AN: And so, after nearly 70k words, we have arrived at the finale of the Avengers. After this, there might be one or two epilogues, before we continue with the next movie in the mcu, and so and so on =) I have a lot of crazy idea's already, and even have chapters planned in which I'll stealthily bring in other franchises as well. After all, doesn't agent Barton look remarkably like another super black-ops operative we all know? ;p
For now, however, enjoy the finale of the Avengers. =)
Chapter 11 – The Battle for New York / Part II
Lightning flashed overhead New York… and just New York. The city was blanketed by large, dark clouds, while a veritable mass of lightning formed over the down-town area of the Big Apple.
The impressive lightshow was centred around what a appeared to be an inverted version of a sinkhole in the sky, the currents striking at everything that came through, while great gales of wind ripped apart everything else.
Flying on opposite sides of the bottle-neck were Mary and John, who were the source of the localized hurricanes, while the stream of lightning streaked upwards from the metal spire of the Empire State Building, which was lit up like an over-enthusiastic Christmas Tree, where Thor was pointing Mjolnir at the incoming Chitauri.
John suddenly broke off, hurled away by the gales of wind that were howling above New York. He wasn't the only one though, as many of the invading forces were thrown around like ragdolls, only to be smashed apart on the many skyscrapers of the city.
"Mary!" John roared, his voice carrying above the howling of the storm with difficulty.
"What?!"
"I can't hold this up! Hell, I don't even know what this is!"
"You have to! I can't keep this up on my own, and Thor's a bit busy right now!"
At that moment, Thor gave a great cry of effort, before with a final burst of brilliant white lightning, he slumped against the Empire State Building, clearly exhausted from channelling that much electricity for so long.
"Oh that's just great!" Mary shouted sarcastically, though even as far away as he was, John could see the worry in his ex-wife's eyes.
Not that her fear was unjustified; their combined powers had barely been enough to stem the endless flood of Chitauri soldiers and space whales. While Stark was picking off everything he could, helped by the uncanny vision of Hawkeye, there were still alien forces that made it past him and into the city itself.
Steve and Black Widow were each formidable, and together they were cutting a swath of death and destruction amongst the invading soldiers, but there were only two of them, and New York is a big city.
On top of that, the massive space whales used their immense weight and bulk to smash through their bottle-neck, acting as lightning rods to Thor's attack so their fellows could come in behind them, and each one carried a platoon of soldiers with them, against which Steve and Black Widow were helpless.
"HUUUUUUUUULLLLLLLLKKKK!"
Of course, those that made it through still had to contend with the 'strongest there is', but it was like they were a sieve, trying to stem back the endless tide. They couldn't hold out for much longer as it was, and now with both him and Thor out for the count, at least for now, it was up to Mary to keep the invaders contained.
John could see her grit her teeth, even as the winds started picking up even further, but the multitude of tornadoes were starting to get out of control; already they were eating away at Stark Tower underneath them.
Looking back at the invaders, John growled as he saw another space whale try to smash straight through a tornado that was throwing around Chitauri soldiers as if they were stuck in a gigantic blender.
'Those space whales are the biggest problem. But how to get rid of them? How do you get rid of a whale that big…'
As the thought shot through John's mind, he couldn't help but grin. He remembered something that Ray had shown him in order to convince him of his point, now already four years ago.
'Thanks, YouTube.'
"Mary! I got a plan!"
"You got a plan?!"
"Yes woman, I got a plan! Be ready to drop the winds when I give the signal!"
"John-!"
"Trust me!"
For a long moment, the two immortals stared each other in the eye, an army of alien invaders caught in a hurricane between them. Finally, he saw Mary give a firm nod, before she focused on smashing apart the Chitauri.
John waited for one of the space whales to emerge from the rip in the sky, flowing through the air in its waving style, surprisingly fast for such a large creature. He waited a little longer, muscles that could bend steel like tissue-paper tensing in anticipation under his new suit, waiting for just the right moment…
Just a little longer…
Just a little longer…
"Mary! NOW!"
Immediately the gales of wind died down in nothingness, throwing many of the Chitauri out of balance as they overcompensated against a hurricane that suddenly wasn't there anymore.
Not giving them the time to regain their bearing, John shot forward, a sonic boom in his wake as he broke the sound barrier in his haste.
There was no time to loose.
Shooting up past the confused space whale, close enough that he could've touched the scarred hide if he'd wanted to, John travelled the entire length of the gargantuan alien, before arriving at its tail.
Twisting in the air, he grabbed the appendage with both hands, his fingers digging deep into the thick skin of the extra-universal alien, before tensing his body.
To the space whale's credit, the moment it felt John grab it by the tail, it tried to both accelerate and whip itself around, either aiming to throw John off, or simply eat him.
John still reacted faster though.
Turning around on his axis, John roared in effort as he swung the space whale around, smashing it into the Chitauri cavalry, who were all too dumbfounded to do much else than stare.
He swung it around once…
Twice…
Three times, before looking at the portal. Another space whale was making its approach to Earth, its massive head already through the rip in the sky. With a yell that deafened the remaining Chitauri around him, John gave a final heave and let go.
The space whale, covered in the splattered remains of it fellows, bellowed in rage as it was hurled upwards, straight towards the incoming alien forces.
It smashed into the incoming space whale with an almighty crash that was heard throughout the city, pushing the newcomer back through the portal, scattering debris and squished Chitauri soldiers on both sides of the dimensional tear.
The space whale that John had manhandled wasn't nearly as lucky as the other Chitauri however.
Having been thrown at the portal, ass over teakettle (or whatever the alien equivalent of that was) it approached the hole in the sky sideways, and had hit the incoming space whale with its centre, which had been pushed through the portal as well.
Its head and tail, however, were outside the portal's edges.
With a terrible screech, the middle part of the alien was carried further back to the other side of the universe, while its head and tail, subject to the same laws of momentum, travelled further… into the sky.
The flesh of the space whale that met the edges of the portal was ripped apart, both sucked in and spat out simultaneously, in a way that made John dizzy when he looked at it.
Suddenly, the horrible screech was cut off, and the alien, now consisting of only a head and a tail, fell back to the city with a thunderous crash, trailing a rain of blueish blood.
There was a silence on the battlefield, as both Earthlings and aliens stared in horror at the decapitated space whale, neither side having ever witness such a brutal and bloody end.
John himself felt faintly sick, but he still forced himself to float a little higher and face the portal, where he could see chaos and a smashed space whale floating beyond.
"You want some more, huh!? There's plenty more where that came from!"
Apparently, that was the wrong thing to say, as all of the Chitauri still in the air let out rage-fuelled roars, and simultaneously trained their weapons on him.
"Well. Shit."
And then John's world dissolved into a purple lightshow.
"Director, the Council has come to a decision."
Nick glared at the screens in front of him, not even bothering to hide the derision and disgust on his face.
"I recognize that the Council has come to a decision. But given that it's a stupid-ass decision, I have elected to ignore it."
One of the figures on the screens, shrouded in shadowed lighting spoke up, his voice annoyed.
"Director, you are closer than any of our subs. Now, you scramble that jet-"
"That is the island of Manhattan, Councilman. Until I am certain that my team cannot hold it, I will not order a strike against a civilian population." Nick replied heatedly.
"If we lose here, we lose everything." The councilman replied, his voice beyond annoyed.
"If I send that bird out, we already have." Nick said heavily.
With an angry swipe, he disconnected the call with the Council, before closing his eye and taking a deep breath through his nose.
'Those… those… those assholes! And the worst part is, that they aren't even wrong. Lose a city? Or lose the world? Who could make such a decision?'
As he opened his eye and stared at the reflection in the empty screens in front of him, he knew the answer.
'But not yet. Not until there are no other options.'
With that thought, Nick called up all the visuals that they had on what was happening in New York, either through their own systems, or by hacking everything else. Each Avenger was shown on its individual screen, the footage switching from cell phones, satellite, to security cameras whenever needed, giving a constant feed.
Just as John threw one of the space whales back into the portal.
Nick looked at the screen showing the battle with an expression that could've been hewn from stone. However, it had slipped for a few seconds when he saw the gory consequences of getting cut into pieces by a portal.
He pretended not to notice the way Hill had turned as white as a sheet, and her muttered 'oh god', though he glared very firmly at the agent that had the gall to throw up on his floor.
Needless to say, that agent was now frantically searching for a mop somewhere on the Helicarrier.
Still though, what he had seen had been impressive, blood and gore notwithstanding, and it gave Nick a little hope.
'Maybe. Maybe we can win this.'
They had three gods, a genius inventor, centuries ahead of his time, and the Hulk on their side, not to mention the greatest soldier that ever lived and two of his best spies.
"It's not going to work."
Nick whirled around at the tired voice, as his eyebrows shot up to where his hairline would be.
Standing on his deck, leaning on Agent Coulson as much as he was supporting him in return, Loki looked at the same screen Nick had been staring at, his sunken eyes and tired tone giving him the appearance of a man who could fall unconscious at any moment.
'He probably is. And Phil isn't much better.' Nick gave his good eye a stern once-over, before giving him a look that clearly said 'this isn't over yet'.
Coulson just shrugged with a small smile on his face.
"You never cancelled the order to keep an eye on him, sir."
Nick snorted, before he turned back towards the exhausted god, who had slowly approached Nick's screen, tired eyes quickly flitting from footage to footage, scrounged up from whatever S.H.I.E.L.D. had managed to get online or hack into.
"And what makes you say that?" he asked in a cold voice.
While Loki may have saved Coulson, he still killed over eighty of his people in the first hour of his arrival on Earth, influenced or not.
It would be a very long time before Nick would trust the God of Lies.
"Because what you have been dealing with so far… that's merely the vanguard, the advanced forces. They are but less than a fraction of his true army. And soon, the portal will be large enough to admit his larger units, such as the Hives and the Motherships." Loki answered, sweat forming on his brow, even as his face gained a pained expression as he described the Chitauri's forces.
But it was something else that caught Nick's attention.
"What did you just say?" he asked harshly, but he didn't bother to wait for the god's answer.
He turned the screen towards him, and zoomed in on the footage that showed the portal itself. And what he saw confirmed his worst fears.
"It is getting bigger." He whispered to himself, but in the silence that hung on the deck, it was still heard by all present.
If possible, Hill turned even whiter, her hand gripping her pistol.
"Sir?"
"Look at the portal, Hill. At the beginning of the battle, a single space whale fit through the damn thing. Now there are three coming through… at the same time."
And it was true; on Nick's screen the three space whales were clearly visible as they simultaneously writhed their way through the portal, that only now was noticeably larger than before.
The small figure of John was barely visible as it shot forward, smashing into one of the space whales' skull, clearly denting it, even as the hurricane started back up again, courtesy of Mary.
Still, the third one made it through, its brother sacrificing itself for him by catching the full attack of Thor, who had recovered from his brief breather.
And with it, came a new host of Chitauri soldiers, descending on the population of New York with weapons that man had only ever seen before in the hands of Hydra.
And apparently, many, many more would come, eventually all at the same time.
"Preform a review of all the visuals we have on that portal and give me an estimated growth rate! NOW!"
"Yes, sir!"
"Exponentially. And all-encompassing. This time tomorrow, you'll be looking at a hole in the sky, just as large as the city below it." Loki spoke up, his tone no longer just tired, but defeated as well.
"Thanos can keep up an assault continuously for over a day?" Fury asked sceptically, filing the god's flinch at the Titan's name away for later use.
Loki simply chuckled harshly, his gaunt and sunken face making the sound all the more ghastly.
"Director, he can keep up such an assault for decades."
At the god's declaration, several whimpers could be heard amongst the crew of the Helicarrier, who had all fallen silent at his words.
Loki turned towards Nick with a cold smile, but it was empty, and his eyes were haunted.
"Feeling desperate enough yet, Director?" He mocked, recalling their conversation at Loki's cell.
Nick simply growled back, his eye blazing with such determination, it clearly caught the Trickster off guard.
Impossible odds?
Nick beat those every single day, just for a living.
"So what you are actually saying, is that instead of facing the Chitauri army, we need to focus on shutting down the portal, keeping Thanos from bringing in the rest of his army, and killing whatever is already on this side?"
He kept the god's gaze, who had trouble keeping it, he noticed. Finally, it seemed as if Loki had come to some sort of decision, because he gave Nick a small, slow nod.
"Yes." He whispered, green eyes analysing him, trying to understand his motives, his next move, the reason why he still kept on fighting.
"Stark, you hear that?"
There was a brief burst of static, before Tony's voice was heard over the speakers.
"Yeah, just… hang on a bit, will you?"
"Stark?"
"Nothing, nothing, I'm just going to re-enact a Biblical scene."
"Stark, what are you going on about-" Nick grumbled as he looked at the screen showing footage of the Iron Man armour.
Only to be brought to a halt as he saw it get eaten, accompanied by a few high-pitched shrieks (not all female) from the crew on deck. However, it quickly became clear that Stark had done something, as the insides of the gargantuan alien glowed brightly for a few seconds before exploding into a shower of flame and gore.
A tiny figure could be seen ejected from the fiery mess, slamming into the street below, as the space whale, still on fire, crashed a little further down the road.
"Stark, do you read me?!"
There was no reply.
"Stark, do you read me?!"
Still no reply. Nick could see Hill bow her head from the corner of his eye. He frowned in anger, his fist clenching itself with the creak of leather.
"Stark, dammit, do you read me?!"
"Yeah! Yeah, Nick, I'm… well I was going to say okay, but after that…" Tony's shocked voice came to life on the speakers, prompting a small cheer from the assembled S.H.I.E.L.D. crew.
Nick quickly suppressed a smile; they were running out of time, and fast too.
Survive now, celebrate later.
"Stark, did you copy the information provided by Loki?"
"Yes, yes I did. But Nick… it's shielded. None of our weapons will get through. It's impenetrable."
Nick straightened himself slowly, his hands limply hanging by his side. His eye roamed over the agents, who were all staring back at him with expressions ranging from determination, to naked fear.
Hill still had her hand on her gun, and gave him an unnoticeable, but calm and firm nod, saying, in her own way, that she would stick by him to the end, inevitable as it appeared to be.
Coulson was clearly fiddling with something in his pocket, and Nick had a fairly good idea of what it was, his features melancholy, before it was replaced by serenity as he looked back at Nick, his signature smile back on his face.
"Cap never ran. In all of his movies, he never ran." He said softly, his smile growing a little wider.
Looking at how his crew stood a little straighter at those soft words, Nick smiled as well.
"He didn't in the war either. No matter what."
Hill straightened herself, her clear voice ringing out across the deck.
"No matter what."
Slowly, but steadily increasing in speed, the cry was taken up by every single agent on board, their postures now straight, and their expression free of fear.
Nick turned his head to look at Loki, who was staring at them as if they were all mad.
'Then again, we just might be.'
"Loki?"
The god appeared startled at Nick's voice, letting his eyes flit over their faces, before it landed on the calm one of Coulson. There was a pause, before a smirk that had been once been infamous on Asgard once more appeared on his face.
He turned back to Nick, and the Director amusedly noticed that the god looked the most alive since he had stepped foot on Earth.
"No matter what."
Nick gave a nod, one meant for both the god as well as his agents, before turning back to the screen. He could see that John was wrestling with one of the space whales, even as two more flew past him. Mary was in her own personal hurricane, but the Chitauri had learned, and stayed out of her reach, peppering her with purple lasers.
Thor had been forced away from the spire of the Empire State Building, because it wasn't there anymore, smashed clean off by one of the Chitauri during the battle, and was now flying through the air, Mjolnir and lighting flying at everything alien in sight.
Iron Man was back on his feet, and preforming manoeuvres that would make the greatest ace pilot look like an amateurish toddler, leading whole squads of Chitauri in kill zones, too-tight turns and straight into the line of fire from Agent Barton, who was picking off key-Chitauri forces, causing mid-air collisions with every loosened arrow.
Captain America was fighting a whole squad of enemy foot soldiers, his shield bouncing impossibly off the road, the buildings, cars and even the Chitauri themselves, before always finding its way back into his waiting hand.
And the Hulk… well the Hulk was barely visible anymore under the barrage of the Chitauri weapons, but since they were slowly moving their fire along the roof the Hulk stood on, he was probably still alive.
They were holding on, but only by the tips of their fingers, and every moment their grip lessened more and more.
Nick opened his mouth, preparing to give the Avengers a 'fight until the bitter end' order, until he saw something that grasped his attention.
Or rather, it was something that he couldn't see.
'Where's Agent Romanov?'
As if she could hear his thoughts (and with all that was out there in the world, you never knew if she couldn't), her voice came over the speakers, her voice light with the adrenaline, and whatever else the Red Room put inside her, running through her veins.
"As touching as that all was, there might be a way to shut the Tesseract down."
Nick didn't bother hiding the hope in his voice as he pressed a finger to his ear.
"And that would be?"
"I have Dr. Selvig here with me."
"How the hell did you get to him?" Loki blurted out.
When Nick gave him a quelling glare, the god just nonchalantly shrugged, though the gesture was somewhat ruined by the clear amount of effort it took to perform the movement.
"I hitched a ride." Came Agent Romanov's dry reply, though she sounded somewhat amused.
Growling, Nick took back control of the conversation.
"Black Widow, what did Dr. Selvig manage to tell you?"
Her response was crisp, her tone just as serious as his.
"He explained that he has built a safe-guard of some kind into the device channelling the portal. He says the power of Loki's sceptre will allow it to pierce through the shield, and shut down the Tesseract, because of the similarity in their energy signatures."
Nick gripped the railing in front of him tightly enough that the leather of his gloves began giving a protesting creak.
"Think you can hold out long enough for a bird to get to your position?"
There was a silence as everybody held their breath, waiting for the Widow's reply.
"Do we have a choice?"
Thinking back to the conversation he just had with the Council, Nick winced.
"No. You don't. Hang tight, a jet will be on his way as soon as possible with Loki's sceptre."
"Yes, sir" came the reply, before the call was cut off.
"I'll take it."
Nicked blinked in surprise at the god's words, the only reason he wasn't immediately suspicious of the offer was because of the sheer terror that was visible in Loki's eyes, even as he tried to mask it.
"And why is that?"
"You have seen what it did to me. It'll do the same to you mortals, only much faster. You send one of your little agents with the sceptre, and his instructions will lead them the furthest away from the Tesseract as possible. He doesn't allow any interference in his plans."
"Yes, I've seen what it has done to you. So what makes you so certain that it won't happen again?" Nick asked sharply, getting a sheepish grin in reply.
"I'm not. But I am certain that it will happen to one of your men. I can't let that happen. I'll take it."
Before Nick could tell the god his decision (or even make on in the first place) a loud voice burst from the speakers, its tone worried.
"No brother, you cannot!" Thor's voice came, though he sounded winded.
A quick look on his screen showed Nick that Thor was currently smashing Mjolnir over and over again into a space whales head, all the while trying to fend off the Chitauri attackers that had been inside of the thing.
"Brother, I must."
"NO!"
"You know it is true."
There was a great cry of grief and rage, and Nick could see how Thor raised a now lightning imbued Mjolnir, before slamming it down into the space whales head, killing it in a final blow.
"Brother…" his voice came, panting and full of hurt.
Loki simply gave a sad smile, before turning away.
"This is the only way."
Before the God of Lies walked away, however, Tony's voice blasted from the speakers.
"Maybe not!" the inventor sounded excited, though it could also be because he was now leading a group of Chitauri on his tail straight into another regiment of aliens, dodging lasers as he went.
"Selvig is a genius! No matter how good your shield is, you can't protect yourself from yourself!"
"Stark, what are you saying?" Nick growled, not in the mood (or having the time) for the billionaire's excitement.
"Don't you get it!? I synthesized the Tesseract! It's powering my Arc Reactor! I can get through the shield!"
"Do it. Stark do it now! Drop whatever you're doing and do it now!" Loki yelled, relief clear on his face, even as his legs started to give out underneath him.
However, Nick saw something that made his remaining eye widen in shock.
"Belay that! Whatever you do Stark, you keep that portal open!"
And with that he ran off, leaving behind a very confused crew and a single, nearly unconscious god.
John shot through two buildings, leaving shattered windows in his wake, before coming to an abrupt stop in mid-air. Barrelling towards him, far too fast to stop now, was one of the space whales, who lowered its head, intent on ramming him as hard as it could.
John simply turned his torso and ducked his head.
With a thunderous clap, the space whale crashed into him, and its skull was completely crushed, folding around his body like it was made of wet cardboard. The rest of the body, carried forwards by its own momentum, crashed in on itself, pieces of armoured plating shooting away as the flesh underneath deformed into something unrecognizable.
For a long second, the mangled remains of the alien simply hang there in the air, before gravity reasserted itself, and it slowly fell to the ground, leaving a disgusted John hanging in the air, covered in (what he hoped was) brain matter.
+ Belay that! Whatever you do Stark, you keep that portal open! +
John froze in shock, before putting a finger to his ear.
"Y'all heard that, right?"
+ What's Fury playing at? + asked Steve, and John agreed with his friend.
+ What I'm playing at, is the fact that the Council just launched a nuke at Manhattan! + snapped Fury's voice over the comm, making John blanch in shock.
He could (probably) survive a nuke, but the rest of New York? The Council had just doomed several million people.
+ Nuke? What is a nuke? + Thor asked confused, though he clearly picked up on the worry of his teammates.
+ It's bad news. Fury, give me the coordinates, I'll intercept-+ Stark began, but John cut him off.
"And do what? We need you Tony. Head to the Tesseract, I'll intercept the nuke, you shut down the portal on my signal."
+ What are you going to do, Hancock? + came Fury's stern voice, the Director clearly still agitated at his Council's decision.
"I'm going to fly it into space. Just not ours."
And with another sonic boom, he took off. Finding the incoming missile was surprisingly easy, it turned out. John simply flew back in the direction he knew where the Helicarrier somewhere was, and kept an eye out for anything approaching that side of the city.
Flying closer to the nuke, who was flying at a speed that was challenging to even Hancock, he flew under it, trying to grab it with his hands above his head. He accelerated even further, feeling both himself and the missile straining against the extreme speed.
'God, I hope this works.'
And with that thought, John and the nuke took off.
Natasha was helping a confused Dr. Selvig to his feet when the Iron Man armour slammed down onto the roof next to them, showering Selvig in gravel and making him jump in fright.
Natasha was unruffled, as she was most of the time, and examined the armour with a critical eye.
Covered in scorch marks and scratches, it certainly looked as if it had just gone through a warzone, which in a way it had.
And it smelled awful.
Before the assassin could voice her displeasure, the beaten up armour opened up, allowing an equally beaten up Tony to stumble out of it. Surprised, she quickly went over to the inventor, steading him as well.
Tony looked up sharply when she touched him, but relaxed when he saw it was her, which Natasha only later realized had been the first time outside a select few at S.H.I.E.L.D. that had ever done before.
Looking over her head, Tony exchanged a quick nod with Dr. Selvig, who had a faint glimmer of recognition in his eyes.
"Ahh, Dr. Selvig, a pleasure, though I had hoped we could meet under somewhat more pleasant circumstances. I must say, your work on extra-dimensional thermo-astrodynamics is truly inspiring. However I do have a few questions…"
Heading off the flood of techno-babble she could feel coming, Natasha spoke up, a wary eye on the sky, where both Thor and Mary could be seen trying to fight a veritable swarm of Chitauri, the air filled with storms and the scent of ozone.
"Boys! Can we focus for just a second here? Stark, I thought you had a plan?"
Tony gave a pained expression, his hand briefly rubbing his chest, before giving a decisive nod.
"Right."
And with that he stopped leaning on Natasha and limped over towards the blue shimmering shield around the brightly glowing Tesseract.
"Tony, how are you going to breach the shield without your armour?" Natasha asked, though ice coiled inside her gut as she started to suspect what the inventor had in mind.
The billionaire looked at her with a sad smile on his bloodied face, his expression halfway between absolute calm and unholy terror.
"I said it was my Arc Reactor that could breach the shield, Romanov, not the Iron Man armour."
With a quick movement he took off his shirt, showing the glowing bit of technology firmly planted in the middle of his bruised chest.
A small part of Natasha's mind noticed the fact that both the reactor and the Tesseract were glowing in the exact same colour.
The rest of her mind, however, was simply screaming in horror.
"Tony, NO!"
But Tony wasn't looking at her anymore, instead looking at the Tesseract with a heavy glare.
"Tell Pepper I love her."
And with that he ripped the Arc Reactor straight out of his chest.
John was straining against the missile, who was getting harder to control every second they spend flying together. Already the panelling from the nuke's hull started to tear away, and it was bucking around like a horse at a rodeo.
John simply grit his teeth, even as his fingers dug in further into the metal, pouring on even more speed.
In what felt like hours, but couldn't have been more than a minute, New York sped into view, and soon after he was soaring above the many skyscrapers of the Big Apple, closing in on the beam into the sky.
"JOHN!"
He didn't dare to look away, scared that he might lose what little control he still had on the runaway missile, but he could see a black blur slam through a squad of Chitauri that had been training there weapons on him, some part of them recognizing the significance of the weapon on his back.
"Thor, clear a path!"
+ At once, Astartes! +
No sooner had Thor answered, that the sky around the beam of light was filled with the biggest lightning bolt that John had ever seen, more than several feet across at its thickest point.
+ Good… luck… my friend. + and with a sigh, the God of Thunder collapsed, the strain of channelling his powers finally catching up to him.
The sky clear of enemies, for now at least, John started angling upwards, the inversed sinkhole in the sky becoming visible. The black blur flew closer, before it started catching up to him.
He still didn't look away from the portal, but he already knew who it was, even before he heard her voice.
"JOHN! DON'T!"
"Get back Mary!"
The portal was getting closer now.
"PLEASE JOHN, DON'T DO THIS!"
He could see through the portal, he could see the sheer vastness of the army, ready and eager to invade.
"Mary, take care of Aaron!"
And with that, he flew through the portal, feeling as if he flew through a waterfall as something rippled over his skin, the roaring of battle suddenly cut off as he shot into the void of space. He kept flying forwards, desperately trying to avoid the mass of space whales and Chitauri soldiers that were crowding around the portal, ready to invade earth.
It wouldn't do to set it off prematurely by having a grunt take the nuke to the face well before it had reached the motherships.
So John kept flying, even as his body started getting covered in frost, and he could feel himself slowing down. Finally he shot past the vanguard of the Chitauri forces and had a clear view of the rest of the alien fleet.
He quickly let go of the missile, which shot further into the emptiness of universe on its own powers, steadily heading towards where John could see the largest of the Chitauri ships, easily bigger than an entire city.
Floating there in space, John could feel his eyes drooping closed, his tiredness only now making itself known, as the adrenaline (or whatever he had instead of that) started to wear off.
The frost that covered him started increasing in thickness, the cold of space leeching the warmth from his body and making him feel more tired than he could ever remember being.
A quick look over his shoulder showed him that the hole in space itself, the only source of light aside from a far off sun, was steadily getting smaller. John smiled softly, a feeling of pride glowing inside his chest.
'We did it. We really did it.'
He looked back at the army of the Chitauri, just in time to see one of their biggest ships go up in flames as the nuke smashed into it, taking the gargantuan vessel and a host of smaller ones with it.
John grinned at the sight, and kept on grinning even as the rest of the fleet fired on his floating body, great bolts of sickly purple energy screaming through the vastness of space.
He kept grinning, right until they slammed into him.
Then he screamed.
Steve was looking up at the hole in the sky, his heart tight in his chest. He could see the blooming fire of the nuclear explosion, even as it raced towards the tear in the sky, the deadly radiation shooting through space at speeds approaching that of light.
Soon, it would reach the portal, and pass through it, raining down its deadly effects on the city of New York.
He had no choice.
His voice thick with unshed tears, he called it.
"Close the portal."
He could hear his fellow Avengers yell their defiance in his ear-piece, and as heart-warming as their loyalty to one of their own was, they simply didn't have a choice.
"You asked me to call it, I am calling it! Close it, or the radiation of the nuke will still poison New York and John's sacrifice would have been in vain!"
There was a brief silence as all of the Avengers struggled with the truth of that, before Natasha's voice came through his earpiece.
+ Copy that + the assassin said, unusually subdued.
Briefly, Steve wondered why it wasn't Tony that answered him, but then he put it out of his mind as he saw the beam suddenly cut off, and the portal rapidly shrinking.
Before it completely closed, however, Steve saw a wave of purple light streaming towards the portal, right as it was about to close.
The Chitauri, who had warily paused when he stopped fighting, cried out in panic when they saw their connection to the mothership about to be cut off, and those still in their flying sleds raced towards the hole in the sky.
They were far too slow.
With a sucking noise, the portal disappeared completely, once again showing a clear and blue sky.
All around him, the Chitauri fell to the ground like puppets with their strings cut, which in a round-about sort of way they were. But Steve didn't see any of it, his tear filled eyes trained on the sky where his friend had disappeared.
"Goodbye John." He whispered, his voice thick with sorrow.
'Now I'm really alone.'
He could hear Mary's scream of grief ring throughout the city, even as he himself lost all of the strength in his legs, falling to his knees, his body feeling as weak as it had been before he'd gotten the serum.
He had just condemned his friend, the only thing he still had left from his life, to death, or a fate worse than death. What if John had survived carrying the nuke? What if he had been just about to turn back? What if-
+ Wait! I see something! +
Steve's head shot up, and furiously wiping his eyes, he stared at the sky again, hoping that he saw what Hawkeye's unnatural vision had managed to spot.
It took several long, agony filled moments, but finally Steve saw a small black shape fall from the sky, trailing a faint stream of smoke behind it, before there was a faint sonic boom as a blur shot towards it. Mary, because who else could it be, gently caught the falling figure, before slowly flowing back down to street-level.
Steve took off running, passing destroyed buildings, burned out cars, and scores of dead Chitauri, his heart hammering inside his chest.
'Please Lord, please, please, let it be him, please.' He kept on repeating as he ran, until he finally arrived at where Mary had touched down.
And in her arms was an unconscious John.
The immortal looked terrible; he was covered in frost, and his chest was blackened and charred, his suit completely burned away from his torso.
Right as Steve reached them, there was a crash as the Hulk landed on the street, cracking it beneath its enormous bulk. The giant behemoth slowly approached the two immortals, an unusually serious expression on its usually snarling face.
Right on the heels of the Hulk's explosive entrance, came Agent Barton, covered in soot and out of arrows, his bow covered in Chitauri blood. Clearly the archer had been forced into close quarters combat, using his composite bow to great and deadly effect.
Steve slid to a stop on his knees next to Mary, who looked up at his approach with red-rimmed eyes.
"Is he…" the supersoldier couldn't bring himself to finish the question, instead grabbing John's shoulder.
Mary swallowed, before slowly shaking her golden head.
"No."
His heart fell through his chest to somewhere beneath his toes, his body feeling hollow and his mind numb. He had doomed his friend. It didn't matter whether or not John had already been dead or not before or after the portal had been closed, it had still been his call to close it. It had been his call to let John carry the nuke into the portal, even though he knew that the immortal wouldn't have listened to anybody forbidding him from doing it anyway. It had been his-
"But he will be."
Even as hope and confusion raged a war inside his chest, making his heart ache in a horribly familiar way, Steve looked up at Mary ('why does she look so blurry?') who slowly stood up, before taking a few steps back.
She smiled at them, at a crying Steve, a sombre Barton and a serious Hulk. Her smile was soft and gentle, even as tears streamed down her cheeks.
"Tell him to come and get me when he wakes up. Tomorrow is Spaghetti Thursday, and I don't think Aaron will want to miss it. We have a tradition of never missing a single Thursday you know."
And with those words, she bend her legs, before shooting off, shattering the pavement beneath her feet as she quickly disappeared from sight. But Steve knew where she was headed.
The heart on the moon still needed repairing after all.
For a few moments, everything was silent, all the noise and sounds from the world having fallen away, as Steve, Barton and the Hulk stared intently at John, desperately searching for the faintest signs of life.
Until suddenly, Johns eyes shot open and he took a deep gasp of breath. Struggling weakly, the resurrected immortal flailed his arms, before Steve managed to hold him close.
"It's okay, buddy, it's gonna be okay, I'm here, I'm right here." Steve whispered over and over, and each time he said it, the crushing guilt became just a little lighter.
Steve looked up to see Barton lean on his longbow, a tired smile on his face, while the Hulk was grinning broadly, before the behemoth tilted his head back, and gave a great roar of victory, banging his chest in triumph.
+ Status update Captain. Captain, do you read? +
"Yeah, we're okay. It worked Nick; John managed to get the nuke through the portal and returned, and Tony managed to shut down the portal. All the Chitauri are dead."
He could hear faint cheering in the background, and if it weren't for the heavy superhuman in his lap, Steve would've likely joined in. Instead, he simply settled for grinning as an idiot back at Barton and the Hulk.
Barton opened his mouth to say something, amusement dancing in his eyes, but was cut off as their radio crackled to life.
+ We aren't all okay. +
It was as ice water was poured down John's back at Romanov's sombre tone. Thankfully he didn't have to ask the assassin what she meant, as Barton had sprang to his feet, one hand at his ear, the other firmly gripping his bloodied bow. After the series of shocks to his system in the last five minutes alone, Steve didn't really trust his voice.
"Nat?! Nat, how are you?!"
+ I'm fine.+ came the terse reply, before the assassin gave a heavy sigh.
+ Tony however…+
There was a brief pause, as the Russian spy audibly collected herself, before continuing, her voice soft.
+…Tony is in pretty bad shape. +
AN 1: Something that bothered me when I rewatched the movie, was the fact that when Tony flies through the portal, there are suddenly no Chitauri around anymore, even though they have been steadily pouring through that portal since the battle began. It should be swarming on the other side of the portal, which in my fic, it does. It gave me a nice excuse for keeping John long enough in space to tire him enough for the counterattack of the Chitauri to put him down. At least for a little bit.
AN 2: In all honesty, I'm not all that pleased withthe last part of the chapter. Somehow, it keeps feeling... flat to me, if you understand what I mean. Let me know what you thought about it; you're reviews are the greatest thing in the world, they literally make my day =)
AN 3: Also, cliffhanger! Again! I'm sorry, please stop throwing imaginary things at me!
Fun Fact: When the missile is released over Manhattan, the pilot calls detonation in two minutes and thirty seconds. The sequence between then and the detonation is actually 2:30 of film time. Concidering my dad always counts along whenever a countdown is shown onscreen, just to annoy me, this was extremely satisfying.