Let's just take a day. Have you every tried shawarma? There's a shawarma joint about two blocks from here. I don't know what it is, but I want to try it," Tony rambled.

"We're not finished yet," Thor reminded him.

Tony paused. "And then shawarma after?"

***

Loki crawled up a few steps in Tony's penthouse, beaten and bloody after the Hulk's attack. He caught his breath, sensed he wasn't alone, and turned to see the Avengers glaring at him in all their glory.

"If it's all the same to you," Loki tried to joke. "I'll have that drink now."

Nobody objected when McKenzie punched him in the face.