7


I don't remember the moment I tried to forget,

I lost myself is it better not said,

Now I'm closer to the edge,

It was a thousand to one and a million to two,

Time to go down in flames and I'm taking you,

Closer to the edge...

~Closer to the Edge; by Thirty Seconds to Mars


A spew of curses had been let out and the tensions were so thick it could've been cut with a knife. The jet continued to fly over New York, but it didn't help that there was a bright blue beam shooting up from one of the towers—Stark Tower from what Steve had told me. From what we could see, nothing drastic was happening yet, but that didn't mean the stakes were at an all-time high with the portal actually being open.

"You guys seeing this?" Clint exclaimed.

Coming from the portal were flying forms, bright blue energy coming from them. Smoke and flames started rising from some of the buildings, explosions and the brief sounds of an unnatural screeching mixed in.

"Do we at least know if Stark's OK?" I asked anxiously.

"He should be," Natasha said.

"Do we have any way to get in contact with him?"

"That should not be a problem," Natasha murmured. After a couple minutes, Natasha let out a slightly appreciative noise. "Stark, we're heading Northeast," she exclaimed.

"What did you do, stop for drive-thru?" he cried. "Swing up park, I'm gonna lay 'em out for you."

The further we came to Stark Tower, the closer we got to seeing what those things were. Weird greyish looking things covered in armor, blue beams shooting out of the ships they were on.

Natasha managed to shoot some of them from the sky, but once we got to Stark Tower, Loki and Thor were in the middle of a fight—when Natasha tried shooting at Loki, he turned and shot a beam from the Scepter, causing us to crash. It took us a moment to recover from it, and when we did, Steve quickly handed out earpieces, saying it'd be easy for us to keep in contact if we had to separate.


"Stark, are you seeing this?" Steve asked. We had left the jet and stood in the middle of an abandoned, slightly destroyed road. People were running and screaming, those aliens—Chitauri or whatever they were called—kept flying around and shooting.

"I'm seeing, still working on believing," Stark said grimly. "Where's Banner? Has he shown up yet?"

"Banner?" Steve's brows furrowed in confusion.

"Just keep me posted," Stark said before disconnecting.

"OK, we've got a plan for this," I said urgently.

"Try and keep the bastards occupied," Steve said. "We need to take them out of the sky and close that portal."

When the Chitauri noticed us, they started shooting at us, some of them jumping from their ships to attack us. Natasha got out her guns and started shooting them; Clint fired off his arrows; Steve threw his shield and attacked them head-on if he needed to; and I threw out shields to protect us from their blasts and forced out enough energy to throw them back.

I let out a surprised, pained shriek when one of the Chitauri shot at me, just barely nicking my side.

"You OK?" Steve asked.

I nodded. "Probably nothing," I exclaimed. When another of those Chitauri tried shooting at Steve, I threw out enough energy to send it flying off a nearby overpass.

Steve peered for a moment over the overpass and a look swept over him. "Those people need assistance down there," he exclaimed.

"We got this!" Natasha cried. "We're good! Go."

"We'll handle this," I exclaimed, throwing out more energy.

"You think you can hold them off?" he asked Clint.

"Captain," Clint responded, almost smugly, "it would be my genuine pleasure."

When Steve left, tensions rose a little more. The amount of Chitauri seemed to have doubled, and no matter how many we took down, twice the amount from before seemed to have dropped out of the sky.

Natasha kept firing her guns, Clint kept firing his arrows, and I was trying to use whatever I had around me—broken glass, lose pieces of concrete, broken-off car parts—but it didn't feel like it was making much of a difference.

I nearly hit Steve with a sharpened piece of metal that came from a car before quickly swerving it over his head and into a Chitauri. Steve was using his shield to knock some of them back.

"There's too many of them!" I cried. It was true—the number of Chitauri we were trying to fend off had become overwhelming. No matter how many we took down, there always seemed to be more.

"Just keep going," Steve exclaimed.

For a split second, lightning shot down from the sky and struck all the Chitauri, causing the rest of us to jump back. Thor landed, stumbling a little, in front of us, looking tired and bloodied.

I hurried over to him, trying to assess his injuries.

"What's the story upstairs?" Steve asked.

"The power surrounding the Cube is impenetrable," Thor muttered.

"Thor's right," Stark exclaimed. "We gotta deal with these guys."

"Well that's fantastic," I grumbled sarcastically.

"How do we do this?" Natasha asked.

"As a team," Steve said.

Thor's shoulders stiffened for a moment. "I have unfinished business with Loki."

"Yeah?" Clint asked, fixing his bow. "Get in line."

"Save it," Steve snapped. "Loki's gonna keep this fight focused on us and that's what we need. Without him these things could run wild. We got Stark up top, he's gonna need us. . . ."

Whatever else Steve was going to say was cut off when Banner came strolling on in on some old looking motorbike.


Author's Note:

Sorry of this chapter was bad, but I have been hitting a bit of a writer's block so I am trying to do this the best I can. If you've got any suggestions or ideas for future updates, let me know and I will add them in.

I own nothing in the 'Marvel' universe, all I own are my characters and my fillers.

Really, if there's any way you guys could help me through this writer's block, I'd greatly appreciate it. Writer's block sucks! Leave a review or PM me on anything you think could help me through the rest of this story.

Leave a kind and helpful review, please!

Thank you.

Susan Strong