A/N: NOTE #1: This is it, folks. The grand finale, the final battle, the last stand, etc. The stage's been set, our chess-pieces are in place, and the spotlights are searing hot as they shine down and browbeat the characters here into complying with this story. As a certain genius billionaire playboy philanthropist once said, "Drop your socks and grab your crocs, we're about to get wet on this ride." We'll be wrapping up the invasion in it's entirety in the next chapter, so if you please, stay tuned!

NOTE #2: Again, the script/film plotline seems to be missing yet another segway moment to explain things, so I've added another transitional scene to flesh it out a bit. Please try not to hunt me down and smash me into the floor. Also, given that Loki does not actually have the scepter on hand with him when he crashes into Tony's penthouse right before getting smashed by the Hulk, but he does have it while he was chasing Natasha across the sky, I can only assume that it somehow fell down off the chariot when Clint's explosive arrow exploded in his hand and knocked him clean out of the sky, and in all the confusion, he either forgot to grab it, or purposely decided to leave it, given that the invasion's success was already somewhat "up in the air" by that point.. Thus, the "glowstick of destiny" dropped, landed in the city, and, in a rather convenient but nonetheless very useful landing, ended up in the right place needed for Natasha and Dr. Selvig to find it and use it to shut down the portal later on, thus terminating the link between the two points and leaving the invasion force to collapse like a house of cards.

This chapter has been brought to you by a lovely time spent at a local museum, complete with learning about the grim incredibility of dermestidae beetles (used in taxidermy, criminal investigations, and cleaning animal skeletons for exhibit displays, it's rather gross, but then, most neat things in science are) and getting the bizarre euphoria of being able to hold a real person's skull that's part of the preserved-specimen section (locally donated as an old anatomy teaching aid and fully sterilized for the public, of course) in my hands and feeling, "Yep, this is it, and it's completely awesome. My field of work, right here." And yes, there was a reenactment of Shakespeare's Hamlet involved with the handling of said skull. I couldn't resist.

DISCLAIMER: As usual, I own nothing financially profitable (that is to say, anything that looks even remotely cool and/or official) of Marvel or Norse mythology, etc., be it phrases/paraphrases, pop cultural references, characters, locations, powers, etc. I also do not own the Greek mythology reference. It's a storage jar, people, not an actual box, despite the popular misnomer. Nor do I own the Doctor Who reference.

WARNING: The usual level of gore, foul language, semi-graphic violence, dark/morbid humor, unaccounted-for cannon-fodder deaths, and, in this case, mention of guns, more explosions...and smashing. Lots and lots of smashing, and we all know the symbiote will not be happy about that last bit...It will give no second chances for first-impression meetings.

The air was ablaze with sound as they hurried through the streets, passing upended cars, blown apart fire hydrants, and chunks of sidewalk. Fires had started in several ruined vehicles, and the smoke wafted through the air in an uneven, greyish haze that cast everything in a blanket of heat. Every so often, another car would get blasted, or another window in a nearby building would shatter, and glass would burst apart in a sparkling shower or razor-sharp diamond-bright shrapnel.

Every hair on the back of Steve's neck stood on end with unease as Loki tore through the air above them, the scepter shooting a chain of neon energy bolts down like a hail of fire. Cars blew apart, people were running, tripping, screaming, sobbing wildly as they stumbled and ran from the scene, clothes torn and sporting various injuries. He wondered if the madman flying up above even cared that at least a half-dozen Chitauri were unfortunate enough to be hit with the scepter's rain of azure power in the process as they soared down toward the civilians, and, instead of increasing the human death toll, were shot and left to drop, bodies smoking and riddled with dozens of new holes, to the street below.

Steve looked down from the bridge, watching the oncoming hoards of terrified civilians surging forwards with concern. "We need to do something about this, those people need help down there..."

Dodging another bolt from a Chitauri energy rifle, Natasha pulled out both pistols strapped to her belt and fired off several rounds of bullets into the nearest wave of enemy soldiers. Wiping away a small trickle of sweat from her forehead, she turned to face him and said sharply, "Don't just stand there and gawk, then. We've got this covered. Go!"

Without missing a beat, she fired again; a guttural shriek rent the air as a Chitauri soldier dropped. Satisfied that the situation was in control, he turned to Clint for a final bit of clarification. "You think you can hold them off for a while?"

Nimble fingers flicked the trigger on the bow; an arrow, chosen and slotted into place within a split second, shot free with an echoing thwaakkkkk, slamming into the muzzle of a nearby enemy gun and plugging it. A moment of overload later, and the weapon burst apart in an explosion of alien pseudo-shrapnel and energy, tearing into greyish flesh and leaving unearthly screams ringing in the ears of all those present.

Evidently grimly appeased by the sound, Clint turned to Steve and nodded, a dark grin twisting up one corner of his mouth. "Kill off more of these things? It would be my genuine pleasure." Another arrow flew, this time tipped with explosives, and he tracked the potential carnage of the projectile with a grisly certainty.

The arrow ripped through the nearest Chitauri soldier's head in a blowout of unnatural gore, and Steve, offering a grateful nod to the archer responsible, promptly seized the opportunity the death presented to leap off the bridge, falling down through the air as another explosion followed.

Racing over the plaza, he inwardly wished, not for the first time, that the gargantuan city didn't have so many cars. As it was, leaping over them to save time maneuvering between them on foot in the vehicle-clustered streets was easier, but the Chitauri blasting them apart in an attempt to hit him made hurrying considerably more difficult.

Clint stared at the large school bus, fully occupied by dozens of terrified civilians, and felt a brief, burning urge to slam his head into the nearest wall, repeatedly. Dammit, when I was told the streets were evacuated, I thought it meant evacuated!

Letting out a sigh, he sprinted forward, taking in the dismal sight of the children trapped inside, clutched in their parents' arms in terror. Gotta get them out, fast. Those damn aliens are coming, and they've got no chance sitting trapped in that thing. You might as well paint a giant bull's-eye on it, it's so bright.

The door was jammed when he got to it, but opened up easily enough when hit a few times. Pulling it open, he stood back and pointed to the nearest pathway out of the mess of cars. Parents and children poured out of the bus in droves, running into the maze of vehicles with tiny hands clasped tightly to larger ones. A few stopped long enough to offer watery smiles and anxious thanks before taking off.

Behind him, clips emptying themselves into the hides of the nearest wave of alien invaders, Natasha stood like a statue of marble, beautiful and immobile as the snowy winter mountains. Her gun emptied, she slammed it sharply into the nearest enemy skull, swinging out one slim foot to kick the head in like a rotted watermelon. Bright eyes flicked over to him for a split second, glittering with the fire of battle and the familiar, reassuring shadow of familiarity, veiled from plain sight but as ever-present and high-functioning as the organs that powered their bodies to be maximum-efficiency espionage machines.

"Just like Budapest all over again, hmm?" The question was tinged with the barest hint of nostalgia, but considering that she was rarely, if ever, one for overt displays of sentiment, the wistful tinge to the words was more than enough for expression.

A grin formed at his partner's words, the remembrance of their infamous mission dredging up a feeling of amusement as he let out a chuckle and another round of deadly arrows. "You and I remember Budapest very differently, Nat..."

It was clearly the end of the world. He only wished that it had been zombies instead of aliens. Zombies he could prepare for. Aliens? There were far too many species of those to even try preparing for.

Firing off another round of bullets, the young officer cursed sharply as he reloaded in the shadows of an overturned car. Dammit all to hell, this isn't going to work! These bullets are as useless against aliens as they are in the action movies!

He turned to his police sergeant, wishing there was something, anything more useful he could do than ineffectually shoot at the things descending upon the city like a plague of airbourne spores of disease. "Sir, we need to get out, this isn't doing anything! They gotta bring in the National Guard!"

The look of grim dismay on the other man's face caused his innards, for a sickening moment, to feel as if they'd been dropped out of his body. "The National Guard? Hell, does the army even know what's happening out here?"

He swallowed, the uncomfortable lump in his throat burning like a mouthful of hot peppers. "Do we, Sir? This isn't exactly our division, here."

For a moment, there was no answer, save for the howling of the wind and the distant screams of the civilian populace, and then a sharp thud shook the air as someone in the most blinding colours on the block landed in front of them.

He blinked, staring up in surprise at the sight before him; beside him, his superior officer stared, open-mouthed with eyes wide. That's...that's...

The apparent hallucination paid their shock no heed. "Sorry for the sudden drop in, but I need men in these buildings, pronto. There's too many people inside that could run into the line of fire. You need to take them through either the basement or through the subway, but keep them off the streets, got it? I need to get a perimeter as far back as 39th now."

He resisted the urge to hang his head in frustration as his police sergeant's expression grew angry, a sure sign of annoyance at the sudden order. "Ah huh, I don't think so, sonny. Why the hell should I be taking orders from you?"

An explosion burst into life behind them, accompanied by an energy blast from a nearby alien rifle, and the shield rose up automatically to block it, leaving the flames to burn harmlessly against the gleaming surface and scatter into nothing but fading sparks.

Angered by the deflection of the attack, several Chitauri soldiers advanced in a streak of rotting grey flesh and screeching yowls, rifles raised and ready to fire off again. A quick exchange of kicks, punches, and rough jabs to the head later, and those same aliens lay in a battered heap on the ground, heavily bruised and missing both their rifles and several chunks of armor.

The brief scuffle thus ended, blue eyes moved away from the grimly satisfying sight to look at them in a silent question of Anything else I need to prove?

There was an audible swallowing noise, he noted, that the sergeant emitted before managing to turn to those gathered and barking out sharply, "You heard the man! I need men in these buildings ASAP! Get them down and away from the streets as much as possible, we need to form a perimeter as far as 39th!"

Damn, first aliens, then Captain freaking America, and now Sarge is actually taking orders? Looks like the kooks were right, we're going out with a bang on a Thursday after all...

The sky line was flooded with hundreds of flying chariots and bolts of sizzling plasma energy. Tony wondered, somewhat idly, when one of them would actually hit him.

So far, so good. Huge numbers, but also absolute crap at aiming.

Swerving around the nearest oncoming high-rise building, he turned and surveyed his quarry. Unaware of the small human presence hiding behind it's shadow, the enourmous, lumbering Chitauri leviathan screeched as it flew overhead, a rumbling, booming hiss that echoed through the air and left the hairs on the back of his neck standing on end.

Alright, let's see what we've got to work with...

Opening up one of his smaller multiple-rocket launchers, he took aim and fired. C'mon, do something, anything...!

The missiles, almost pitifully small in comparison to their alien target, slammed into slate and bone-coloured chitin with a series of tiny bursts of explosions, and the leviathan let out an earsplitting roar of annoyance, turning to him with the cold, single-minded intent of a predator about to crush it's newly-sighted prey into a pile of bloody splinters.

Damn, it actually worked. Okay, time to high-tail it out of here before it decides to eat me.

The communications network flared to life onscreen inside the suit helmet in a burst of red and blue. "Well, J.A.R.V.I.S., looks like we've got his attention. Now, if you don't mind, what the hell is step two!?"

In response, a map opened up onscreen, highlighting a path between the city's upper buildings and the zooming ranks of dusky alien soldiers and battleships. "Sir, I believe the most appropriate term to use would be to, and I quote, "Get the hell out of Dodge."

Right, then. Good plan. He looked up at the incoming mass of unnatural bony flesh, jagged teeth and frigid, beady eyes zeroing in on him, and tore off through the sky, flying so fast as to appear as a streak of burnt gold and scarlet tearing a lengthening rip through the heavens.

The street had been evacuated, but no matter how many Chitauri were disposed of, more kept coming in replacement of their fallen ranks, unceasing and unyielding in both numbers and brutality.

He would almost hate it, if not for the fact that the rising kill count concerning the alien dead was almost disgustingly satisfying to increase.

Tripping up another soldier, he whipped an arrow out of the quiver on his back and promptly rammed the projectile down the alien's throat, tearing through the delicate inner tissues with a brutal efficiency. One more tally mark for me, then.

He wondered how Natasha was doing. Is her score higher than mine yet?

For once, he was inclined to, at the very least, doubt it. His partner may be ruthless when it came to dispatching the opposition quickly, efficiently, and often creatively, but she did not have the dubious incentive of a burning desire to slaughter every last damnable piece of walking alien filth that had, less than a day ago, been considered the proper side to be on in this chaotic conflict between Earth's clashing native and invading forces.

Ducking to avoid an energy blast that would otherwise have torn a fist-sized chunk out of his shoulder, he turned to watch Natasha seize an energy rifle from the slowly cooling fresh corpse at her feet, then use it to fire off a half-dozen bolts of boiling-hot power into the dead alien's fellow soldiers in a quick, fluid flourish of movement. The newly-slaughtered Chitauri dropped like sacks of wet cement, and when another tried to attack her from behind, she slammed the butt of the rifle into the sunken abdomen, flipped the weapon over, and then shot twice at point-blank range.

The alien dropped, dead from a new head wound the size of a dinner plate oozing blood and liquefied brain tissue, and she straightened up, watching the smoke leak from the muzzle of her new plaything with a calm, considering air.

Yep, he decided, definitely higher.

Steve had rejoined the fight only moments before, having gotten help in clearing out the nearby buildings of any remaining bystanders, and had taken to combat with the blunt, no-nonsense air of a man resigned to war, and resolved to doing to his best to help end it quickly. His shield, gleaming dully with a sickly coating of Chitauri gore, ricocheted back and forth in a dizzying blur of gruesome movement, slicing neatly through enemy limbs and severing heads from necks as if cutting through paper.

The air was irritatingly overheated, reeking of blood and carnage, and every breath stung as it passed back and forth into and out of tired lungs.

Natasha, having run out of bullets, was relying on the energy rifle and her own hand-to-hand combat skills to take down her opponents, but there was only so many times one could blast apart your enemy before you ran out of options. Back to back with Clint, she eyed her partner's dwindling supply of arrows and wondered how long they had left.

Steve slammed his shield down on another Chitauri's head, ignoring the ugly, gurgling crack as the skull caved in like a rotting watermelon from the blow, and aimed to throw it again. To his dismay, there was a fresh wave arriving, and it was going to be next to impossible to use his shield as a workable projectile in the long-term with so many bodies to block the return path. Damn it, where's the cavalry when you need 'em?

The answer came a split second later, in the form of a water-tower-sized bolt of lightning ripping through the air to slam down in a brutal explosion of power. An echoing crash of sound resonated around the block like the bells rung in a church, loud and pealing as a klaxon siren. Chitauri bodies flew every which way in a sickening splatter of gore and gristle; those who had been out of the initial blast radius were left convulsing violently for several moments as the lightning passed through flesh, before dropping to the ground, dead and occasionally twitching in postmortem spasms.

Thor landed in the midst of the grisly scene, aureate hair messier than usual from the wind; his cape, torn and singed in several places, fluttered in a swath of bloody fabric against his ankles like the quivering forms of hunting hounds, ready to be loosed upon some unfortunate burrow-dweller.

Steve approached the thunder god, a faint sense of relief slowly burning forth through the wall of the detached combative mindset from the earlier fight. "Good to see you, Thor. So, what's the story upstairs?"

Stormy blue eyes gazed back, haggard from battle and efforts at reconciliation. "Though I do not wish to be the bearer of unfortunate news, I cannot keep this secret. It is as we feared: the powers surrounding the cube are unyielding. The Tower remains an impenetrable fortress."

"Well, that's a bummer," came Tony's voice from the communications network. The usually sturdy, cocky tone was laced with an air of both annoyance and resignation, crackling through the earpieces like broken glass crunching underfoot. "Thor's told us the bad news, but we still gotta deal with these guys before they turn the city into their personal intergalactic airport terminal here..."

"Then how do you suggest we do this?" Natasha cocked her new weapon in preparation for another round of battle, eyes scanning the newest batch of soldiers with an air of careful scrutiny.

Steve turned to look at her, shield thumping solidly against his side. "We need to work as a team."

Thor shook his head, fingers gripping Mjolnir tightly enough to leave veins bulging out visibly against tan skin. "I have unfinished business to settle with Loki."

Clint's eyes narrowed in barely restrained rage. "Yeah, well, you know what? Get in line, Earth's gonna have you wait-listed for the next century and a half, considering how many people got screwed by this."

Looking over the scene, Steve resisted the urge to hit something from frustration. Remember your super-strength, Rogers. Remember that if you hit something, it'll probably break bone now. We can't have that right now.

Forcing down the urge to shake his teammates until they stopped arguing, he muttered, "Look, just save it, alright? Loki's gonna keep this fight focused on us as much as possible, and we need to capitalize on that. Without him, those things are nuts enough that they could run wild. Now, let's see, we've got Stark up top, and he's gonna need us to..."

He trailed off in surprise as the faint but steadily increasing rumble of a motorbike resonated throughout the wreckage of the city block.

All eyes turned in a collective fit of curiosity, taking in arguably the most surreal sight since the portal began spewing aliens: Bruce, clad in some clearly-borrowed civilian clothing, driving up on a motorbike to the wreckage of the smashed car right in front of them. His expression lacked some of its accustomed world-weary exhaustion, and his eyes were reassuringly bright and clear.

Curly hair blew into tangled snarls of dark brown from the wind as the gamma radiation scientist took in the scene of ruination with an almost insulting air of calm. "Well," he remarked dryly, "This all seems to be rather horrible."

Natasha's gaze met his, a dark-humored smile quirking up the edges of her mouth into a bittersweet half-smirk. "Trust me, I've seen worse than this."

He rubbed the back of his head with one hand, expression somewhat sheepish. "Erm, sorry?"

She shook her head, hair swishing like a spray of fresh blood. "No, don't worry about it. As a matter of fact, we probably could use a little worse right about now."

"What about Stark? We've got him," Steve offered.

Tony's voice crackled over the intercom, indignant. "Hey, I resent that! What about Banner?"

He let out a gusty sigh before answering. "Just like you said." Just don't be a braggart about it.

The intercom burbled again as Tony spoke up again. "Alright, then tell him to suit up and get ready to rumble. I'm bringing the party to you."

A moment of quiet flooded the air, and then Tony darted out from behind the tallest building on the block, the streak of red and gold tearing through the air in an effort to stay out of reach of the Chitauri leviathan's gaping, hungry maw as it flew behind, impatiently snapping gargantuan jaws at the much smaller figure weaving figure eights and circles around it in a dizzying show of evasion.

They looked up, weapons drawn and ready to fire, tension thrumming through their veins as they took in the bizarre sight.

Natasha fired off another shot from the rifle, knocking a Chitauri off it's chariot several stories up, before looking up at the sky in faint confusion as the leviathan smashed its way through the nearest high-rise office building. "I..I don't see how that's supposed to be a party..."

Tony flew abruptly downwards, soaring down the street in a flash, and the leviathan, true to form, followed suit, tearing down the length of the closed-in space and growling an earsplitting dirge of guttural rage.

Bruce, eyes widening at the cacophony of noise, turned around to observe the chase. "Oh, damn..."

Steve watched as the scientist began to walk toward the lumbering beast tearing apart the lower part of the block, and swallowed, wishing he didn't have to broach such a sensitive topic. "Dr. Banner, I hate to say it, but right now might just be a really good time for you to get angry..."

He forced himself not to react as the other man's dark eyes gazed back at him, filled with the sort of quiet determination he'd known in men who had walked to certain death on the battlefield, knowing they would face hell and yet willing to do so to earn the rest of their battalion a few days of precious time to regroup and recover.

"But don't you see?," and there's a smile on that worn face, faded and bittersweet but still there, "That's my little secret, Cap. I'm always a little angry. It just takes a little push to get it rolling."

He rolled his shoulders, cracking stiff joints, and then green raced across his skin, wild and unrestrained. Bones creaked, teeth clacking together, and a guttural moan of pain was wrenched forth, an all-too human cry of muffled agony transforming into a howl that left ears ringing.

The Chitauri leviathan screeched as a huge, green hand slammed abruptly into its front, shattering chitin apart and knocking the behemoth of alien power into a tailspin.

Tony flew overhead, a rocket firing out from a launcher held in the plating of one arm. The projectile slammed into a soft spot made into the smashed armor plating of the living ship, and the leviathan burst apart in an earth-shattering scream of agony. Blood and bone and chunks of meat rained down onto the street, glazing the pavement like a new coating of stinking tar, sizzling and smoking upon impact.

Steve instinctively raised his shield, using it as an umbrella to block the worst of the unpleasant shower, and didn't object when both Clint and Natasha clustered close to huddle under the makeshift protective covering.

Up on the rooftops and clinging to the sides of upper-story buildings, the remaining Chitauri stared in silent horror at the sight of their ranks being demolished by the native forces. It was clear that the would-be place of conquest did not intend to make the invasion an easy one.

Loki watched the first wave crash and burn in a splatter of carnage and fire, drinking in the sight of the ensuing bloodbath as the rest followed in a burst of savage destruction.

Bodies hit the streets in a crushing blanket of rotting flesh, limbs severed or sprawled every which way and weapons smashed to pieces. Glassy, dark eyes stared emptily at the surrounding world, blank and cold as the Void that had held them like sins trapped in a too-small pithos.

Sso many gone, gone, gone...! The symbiote chanted the words with an almost childish glee, each syllable sharpened to a razor-edge clarity with shared disdain. Wickedly fierce agreement with his other half's observation of the destruction below welled up and burst forth in a wave of soothing warmth.

He looked to the portal, watching another spray of soldiers pour forth like tainted water from a poisoned well, and felt a cold smile settle into place. The symbiote curled against his fingers, tendrils pressing to each thin digit in an unspoken demand for attention as It watched the the opera of demolition below. The god obligingly rubbed the ebony surface, idly stroking the answering tendrils and tracing battle hymns into the malleable exterior covering as, together, they watched another leviathan burst apart in a shower of gore from several well-aimed bolts of lightning. Chitauri soldiers fell irregularly from blasts of electricity and several bouts of repulsor fire, dropping like smashed flies down from their chariots and footholds on the sides of tall buildings to land in shattered piles of chitin and gore below.

Gripping the scepter tightly, he poised the Mind Gem to face the gaping maw of the intergalactic gate, shuddering inwardly as the link opened up, and forced himself to speak, letting the words ring forth in a death knell with the help of an amplifying charm.

"It'ss time to end it. Ssend in the resst."

Let them come hence to their deathss, let them dance to the tune of their own demisse. I will lead them into battle on a piper'ss fife of poissoned notess, for I promissed it to you, and I keep my promissess, all of them. They will burn to cinderss at the handss of thosse you wanted to offer to your lady love, and you will have your dead, and I will have my vengeance.

The portal sang a gruesome march of death and destruction as it regurgitated more Chitauri and leviathans, the cold reaches of space warping in a silent cry of agony as the connective pathway between realms was stretched like a handful of saltwater taffy to accommodate the new arrivals.

The new ranks flitted through the air like clusters of arrows shot from a parapet, hurtling forward to ensure a slaughter of those down below.

They looked at the sky, buzzing with the horrors of outer space. Their weapons seemed pitifully outmatched in comparison.

Natasha cocked her new rifle, stance shifting impatiently from one foot to the next in a restrained, instinctive urge to run from the massive rush of incoming destruction. "Guys..."

Tony looked down at the remainder of the city's last resort in defense, and let out a sigh. "Call it in, Cap. We need info here."

Steve stared back at him for a moment, eyes narrowed as he assessed the other man's words, before something in his expression cleared and he turned, decision made. "Alright," he said sharply, looking to each of them in turn, "We've got to do something about the new arrivals, so until we can do something to close up the portal, we're gonna have to use containment to keep this from spreading any further. Barton," he pointed to the archer, eyes flickering up to the roof for a moment, "I want you on that roof up there, we need eyes on everything. Call out any patterns and strays, we'll take 'em out faster if they're predictable."

Turning his gaze upwards, he continued. "Stark, you've got the perimeter. If anything gets more than three blocks out, I need you to either turn it back, or turn it to ashes, got it?"

A nod, and he turned back to Clint, who had been looking at the rooftop with a look of faint puzzlement. "Well," he muttered as he turned to give Tony a pointed look, "all jokes aside, since I can't exactly fly up there, mind giving me a bit of a lift here?"

"Right, then, I'm demoted to taxi service. Better clench up, Legolas, we're going flying." Armored hands reached out and seized muscled shoulders, and Clint let out a stream of curses as he was abruptly yanked from the ground and hauled into the air, deposited shortly on the rooftop with a thud.

Steve looked to Thor next, watching Mjolnir pass from hand to hand in a dizzying crackle of electrical energy, humming with raw, unbridled power. "Thor, you're the only one with enough power to shut it down, so you've got to bottleneck the portal, understand? Slow them down with your lightning, light the bastards up like dry firewood if it'll keep them from getting a foothold here."

Face set in grim determination, the thunder god nodded. Swinging Mjolnir overhead once, twice, three times, he flew away, a clap of echoing sound echoing after him as, overhead, the clouds thickened and darkened in preparation for a storm.

Looking to the remaining assassin, he felt his slowly eroding strength rise as he looked at the look of sharp, quiet calm on Natasha's face. "You and me, we're on the ground, so let's try to keep the fighting here. Ready to bust some more heads?"

The faint, but unmistakable smile back was answer enough.

"Alright then," he muttered to himself, "just one more thing to do." Looking to the mountain of green muscle shaking slightly in anticipation, he let the last of his reservations go, and pointed a finger at the oncoming hoard of Chitauri. "And Hulk? It'd be really helpful if you'd go smash."

A massive smile, almost-but-not-quite terrifying in its blinding sharpness, greeted the request, and with that, the Hulk ran forward and took a great leap up, slamming into the upper stories of a gigantic high-rise office building and running up the length of it in great, towering strides, throwing off several Chitauri soldiers clinging to the side of the building in the process.

Chipping away at their own wave of enemies with grim, bloodied determination, Steve and Natasha watched in silent awe as the gargantuan mountain of muscle launched himself from building to building in huge leaps, as if jumping off a diving board, and threw handfuls of struggling Chitauri soldiers back at their fellows as if lobbing a series of dodgeballs. The alien warriors screeched and fired at him, and in response, the Hulk reached out with meaty hands, crushing the smaller bodies like cockroaches, and threw them down shortly afterward just to begin again.

After a few moments, he seemed to tire of that too, and instead took a huge leap into the air, arriving in the center of a buzzing Chitauri airspace filled with countless leering leviathans and cold-eyed soldiers, and began brutally smacking at the nearest batch of warriors as he fell back to the ground.

Thor clung to the gigantic glass tower with as much strength as he could, gripping the unstable surface with thick fingers as the wind whipped faster around the Empire State Building like a miniature cyclone.

Raising Mjolnir high overhead, he reached out for the crackling power he had known for so long it was as natural to him as the need for breathing. The lightning sang a gleeful cry in response, surging downwards to slam into the enchanted weapon in a blinding explosion of bone-white flame and eardrum-bursting sound.

KABOOM. The massive, glowing white shockwave was directed toward the portal as Thor pointed Mjolnir like a symphony conductor's baton, and the channeled energy, superheating like the strung out webbing of a liquefied, molten sun, was fired at the Chitauri flying out of the gaping intergalactic entryway. The incoming soldiers and ships were blasted back in a vicious, resounding shockwave, convulsing horribly in twitching death-throes, and several of the nearest leviathans even exploded. Gore rained down upon the city in a shower of blood, guts, and splintered bone fragments.

The Helicarrier bridge was abuzz with activity; dozens of Agents ran back and forth in dizzying blurs of motion, trading information as fast as they could. Fury stared at his viewscreen, taking in the incredible, terrifying sight of the destruction of the city below them.

Agent Hill walked up to him, an uneasy look in her normally calm, confident gaze as she said, "Sir, the Council is on, and they've requested an audience with you."

Dammit. He pressed the screen and waited for the proverbial axe to fall, wishing to be anywhere else.

Clint fired off another round of arrows into the stream of incoming Chitauri, watching with grim satisfaction as each one fell to the ground, clutching futilely at the embedded shafts in an attempt to pull the projectiles free. Wait for it, wait for it...

The sound of splattering gore pierced the air in a gruesome, guttural echo as the heads of the arrows detonated, releasing small explosives, bursts of incendiary fire, and at least half a dozen noxious gases. The aliens screeched in agony as they died, and he felt the broken bits of his recovered mind slowly start to piece back together at the awful, wonderful sight.

Bye-bye, you intergalactic assholes.

Readying another shot, he aimed behind himself this time, letting the arrow fly with a degree of grim contentment, and the wail of pain that ensued as it detonated in Chitauri flesh was a macabre symphony to his ears.

Revenge, he noted idly as he watched the newest wave burn down, smells a helluva lot like bacon.

But then, he had to admit, that was what burnt flesh smelled like after a good frying. His incendiary arrows had ensured that.

Looking up at the sky as the portal spat out another hoard for combat, sharp eyes narrowed as a particularly large cluster of soldiers flew after the red and gold blur firing off energy shots into a nearby leviathan. Tapping his earpiece, he spoke up. "Hey, Stark, hate to break it to ya, but you've got a lot of strings sticking to your tail out there. You might want to do something about that."

The earpiece crackled, and several curse words managed to come through in the process. "Shit. Just...try to keep them off the streets, okay?"

He let out a huff, wondering when his job had expanded to cleaning up the intergalactic stalkers of billionaires, before replying, "Well, at the very least they can't seem to bank worth a damn. Find a tight corner and keep your back covered. I'll try and pick off a few."

"Roger that." The sound of explosions from Tony's side of the communications network ended the conversation, and he turned his attention back to his position.

Time to pick my next target.

True to his word, Tony flew in possibly the most confusing manner to be performed while evading an alien armada. Flitting into tight corners, flying through open parking garages and under bridges and tunnels, and sharply stopping in midair while close to several high-rise buildings left dozens to slam into unforgiving metal, brick, or concrete surfaces, and the ones smart enough to evade the obstacles were left as targets for the archer on the roof. Explosive arrow after explosive arrow rent the wave of aliens burning and run through, and within minutes, Tony was left flying unimpeded once more.

As he looked back the blissfully empty stretch of airspace behind him, Tony pulled up the communications network again, the edge of his muffled anxiety at the situation successfully dulled. "Well, nice call there, Robin Hood. What else have you got?"

Clint's voice-over burbled through the speakers. "Well, since I took out your little paparazzi fest back there, Thor's taking down a new squadron down on 6th..."

The corners of his lips turned upward into a smirk at the answer."What? And he didn't even invite me? Looks like I'll just have to gatecrash, then..."

The conference room was shaking.

What the...? Setting down her coffee, the office worker turned her attention to the flicker of movement the shaking sensation accompanied, and felt ice flood her veins at the sight that greeted her. Wordlessly, she pointed outside, and attention diverted itself accordingly; within moments, everyone had gotten up and stepped to the window, staring silently in open-mouthed shock.

A Chitauri leviathan, its huge body easily at least the size of the entire floor they were in, swam by like some monstrous, skeletal fish from the nightmarish bottom depths of the deep seas, maw opened wide in a horrifying screech as its thick, bony, paddle-like fins undulated like a set of unearthly oars, propelling it through the air.

What...What is...that thing...?

For a long, uneasy moment, there was nothing but the sound of terrified, wheezy breathing and the distant sound of humming computer hubs, and, far off, an unanswered telephone, and then the glass of the largest viewing window shattered in a rain of diamond-bright fragments as a gigantic green figure crashed through it, landing on the floor with an earsplitting roar.

People screamed and ran, diving out of the way or seizing others by the hand to drag out of the room as the Hulk ran through the area, smashing through office cubicles, chairs, and a copying machine before ramming his way through the opposite window, leaping out to land on the opened jaw of the flying leviathan. The mass of hungry teeth tried to close around the smaller figure as the leviathan headed down, the gigantic bony head waving back and forth wildly in an attempt to dislodge the impromptu passenger.

The Chitauri soldier fighting her was slightly less prone to dying that the rest, and Natasha felt a sliver of irritation dig under her skin as she was knocked to her feet by a thick grey leg slamming into her left side. The energy rifle she'd procured earlier from one of the corpses dropped from her hands in the process, and she hissed inwardly in aggravation.

This is taking too long. If she focused on only one opponent in this situation, they would all pile up into an unmanageable amount, and then she would wear herself out entirely trying to take them all down. If even one of their ragtag group of cobbled together defenders dropped, the city would be unable to withstand the assault.

That was not an option.

Making up her mind, she lunged forward, sliding a knife free from her sleeves, and the Chitauri barely had time to widen dark, fathomless eyes in shock as she slit the throat before her in a sharp, fluid flick of the wrist.

The body dropped to the ground with a meaty thud. When another sound, this time of approaching feet, echoed behind her, she wasted no time in seizing her looted weapon and spinning around, ready to fire and tear a new series of holes into the nearest enemy, when surprised blue eyes stopped her. Automatically, she took her finger off the trigger and regarded the man before her, taking in the freshly battered appearance, and slumped a bit, feeling ignored exhaustion come creeping back up.

"Don't...don't sneak up on me," she muttered, and the nod she received in response left no doubts that he understood.

Looking at the tired slump of the man's shoulders, she felt bitter certainty burning her mouth, and spat it out before it could percolate further. "Cap, I hate to say this, but none of this is going to mean a damn thing in the end if we don't close up that portal soon."

"Yeah, well, tell me something I don't know. Our biggest guns couldn't touch that thing, Stark's missiles did squat on it. Heck, Thor couldn't close it."

The assassin looked to the sky, analyzing her companion's words. There's always a weakness somewhere, just have to find it.

Scanning the crowded airspace overhead, she felt an idea forming, and followed it, pointing to the nearest chariot whizzing overhead. "Well, maybe it's not about guns..."

Steve blinked, wondering for a moment if he'd heard wrong. "Well, no offense, but if you want to get up there, you'll be needing a ride. I don't see exactly any wings on you."

She grinned at him, the smile all teeth, and Steve fought down the sudden trickle of fear the almost wolfish look evoked. "Don't worry, I've got a ride. I could use a bit of a lift, though."

Well, he conceded inwardly, Mom told me it's impolite to refuse a lady's request...

Natasha backed up, clearing space to give herself a running start, and he obligingly knelt down, lifting and angling his shield. Let's hope this works.

"Um, are you sure about this?", he asked, looking back and forth between the redhead at the end of the street, and the shield clasped to his arm. "I'm not sure you'll get enough speed..."

A laugh lit up the air, and then she ran at him, sprinting in a manner reminiscent of a wolf chasing down prey, and he resisted the urge to run as she shot forward in a blur of scarlet-topped shadow, running up and over a downed car and then jumping onto the offered surface of the shield like an acrobat. Steve lifted the shield into the air to give a better height advantage, and she promptly jumped up, grabbing onto the edge of a passing chariot overhead and slamming her knives into the back of the now-previous owner. When an agonized scream rent the air, she finished the chariot's takeover through giving a blunt shove off into empty air with a blunt kick to the midsection, cracking bone and leaving the body to drop to the street below.

He watched, intrigued, as they all dropped into place, taking up interconnected mantles of defensive and offensive responsibilities as they were best suited for. They scattered across the invaded metropolis, staking claims of chunks of the area under their protection and shredding to pieces anything that tried to take it away.

They really are fighting tooth and claw for thiss little citadel, aren't they? They'll rip apart anything that triess to take their world away. The thought was needle-sharp, and he pricked himself back into full alertness with the razor-fine edge of it, the pain serving as an unforgiving reminder that the hellish play, enacted with his bloodied fingers alongside the symbiote, howling for a slaking of their unending hunger, was now burgeoning on the gilded cusp of an almost indulgently bloody climax.

A flicker of movement caught his attention a dozen feet below, and the symbiote hissed in high-strung, blood-bright anticipation as the figure riding the chariot came into focus.

Hmm, sso the little sspider hass taken to the sskiess, then...

The symbiote crooned in anticipation, the urge to movemovemove in such a chaotic environment almost overwhelming. Follow?

Yess. If all went as planned, the invasion would be crushed underfoot in perhaps a few hours, and he wanted to make the most of his last few moments of unfiltered, maddening freedom before being locked away in a prison cell. Why not put a few final embellishments on his act of madness, push it to the breaking point to see if this mask of confidence in a mountain of paper cards would hold together any further?

The thrumming in shared veins grew stronger, burning brightly as a thousand lit candles in the darkness closing in, heart racing like a galloping horse, a pulsing, raging dadadadadadadada-

Time to play one lasst round. All the cardss are laid down, we only need to ssee what the final hand here iss.

The chariot shot forward, the symbiote shrieking with undisguised glee at the sudden heady rush of the chase, and he laughed, wild and unrestrained, the final rusted chains of fear dropping away to rot away quietly in the dust of forgotten, all-devouring time.

Today, one side would fall, one way or another. His fate was spinning out of control, the Thread pulled loose and yanking away to Norns knew where, but it didn't matter anymore.

He was not alone any longer. That made the falling worth it.

Flying the small alien aircraft was far easier than initially expected, she mused inwardly. Although I could do without the tailgating.

Swerving yet again to avoid another shot from an energy rifle, she turned the chariot, banking over a nearby high-rise building and hiding in the shadows of the billboard behind it. For a moment, she watched as Tony fired off a string of boiling-hot repulsor blasts into the Chitauri hoard that had been tailing her, blasting a dozen chariots, riders and all, apart in a slew of pseudo-shrapnel and newly deceased aliens.

Satisfied that the assassin's path was cleared, the billionaire flew down once more, blasting apart another half-dozen Chitauri hovercrafts as he went, and made his way to the only Avenger left fighting on the ground.

Steve, for his part, was doing a rather remarkable job in slicing apart Chitauri weapons as he threw his shield back and forth through the crowd of soldiers mobbing him. Almost completely obscured due to the sheer mass of bodies attempting to attack him, an occasional gloved hand or booted foot could be seen in a blur of reds or browns, slamming brutally into enemy flesh to deliver a potent roundhouse kick or punch to the softer parts of the enemy body with an audible crunch as serum-enhanced flesh collided with an unprepared patch of skin or an eye socket.

Landing, Tony held out his hands in a silent question of Need a hand?

Blinking a bead of sweat out of his eyes, Steve held out his shield, posing it as a reflective circle in response, and Tony obligingly fired off several shots, watching as the white-hot bolts of energy flew out of the boosters in his suit to bounce off the shield's provided surface as a reflective beam of boiling heat, neatly redirected within seconds to rip into the nearest Chitauri soldier unfortunate enough to be within targeting range. The acrid stench of burning flesh permeated the air as the energy beam seared a sizzling pathway through the mob.

Up above, Clint was in his element, a one-man gale amidst a field of targets, and firing off one arrow after another in sharp, dizzying blurs of nimble finger movements dancing across his bow. The callouses on his hands would need to be bandaged later, and his fingers were becoming somewhat irritating to ignore, given that the blood seeping from the cut digits was leaving the bowstring and arrow shafts slick with slippery bits of ruby.

Dammit, looks like I'll have to clean them again later. And I just refitted this equipment, too.

He decided to take his frustration at the situation out on the nearest available target, and began looking for one accordingly while continuing to cut down the Chitauri whizzing past.

Found one. Tony was up in the air again, darting back and forth like a frighteningly large, obnoxiously bright-coloured dragonfly, firing off shots into a leviathan flying overhead. There was a Chitauri soldier tailing him, riding on a chariot and aiming a charged energy rifle for a shot-

Oh no, you damn slimeball. Not on my watch, you don't.

Firing off another arrow, he watched in grim satisfaction as the arrow shredded through the neck of the would-be assailant, and the alien's severed body pieces collapsed accordingly. The chariot, now bereft of a proper pilot, lost control and slammed into another passing Chitauri flying nearby, and the mass of metal and flesh went down in a flaming, tangled mess amid unearthly howls of pain.

Gotcha.

The Chitauri leviathan screeched with rage as it tried stubbornly to dislodge the two unwelcome passengers hitching an unauthorized ride on its back, smashing scales, bone, and fighting the soldiers that were riding aboard for transport into the city.

Thor slammed Mjolnir into the back of the leviathan with a brutal thwakkk, shattering another spiny segment jutting out of flesh and causing another horrific scream to be unleashed as splinters of bone flew everywhere. The Hulk rampaged around nearby, slamming gargantuan moss-coloured fists into Chituari flesh and throwing the frantic soldiers off either side of the caterwauling airship.

A moment or so later, radioactive-green eyes spotted a piece of leviathan back-armor that had gotten pried loose in the process of stomping around and hurling off soldiers, and moments later, the Hulk gleefully seized the bit of armor available and yanked it sharply loose, slamming it forcefully down into the protruding spine as if ramming a shovel into the dirt.

The leviathan screamed loudly enough that several nearby skyscrapers had their top floor windows shatter in bursts of shining glass, and Thor took the opportunity to follow his fellow fighter's example, bringing Mjolnir down brutally onto the damaged spine as he summoned his lightning to aid in bringing down the beast they stood on.

Abruptly, the leviathan twisted frantically in the air, trying in vain to remove the source of the agony, and then it fell, plunging downward as it writhed and let out a wail of unholy misery, the lightning causing pain to radiate all throughout it's limbs and, in doing so, rendering flight impossible.

The ground shook wildly as the freshly damaged Chitauri leviathan made impact, slamming into the history museum with savage force and leaving a football field-sized crater of rubble and broken pipelines. It shuddered, letting out a final sickening rasp, and then was still.

Both the Hulk and Thor stood atop the mangled back of the felled creature, admiring their grisly handiwork with an air of grim pride.

After a moment, the Hulk offered a wide, almost childishly-proud grin, and punched Thor in the shoulder as if to say Well done.

Thor went flying, a shout escaping him as he was thrown back, and the Hulk smirked at the sight.

Selvig looked up at the sky, eyes cleared of blue. The blow to the head he'd received when the CMS Device had shot at had broken the mind control as if shattering a glass cage, and now he was able to look upon the scene around him with his true eyes.

Confused, he cast his gaze around, hoping to find something to explain the situation. What in the world happened here?

The street was full of Humvees, all mounted with fully-loaded .50 caliber guns poised and firing steadily into the Chitauri riders zooming back and forth throughout the sky.

Steve, who was currently sharing space with the new, bullet-firing arrivals, kicked away the Chitauri soldier pinning him down with an energy rifle, shattering bone on contact as he drew back his arm and punched his opponent sharply in the shoulder. The rifle was dropped amidst a howl of pain, and he stood up, picking up his shield as he did so, and brought the round projectile down soundly on the available enemy head.

The alien soldier dropped like a sack of wet cement, falling to the ground with a sickening crunch as the skull caved in, and Steve turned away from the grim sight, shield hefted over one arm and ready to be thrown again at a moment's notice.

The communications network crackled to life, and Clint's voice burbled through the earpiece, a series of muffled twangs in the background signaling that another slew of arrows had been loosed to lodge in alien necks and eye sockets. "Hey Cap, if you don't mind, could you go up at the bank on 42nd, past Madison? They've caught a bunch of civilians over there."

He straightened up, fingers automatically checking the inside of the shield; the tiny pouch was still tucked securely away, zipped up tightly. Satisfied, he spoke into the earpiece.

"I'm on it."

Dozens of men and women were gathered, their expressions nervous and fearful, in the middle of the bank, hands held overhead in a clear show of disarmament. A half-dozen energy rifles were pointed at the huddling group of civilians, the Chitauri soldiers all wearing identical detached expressions, poised to pull the trigger and kill anyone who objected to the situation. Another one was in the far corner, arming and charging a bomb, the ominous device letting out a series of unsettling beeps as numbers were clocked in.

One of the hostages began crying softly, clearly frightened by the horrific, surreal situation, and was forcefully silenced when the closest energy rifle discharged, blasting a hole in the wall a mere few inches from her head.

Outside, Steve looked into at the dismal sight and fought the urge to hit something. That's it, they're all going down.

He ran forward, bracing his shield in front of himself to keep from getting hit by any flying debris, and burst through the window with an echoing crash. Glass flew everywhere; the hostages shouted in terrified surprise, anticipating more hellish aliens, before promptly ceasing the frightened screams at the sight of their very much human rescuer.

Without pause, Steve got up from where he'd landed feet-first on the ground, swinging his arm forward and throwing his shield at the Chitauri bomber. The alien barely had time to look up as the sound of the fast-approaching projectile weapon came too close, and then the head was sliced off in a spray of dark blood. The body dropped, lifeless as a doll, and the other Chitauri uttered low hisses of rage, raising their energy rifles to fire, pulsating energy warping to life vividly in a sputtering burn of neon light.

Steve automatically moved; running to a nearby trading desk, he took cover under it for a moment, resisting the instinctive urge to flinch at the sensation of the desk rattling wildly, burning as new holes were blasted through it by the enemy fire, and then he reached out, picking the desk up as he stood, and then drop-kicked it like a football. The attacking soldiers jumped out of the way, and he seized the brief ceasefire as they dodged to run again, jumping over another desk and grabbing the nearest Chitauri in a crushing headlock.

The alien screeched in response, fingers clawing in vain at the super-strong grip, but he ignored the cry of protest, instead backhanding another soldier sharply off the railing outside. The crowd surged out of the way, clearing a space for him to move more freely.

Got to subdue them before the bomb goes off-

His train of thought was abruptly halted as another Chitauri soldier slunk forward from behind him, ripping off his helmet and pressing the muzzle of am energy rifle to his back, evidently ready to blast him apart at point-blank range.

The moment the cold, unnatural feeling of the unearthly metal pressed against the spandex of his uniform, he spun around, slamming a fist into the alien's face for a painful moment of disorientation, and then flipped the confused body over and brought down the shield, slamming the metal surface against the unprepared skull. The Chitauri went down, and Steve turned to the gathered civilians, a sickening feeling of dread pooling in his gut as the bomb's infernal beeping, clamoring in his ears, more resonant even than his own racing heartbeat, seemed to grow horrifyingly louder-

"Everyone, you need to clear out, NOW!"

Leaving the body of the dead alien on the floor, he straightened his shield, watching with silent relief as the former hostages ran for the door, several of them calling out rushed thanks as they did so, and he turned his attention to the bomb.

Blue eyes widened with a lurching sense of horror as the few numbers drained away into nothingness, and instinctively he reached out, though whether to smash the explosive or throw it, he wasn't sure. Off to the side, a low growl of protest issued forth, and he realized that one Chitauri was still left, still alive, and crawling toward the bomb-

BOOM. The explosive went off in a burst of flame and sound, shattering the rest of the bank windows, and Steve bit back a scream of pain as he was thrown clear through the window behind him, crashing painfully into the car parked below.

Down the street, the gathered civilians, full of euphoria from their rescue, looked on with concern before being ushered away by the police to the nearest safe building.

He would need to find some sort of ice pack for all the new bruises later, Steve mused inwardly, looking about in dismay at the ruination all around him as he gingerly rolled off the smashed car.

My city... New York was damaged, battered fiercely by the onslaught of the invasion, and he ignored the brief stinging at the edges of his eyes. Crying would be useless now, he still had a job to do.

Brushing off bits of glass off his shield as he pulled it out of the demolished car, he watched, grateful for the brief respite of the horrors of combat, at the comforting sight of the rescued civilian group from bank being looked over by the newly arrived on-scene police and fireman, wrapped securely in shock blankets and offered calming words as they were examined for serious injuries.

He blinked in surprise as one of them, a young, pretty-looking woman in a waitress uniform, looked back at him and smiled softly, waving for a moment in silent thankfulness before turning her attention back on the officer questioning her about her state of well-being.

Well, I wasn't expecting that. But, he reflected as he began the trek back to the battlefield, it sure makes a guy feel better to know he's done a good enough job to make a lady smile after the scare of a lifetime.

The Helicarrier bridge was riddled with a sickening sense of tension, burdening everyone onboard with a grim, leaden sensation in the gut and sweaty palms.

Fury looked calmly on as the viewscreen before him flared to life, the World Security Council appearing in a flicker of faintly condescending expressions and commanding airs.

"Director Fury," one of them spoke up, a woman with a stern expression and a severe haircut, "The Council has conferred over your situation, and has come to a decision."

He crossed his arms over his chest, leveling his gaze to display a glare that a lion would have faltered in the face of. "Oh, I recognize that the Council has made a decision, but given that it's a spectacularly stupid-ass decision, I've taken the smart route and elected to ignore it."

From all around the viewscreen, glowering faces scowled back, unwilling to back down. "Now see here, Director, you and your people are closer to the enemy than any of our subs, it's a clear choice. Now you scramble that jet..."

He shook his head, refusing to give in. "This is the island of Manhattan you're talking about, Councilman. Millions of people are out there on that little rock. Now, until I'm absolutely certain that my team can't hold it, I will not, I repeat, I will not order a nuclear strike against a civilian population."

The Council burst into a flutter of protest at the answer, agitation clear on their faces. "Director, you must understand, if we don't hold them in the air, then we lose everything...!"

Fury stared back at the unnerved collection of representatives before him, unwilling to budge so much as a centimeter's worth of verbal ground on the subject. "I'd send that bird out, because we already have. Now, if you'll excuse me..."

He reached for the viewscreen, fingers poised to swipe the screen blank amid a cacophony of protests. "Director, do not..."

The screen went blank for a moment as he abruptly cut the call off, then reloaded as the standard viewscreen on the Bridge. Fury pinched his nose to stave off the incoming headache, and let out a long, gusty sigh.

I hate politics.

The air was still thrumming with energy as Natasha flew high overhead, the tips of Manhattan's skyscrapers small as pinheads as she swerved deftly in and out of the mishmash of remaining Chitauri soldiers, firing off shots from her energy rifle to help thin out any encountered stragglers.

These aliens are like a nest of fire ants, seemingly no end to them and they sting like crazy, but they crush so easily it's almost pathetic...

A sudden searing pain ripped through her side as she flitted through the shadow of a tall, blocky office building, and she risked looking down at her side for a split second, only to see a strip of her side was now covered in a sizable, albeit comparatively moderate burn that had singed off the first layer of skin and hair, shallow but stinging wildly.

Damn.

She looked around, trying to spot the one who'd shot her, and when she managed to look behind, everything fell into place.

"Oh," she breathed out. "It's just you."

Loki, catsuit curling and flickering like a thick wraparound cloak of sleek raven's feathers, flew overhead, the scepter raised in one hand pulsing brightly with unnerving blue light.

She yanked the controls, letting the chariot drop downward, and, predictably, the god followed, tailing her as they wove in and out of the gaps in the skyline between the buildings and streets.

C'mon, Clint, where are you?

The rooftop was whirring with a hail of arrows firing off in all directions, embedding themselves in exposed flesh and metal indiscriminately.

Clint watched, apprehensive and slightly astonished, as his partner soared into view overhead, ruby curls whipping behind her like a stream of arterial blood as she dodged another shot of azure energy from the scepter.

"Dammit, Nat," he all but shouted into the earpiece, "What the hell are you doing up there?"

"Hold on a sec," her voice crackled back through the communications network, "Just..uh, a little help would be nice-!"

She abruptly cut off. There was a brief moment of nothing but howling wind to follow the sudden silence, and he automatically reached back, another explosive arrow notching into place with ease, and aimed it at her pursuer, locking onto his new target with grim anticipation.

Arrow, this is eye socket. Eye socket, this is arrow. Let's be friends, hmm?

"Don't worry, I've got him."

He smirked, and let go. The arrow streaked through the air, blurring in the wind, and...

What the hell?

Loki stared directly back at him, baring his teeth in a wolf's grin, sallow visage disappointingly intact. The arrow was clenched tightly in one sable-clad hand, obviously caught and halted in midair with the help of some unnatural feline-esque sharp reflexes.

Wait for it, wait for it...c'mon, c'mon, c'mon...!

The arrowhead's explosive payload abruptly detonated, blasting the shadow-wrapped god backward off the chariot, the scepter flying away as the lean figure was hurtled off by the force of the explosion, left to fall through the air, crashing brutally through the windows overlooking Stark Tower's penthouse roof landing pad.

Natasha watched for a moment before she braced herself, leaning back, and threw herself forward off her own chariot, jumping through empty air to land on the top of Stark Tower. After a moment to check for serious injuries, she rolled herself to the edge with a muffled grunt of pain, and settled in to wait.

They crashed through the thick glass window panel with sickening force, shattering it into ten thousand minuscule pieces as their shared vessel dropped to the ground, landing in an unkempt heap on the debris-strewn floor.

Damn, that actually hurt. We losst the sscepter, too... But that was of little consequence now. If the humans managed to get their hands on it, perhaps they could shut off the portal once the Chitauri had been sufficiently crushed, after all...

He scanned his shared form for new injuries, wincing inwardly as new pangs of affliction made themselves known in loud displays of surging pain. A collection of darkening bruises mottled both back and torso under the catsuit's protective surface, though the only broken bones yet seemed to be the shattered floating rib from Thor's earlier kick to the side, and that had already started to mend with both his magic and his companion's help.

Hosst more hurt?, the symbiote inquired, already branching out internally for additional healing. He shuddered slightly, and offered, Not much, but yess. It'ss really more embarrasssing than truly harmful, and I had expected that the Hawk would sseek retribution for hiss time exissting under the Mind Gem'ss influence. Yet, to think that I let mysself be sso eassily caught off guard, it'ss a bit sshameful...

You expected an arrow to the face?

No, he amended, smothering the strange, almost hysterical urge to laugh in the face of the attack they'd been dealt, But I did expect he would be upsset to realize he'd been manipulated, even if it wass to a certain degree.

Shaking off the haze of discombobulation trying to fog his agony-addled senses, he got to his feet, swaying for a moment as another bout of pain lanced through his side again. We really sshould do ssomething about that, he mused idly, it will be an isssue if left untreated.

Hold sstill sso it can be fixed, then, the symbiote muttered back, the words tinged with an somewhat chiding bite of pale reddish-orange, and he obligingly braced himself to reduce difficulty.

The moment of quiet was shattered when the Hulk leapt through the now glass-less penthouse window, roaring wildly, and before they can even properly react, a mossy-green leg the size of an adolescent oak tree swung back, and then pain ripped through their shared vessel anew as the dirty, gigantic foot slammed into their bad side with enough force to break cement.

By the Nornss, not again...!

Thrown roughly in the direction of the destroyed, gaping window, Loki bit back the scream of pain threatening to burst forth as he slammed sharply into the wall beside it, agitating the bruises coating his back further. A bead of blood welled up against his lips as the surface broke, and he tasted iron for a brief moment, dizzy and confused, as the symbiote's screams of outrage echoed wildly within the mindscape as a howling inferno of bloody whirlwinds-

The Hulk advanced, jumping forward to land with a meaty thud before them, anger in the bright, intense eyes as thick fingers flexed, ready to form into fists and begin a round of pummeling. He watched the action, and crushed the instinctive urge to flee, knowing it was useless.

D-Damn, thiss really issn't what I anticipated...

Shaking slightly, he forced his uncooperative body upright, standing, straight-backed in a pile of broken glass and torn up flooring, up against the wall.

I need...I need to end it, one way or another, thiss musst sstop...

He had always known how this chapter of woe would come to an end, he had helped craft it. Outside, the battle raged on, but the humans, instinct told him, were closer to victory. They had amassed a cooperative defensive force, and the CMS device had a safety built into it for an emergency shutdown, as Selvig had possessed enough sense, even with the Mind Gem's poisoned cooing, to ensure it's construction as a fail-safe should anything go wrong while the portal's creation was underway. If the humans could find that thrice-damned scepter, the machine would fall apart, and the Chitauri would be starved of the only entryway to the crossroads realm of the universe. Thanos would be left with the blistering humiliation of both the loss of hundreds of thousands of his troops, and the deprivation of his would-be gift to present to Death.

All that was left was to wrap up the loose ends.

What are you going to do? The symbiote watched the behemoth before them warily, eyeing the thick muscles, clenched teeth, and feral glint in the fiery eyes with unease.

Remember how ssometimess I have ssome really brilliant ideass?

Yess...?

Ssorry.

Pressing his clawed fingertips into his palms hard enough to draw blood, the god focused on the brief moment of sharp pain before the cuts healed to help clear his conflicting thoughts and doubts away. Thiss ought to get hiss attention.

He took a deep breath, straightening himself out to his full height, and stared right into the radioactive green eyes, twisting his words back for one last show of playing the mad fool. I can only pray my voice doessn't break from fear. Thiss iss the mosst rassh thing I've ever done yet, and it jusst might kill me.

"ENOUGH! You are, all of you, every lasst one, beneath me! You sstand before a god, you dull, tactlesss creature, and I will not be bullied by...!"

Thiss iss going to hurt, issn't it? The symbiote's words were laced with the bitter tang of incredulous pale purple-tinged dismay, the What were you thinking hanging like a noose around the rhetorical question, ready to slip shut at a moment's notice.

Yess, yess it iss. Brace yoursself...!

A thick, muscular hand shot out like a snake striking at prey, fingers wrapping around one slim leg, and then the whole view of the world tilted on its head as their vessel was crudely yanked foot-first into the air, and then pain ripped through every last cell as they were slammed into the penthouse floor repeatedly, tossed back and forth like a rag doll to collide again and again with unforgiving cement and hardwood flooring.

The symbiote was a spitting mess of internal rage now, wild and mad as a tempest in a bottle, colours racing and bleeding across the mindscape, round and round in a crazed series of circles, and Loki, near delirious from overwhelming pain, could not discern the meaning through the fog of darkness encroaching upon the corners of his vision. A whimper escaped, though if it reached the ears of the one responsible for this new agony, he was unsure.

The fire of all-consuming torment grew white-hot, and then beyond it, but his voice would not mold the shreds of conscious thought into audible sound, it took too much effort. He shuddered, the darkness swimming closer. The slight, involuntary movement caught his other half's attention, and the symbiote stopped the raging wildfires of It's anger for a moment to croon to him, reaching out to envelop him in mental swaths of blissfully familiar quiet and cessation of all overwhelming sensation. He let himself sink into it, and then knew no more.

After a few agonizing moments, the Hulk abruptly let go, dropping the battered form to fall to the floor with a sickening crack belying broken bones, and turned to leave, scowling at the mess of ragged, unkempt shadow-made-flesh lying in the newly made wide crater, blood seeping out from new injuries.

"Puny god..."

He snorted, pleased to have silenced the persistent racket that the smaller figure had spouted, and began to walk toward the nearest exit, knowing that the fight was not yet over.

"You...YOU...!"

Huh, what was that...? He turned around and walked back to the crater, confused as to why there was someone speaking out of it when the only other person in the room was lying in a broken heap in the new indent in the floor, and then unwillingly froze at the sight before him.

Looking into the crater, the mauled figure lying supine in the wreckage was, slowly but surely, getting up, cracking the lean neck, then knuckles, as pummeled arms straightened out from their battered positions, bones audibly schnnick-schnnacking as they shifted and healed under a skin-tight sea of quickly regenerating sable. Bruises left to set deep into muscle, blanketing skin in sprawling, agonizing blooms of unruly deep violet and indigo hues, began to rapidly lighten, then vanish, like puddles of water drying up under the scorching desert sun. Tendrils rippled and twisted, reaching out to wrap round and round like a flurry of bandage rolls to envelop battered flesh. Muscles flexed visibly under the catsuit surface as claw-tipped fingers reached back to brush a thick mess of unruly, debris-clumped hair out of the way of a lean, sharp face with a cold, off-kilter expression, all jagged angles and razor edges like slivers of a bloody crescent moon.

A low, gurgling, wet hiss, and a mouthful of saliva was hacked onto the wrecked floor; tinged with pinpricks of scarlet, the wet sticky substance dropped onto the surface, a frighteningly sharp-looking tooth ensconced within the glob of altered spit. The figure responsible stared at the lost bit of dentition for a moment, evidently unconcerned, and slammed a slim foot down onto the remains, crushing the tooth into powder, and then looked up, staring frigidly back at him as, unnervingly, the lost tooth grew back in place, bone-white canine pushing back into view with eerily quick precision, as if nothing had even occurred.

The eyes that stared out fearlessly from the gaunt visage were not green, nor were they laced with the unnatural blue tint of the Mind Gem's influence.

They were black, the same cold, light-leeching black as the catsuit, with a haunting, dizzying miasma of rainbow-slick colouring ringing the irises like a glimpse into an ancient kaleidoscope showing madness. There was no light in that gaze, it had been stripped of light, of warmth, of common courtesy.

The eyes staring back at him were not the eyes of the so-called Puny God. The eyes staring back at him were the eyes of something else, a gaze of something that shared every last bit of that lean, bony vessel and had claimed it as Mine.

As the puny man he himself shared a body with might have assessed the situation, the eyes staring at him were of Puny God's very own Other Guy.

Puny God, not so puny, then...?

He stared back, unwilling to admit wanting to obey the instinctive urge to look away from the fathomless, unblinking, bizarrely unafraid eyes, and felt the temperature seemingly drop several degrees as a voice issued forth from the thin slice of mouth, those bright, unnerving eyes open wide as the head tilted to the side, as if questioning something.

"Hosst iss hurt becausse of you..."

His hearing curdled as he listened to the raspy lisp spreading through the air. The voice was not quite Puny God's voice, it echoed deeply with a glimpse of something sharper, wilder, broken-glass fragments of vocal infliction piercing like needles through a husky, slow-smoking construct of cold, gravelly syllables that seemed impossibly to almost eat the air that they rang throughout. The voice sounded disconcertingly feral, slinking in as if uninvited, swamped in a cloak of clinging, shadowy dark, and eerily, hideously hungry.

"Hosst iss almosst dead becausse of you...!"

The lanky, catlike form suddenly lurched forward, that lean, sallow face abruptly shoved up close enough that he could see the faintest outline of the pitch-coloured pupils in too-wide eyes. "We sshould kill you right now, sspill your blood acrosss the ground, chew your boness, tear you to piecess for what you did."

He resisted the urge to move back as a hand reached out, tracing a thin, claw-tipped finger against the side of his face, dragging the digit across green flesh to make a paper-thin, stinging gouge, almost as if in contemplation of how much effort would be necessary to fully carve the structure apart like a bar of soap. "We ought to rip you apart from the insside out, right here..."

The words, hissed in a matter-of-fact manner, felt as clear and unnerving as the feeling of shadowy darkness closing in during the night, and somewhere deep down he knew that Banner was hearing everything, and understood with a horrible sense of instinctive knowledge that somehow, impossibly, the creature before them would do it, and possibly could succeed, too.

That uncanny gaze raked over his whole body, and the Hulk knew that Banner too felt the uncomfortable, previously-unknown sensation of being examined like a choice piece of meat being meticulously selected from an available prey animal. The feeling echoed with the prickling unease of vultures circling overhead with the frigid calm of grim certainty, waiting for their quarry to finally succumb to the inevitable end.

For a split second, a mournful look flickered across the sculpted features, and the next words seemed almost to be laced with an unhappy, not-quite childish sense of vague disappointment. "But...he made uss promisse not to kill you, ssaid you and your humanss were needed to crussh the filth. Sso we can't eat you."

A few moments of silence permeated the air, and then, jarringly, a cold, feral grin lit up the pale features like the cold light of the moon. "You sshould leave, the humanss sstill need you."

A bony finger tapped the pale mouth in contemplation, the wild gaze still staring directly at him, and then a raspy laugh, more of a gurgle like draining water, issued forth. "And before we choosse to take heed of the fact that we're sstill hungry."

He watched a too-wide smile stretch the thin mouth, sharp teeth exposed in a wolf's mad, hungry grin, and decided, for once, it was best to listen to Banner's increasingly insistent demands to get as far away from here as possible.

Without pausing, he turned and leapt out the window, trying to put as much distance between them as was allowed by the current situation.

The symbiote watched in silent satisfaction as the giant green behemoth bounded away across the skyline, heading back into combat.

Now if only we had food too...

But alas, there was no food to be had here. Ignoring the urge to find some far-flung sustenance, It contented Itself with assimilating the penthouse's broken furniture and the decanter left on the bar counter. Once the room was sufficiently emptied, It returned to the crater, settling back into resuming the important task ahead.

Keep ssafe, heal, fix, promisse...It crooned the old vow, wrapping Itself securely around the lean body, swathing the rail-thin form in tendril after tendril of glistening, familiar sable, sinking deep into damaged flesh with comforting ease, entwining Itself around fractured bones and mending the cracks.

It was home. The rest of reality could wait.