Chapter 21 – The Sacrifice Play

A/n: Two highly anticipated scenes in this chapter :) Hope you enjoy them everyone.

paisley15: She probably was but the angle of that shot is so awkward that I couldn't tell if she was still wearing them or not. Yeah, Bruce will not be happy.

Ashtree1165: All scenes at the end of the credits will be included. All of the movies will be in this story and the sequels will be focused on the aftermath

Booklover2526: Yes, I love reviews that tell me I'm not going OOC :D Yeah me neither they're going to be so fun to write.

youwannabekate: Welcome back, that does not sound at all fun :( I wondered where you had got to. Yes, I always thought that in the heat of battle you aren't going oh that was cool so I threw those comments in. 'Puny God' scene here :D

XxxBellaBellaxxX: I'm not planning on a Hulk out because the Hulk of course already knew about what Toni had done. He has his own intentions after all. Toni and Clint are amazingly fun to write together with Natasha as the person who is going oh no! They're dangerous together

sjc18: Thank you! Glad you're enjoying it

Guest: Depends on which sequel you read; there will be a Bruce/Toni sequel and a parallel Clint/Toni one as well as oneshots of Thor/Toni and Steve/Toni

LaNaturalBreezeOf-Books: I'm thinking of making him quit SHIELD and Toni hire him as something to do with the Avengers /lol/. Waitress girl is called Beth but yeah I don't know why they focused on her so much

Dragones: Glad you think so

Harm Marie: That's good

The Avengers sat around having conversations trying to not to focus on things they didn't want to come to light that might be in future movies. Or even in this one but that was mainly Toni. Clint and Natasha had drawn her into a conversation about combat that she could easily keep up with whilst also pulling out a StarkPad and beginning to think up ways to make Clint arrows that would return to him after they were fired. She'd been paying attention to his constant having to yank them out of enemies so he didn't run out mid-battle.

Bruce had been quiet for a while but eventually Thor and Steve's insistent argument over how to work some of the technology in the tower required his intervention for they were both wrong. He didn't want them attempting to prove they were right and pissing off Toni again. He didn't think he could deal with an angry Toni too often. He was sure the others would agree with him.

Luckily these conversations ended up being quite in depth because it took a while before JARVIS spoke up again, "Agent Coulson is asking for permission to access this floor."

"Permission granted," Toni replied, "and fabricate this for me please," she threw the data on her StarkPad up onto a holographic rendering screen showing the bracelet she had come up with that would fit in perfectly with Clint's suit and wouldn't impede his ability to fire his arrows.

"What is that and when did you come up with it?" Steve asked confused.

"It's a recall device for Clint's arrows similar to the one I made for your shield only it will put them in his quiver not his hand. And I'll have to put a receiver inside each of the arrows so it'll take me more time. And I did it while I was talking to Clint and Natasha of course," Toni said simply.

"Cool," Clint said smiling, "did you make sure...?"

"You can still fire your arrows without it getting in the way," Toni finished for him, "I triple checked it. And I'll find you somewhere to test them."

"Thanks," Clint said as the elevator doors opened revealing Agent Coulson.

"So," he said stepping into the room, "how long has it been?"

"Less time than Steve," Toni laughed walking up to him, "it's been three months Phil. The battle happened the day they told us you had died."

"Wait," Phil said confused, "they told you I was dead. I was only out for a few seconds before they revived me."

"Well Fury specifically is the one who told us," Natasha interjected, "it's good to have you back Phil. We have a lot to catch you up on."

The majority of the next hour was spent telling Phil about what had happened in the three months he was unconscious including this business with Amora and her trickery. But they left out the bits of the battle they hadn't seen yet. The movie would show that much better than they ever could. It took a little bit of explanation to get him comfortable enough to sit in Piper's old seat next to Bruce as his last memory of him was the destruction of the helicarrier but Phil trusted the others and if they said it was okay he believed them.

"Director Fury," the Councilwoman insisted, "the Council has made a decision."

"I recognise the Council has made a decision," Fury retorted, "But given that it's a stupid-ass decision, I have elected to ignore it."

"The one time Fury and I will ever agree," Toni interjected, "on anything. Even if we have the same opinion of something we tend to disagree on solutions."

"Director, you're closer than any of our subs," the head councilman informed him, "you scramble that jet…"

"That is the island of Manhattan, Councilman," Fury shouted, "Until I'm certain my team can't hold it, I will not order a nuclear strike against a civilian population."

"Wait, they tried to get him to do what?!" Phil exclaimed appalled.

"Yeah, the World Security Council is basically full of dicks," Toni sighed, "it's a shame they're not public so I can't use the press to get them kicked out of office."

"There are downsides to SHIELD being a secret agency," Clint interjected.

"If we don't hold them here, we lose everything," the councilman attempted to persuade.

"If I send that bird out, we already have," Fury said dismissively and ending the call.

"At least Fury knows that there is a line that you do not cross," Bruce reasoned, "under any circumstances."

Loki attempted to fire a beam from his craft at Natasha but it went wide and she simply sighed and said sarcastically, "oh, you!"

He continued following her and firing on her so Natasha called out, "Hawkeye!"

"Nat, what are you doing?" he asked spotting her flying.

"I had absolutely no clue why you were taking the risk of flying on one of the alien transports at the time," Clint pointed out, "all I saw was you hurtling towards me with Loki after you."

"Uh… a little help?!" she asked as one of the beams made contact.

Clint pushed a button on his bow and raised it seamlessly shafting an arrow as they turned a corner. "I got him," he said with a smile.

As Loki drew closer Clint fired and it headed straight towards Loki who caught the arrow in his hand but as he smirked at Clint the arrowhead exploded sending him crashing down onto the Stark Tower observation deck. The craft fell destroying both the 'S' and the 'T' of Stark.

"Always have a back-up plan," Clint said smugly. That had been a highly satisfying moment seeing Loki fall due to one of his arrows.

"Thank you for destroying more of the sign," Toni said with a smile. It wasn't like she was going to give Loki any credit.

Natasha leapt from the back of the craft and flipped through the air before rolling to a halt on the roof of the tower. As Loki stood the Hulk leapt up in front of him and slammed him through the window and it appeared Loki had finally gotten to the very edge, "enough!" he shouted.

"Telling the Hulk that isn't going to do anything," Bruce scoffed, "unless you're Toni that one time it apparently happened," he quickly amended before Toni could butt in.

"You are, all of you, beneath me!" Loki continued, "I am a god, you dull creature. And I will not be bullied by…"

"And the Hulk is not going to like that," Steve predicted.

The Hulk simply grabbed hold of Loki's foot and pulled him and began slamming him into the floor at high speed.

"Oh," Toni said giving Bruce a mock glare, "so that's where the holes in my floor came from."

"Hey I helped fix them," Bruce replied, "we're even!"

When he had finally had enough the Hulk walked away scoffing, "Puny god!"

The team couldn't help the laughter that erupted upon this statement. They had been holding it in ever since Bruce had ruined Loki's speech but it became impossible after that. "I really wish I remembered this," Bruce said when everything had calmed down.

Natasha approached the Tesseract as Dr Selvig said weakly, "the sceptre…"

Natasha turned to face him saying, "Doctor," cautiously analysing whether he was really back.

"I couldn't be sure as I wasn't there when he hit his head," Natasha explained, "I thought he sounded different though."

"Loki's sceptre," he continued, "the energy. The Tesseract can't fight, but you can't protect against yourself."

"Oh," Toni sighed, "I know how you closed the portal."

"How did you get it from that?" Natasha said incredulously.

"There's a double meaning behind his words," Toni said, "whether it was intentional or not. He was saying that he couldn't fight himself but he was also saying that the sceptre was part of the Tesseract. It can't fight against itself either."

"It's not your fault," Natasha said crouching down next to him, "you didn't know what you were doing."

"There was no blue in his eyes," Clint said, "that's how you knew you could trust him."

"Yes," Natasha confirmed.

"Well actually, I think I did," he realised, "I built in a safety to cut their power source."

At this Clint felt a surge of guilt again. Selvig who had no formal spy training whatsoever had somehow managed to maintain a bit of defiance and build a way out of their situation. Clint hadn't done anything but kill people.

"Stop it Clint!" the girls chorused and Clint did a double take. He knew Natasha would understand his thought processes but Toni? They barely talked. Mind you it was probably a girl thing. He was relieved to see that the others looked worried too. It wasn't just the combination of Toni and Clint that was dangerous. In fact Toni and Nat were probably worse together and they had been interacting for much longer. They were so screwed if they ever messed with either of them.

"Loki's sceptre," Natasha concluded.

"It may be able to close the portal," Selvig confirmed and looked down at the observation deck, "And I'm looking right at it."

"It is a very fortunate thing that I caused my brother to lose it then," Thor said.

Thor had acquired one of the alien crafts himself as he knocked two of the Chitauri off it with Mjolnir. He started to steer it away but was interrupted when one of the leviathans came flying right at him through a building. Toni flew up alongside it and began firing her lasers at its armour.

"Ma'am, we will lose power before we penetrate that shell," JARVIS informed her so she turned the lasers off. As the leviathan crashed on top of another building Toni did a wide arc so she was now facing it and asked, "JARVIS, you ever hear the tale of Jonah?"

"Oh no," the room chorused.

"I'm the one that had to do it," Toni pointed out, "so I don't know what you're fussing about."

"I wouldn't consider him a role model," JARVIS said nervously.

Toni opened up flaps on the knees of the suit that let out daggers and kept flying straight towards the leviathan. And as its mouth opened she flew inside. As she made progress through the creature it began to explode and upon reaching the tail it blew up and Toni was sent flying before crashing through a bus stop and into an upturned car.

"It worked," Natasha acknowledged, "but you really shouldn't have done it."

"The key thing is that it worked," Toni said clearly not bothered by her past actions.

Toni pushed herself up from her prone position on the pavement now with a new head injury and rose to her feet before being knocked back by laser blasts from a Chitauri member as a circle of them advanced on her.

On top of his rooftop Clint turned and shot one of the Chitauri who had crept up behind him but when he reached behind for another arrow he found out that he had run out.

"Which is exactly why I designed the recall device for you," Toni said with a smile, "it should be done by the time this film ends."

So he just used his bow to take down the next alien that came up to him before tossing it down off the building. When he turned he saw a whole fleet of them approaching obviously intending to take him out so he pulled the arrow from the last alien he shot and put it into a specific arrowhead in his quiver. As the laser beams began hitting the building he leapt off of it and span around shooting the grappling hook arrow onto the side of said building.

"Well that's one way to get off an exploding building," Natasha quipped.

Clint used the momentum from the fall to crash through an office window out of the line of fire hissing in pain from the glass he had just landed on.

On another rooftop the Hulk was smashing alien after alien with little to no trouble at all. It was hardly surprising when a huge group of their crafts began to fire on him leaving him shouting in fury amongst a giant mass of fire and smoke.

"Well that's the good thing about being the Hulk," Bruce laughed, "Nothing they could do was really affecting me."

"Director Fury is no longer in command," the Councilwoman informed one of the pilots, "override order 7-Alpha-1-1."

"7-Alpha-1-1 confirmed," the pilot responded, "We're go for take-off."

"Sir, we have a bird in motion," Hill shouted, "Anyone on the deck, we have a rogue bird. We need to shut it down! Repeat, take-off is not authorised!"

Fury decided to take the more direct approach and sprinted from the room.

"Bloody council," Toni muttered. She was not looking forward to seeing the next scene.

Fury ran out onto the deck carrying a gun he'd obviously acquired from the armoury along the way. He managed to take the wing off the plane with it and while it skidded to the edge of the helicarrier it didn't fall and now couldn't take off. Suddenly Fury spotted another plane speeding off and while he raised his handgun against it, it wasn't enough!

"He probably should have realised the Council would have a back-up plan," Natasha admitted.

Upon re-entering the building Fury reached for his comm unit, "Stark, do you hear me? You have a missile headed straight for the city."

"Of course they gave you that assignment," Phil said darkly. He knew a little about Toni's previous problems with suicidal moves.

"How long?" Toni asked distracted from her fight and getting hit over the head for her trouble.

"Three minutes, max," Fury informed her, "the payload will wipe out midtown."

Toni fired at the approaching soldiers and then instructed, "JARVIS, put everything we got into the thrusters."

"I just did," JARVIS told her as she pushed herself off the ground and then launched herself into the air.

"Toni, I get the feeling nobody told me the whole story about this," Bruce said cautiously especially when a brief flash of guilt crossed Steve's face. He had been the hardest to coerce into not telling Bruce about Toni's heroic actions.

The plane carrying the missile approached Manhattan and the pilot pushed the red button that fired the missile. "Package is sent," he informed the council, "Detonation in 2 minutes, 30 seconds, mark."

"How can someone be comfortable enough with authority to push a button meant to wipe out a civilian population?" Bruce asked angrily his eyes flashing green.

"A system of zero accountability," Toni replied, "and I am very glad that I am no longer a part of it."

Back on the ground Thor and Steve both caught their respective weapons and were using them to fight off the Chitauri. As he was turning Steve took a direct hit to the stomach where he was already injured and fell to the ground. Thor deflected the blasts with Mjolnir as Steve slowly tried to move. Eventually Thor used Mjolnir to blast a car into the attackers and helped Steve up.

"Are you ready for another bout?" he asked Steve concerned.

"What, are you getting sleepy?" Steve said putting aside his pain.

"I knew it would heal soon enough with the serum so I could keep pushing through it," Steve informed the group.

Back on the Tower roof Selvig was setting up his equipment as Natasha walked over sceptre in hand. "Right at the crown!" Selvig instructed.

Natasha reached in and as soon as the point of the sceptre touched the energy field it put up resistance and sparks flew but the sceptre slowly began to pass through the field. "I can close it," Natasha said tensely from the sheer force it was taking to keep the sceptre on track, "Can anybody copy? I can shut the portal down."

"That was one of the hardest things I have ever done," Natasha told them, "the whole thing was fighting me and I thought I was going to drop the sceptre in the field and lose our only way of winning. I think it was sheer willpower that stopped me from doing exactly that."

"Do it!" Steve shouted but Toni interrupted him with a quick, "no, wait!"

"Stark these things are still coming," Steve said confused.

"I didn't have a clue why you wouldn't want the portal closed! It was really confusing," Steve announced.

"I got a nuke coming in," Toni told him, "It's gonna blow in less than a minute," she paused as her systems identified the missile. Then she set off changing direction as fast as the suit could ending up right behind the missile, "and I know just where to put it," she finished.

"Toni you didn't!" Phil exclaimed but Bruce was trying not to be too worried. Hopefully she just threw it through the portal after getting some leverage instead of flying through herself.

She caught up with the missile and latched on beneath it and let the momentum from it carry her with little help from the suit's power.

"Stark, you know that's a one-way trip," Steve said worried.

"Save the rest for the turn J," Toni told JARVIS ignoring Steve's comment.

"You really are going to aren't you, again? Toni…" Phil began but Toni pointedly ignored all comments. She had done what she had done and she was still alive right now. Okay, so maybe by all accounts she might have been dead for a little bit but resuscitation was awesome and it worked in this case.

"Ma'am, shall I try Mr Potts?" JARVIS asked.

"Might as well," Toni said weakly.

"At least you kept your promise to him," Phil said softly.

"Yeah well, I try hard to keep my promises," Toni replied. It had only made it worse when Piper hadn't answered because she didn't know if she'd ever get to talk to him again and they had promised each other to talk about it if that ever happened.

Back on the Stark Industries plane Piper's hands were clenched onto one of the chairs in front of him as the TV played, "The streets of New York City have become a battleground. The Army is here trying to contain the violence but clearly, it is outmatched."

Set aside on the ledge that contained the cup holder Piper's phone began to buzz with Toni's face on the screen but Piper was too caught up in the report to notice, "And I have to say, in all my years of reporting, I have never seen anything like this."

The scene changed to show Agent Hill watching the same news report, "we have limited information on the team but we do know that billionaire Toni Stark's Iron Man…"

"The suit is kind of recognisable," Toni said with a shy smile. She knew Phil and Bruce were not going to be very happy with her in a minute but what choice did she have. There wasn't enough time to get the leverage to just throw the thing. Her math was never wrong.

Toni sped towards Stark Tower with JARVIS still showing that he was calling Piper on the screen. Steve and Thor looked up as Toni activated extra thrusters and turned so she was flying parallel with Stark Tower. Both the Hulk and Natasha looked up too as they heard/saw what was happening but Toni just kept going and passed through the portal disappearing from view.

"Toni!" Bruce said calmly but the anger in his voice and glint in his eye was unmistakeable, "why didn't you tell me?"

"Because I couldn't okay," Toni spat out, "I can't tell anyone about what I did without one of two things happening and I'm pretty sure you like most of the team would have gone for the second one which is thinking that I'm suicidal which I definitely wasn't at the time. I did the math; there was no other way. And I'm sick of everything people say about me when I'm right there."

Toni would never admit it but they all knew that the tear that slipped down her face wasn't imagined. And the rest of the team couldn't help but feel sorry because they had jumped to the conclusion at times that Toni had been using the sacrifice play as an out from life.

Clint awkwardly put his arm around her as he was the closest and she didn't shrug it off although she didn't look entirely comfortable. As the silence stretched on JARVIS restarted the footage.

The agents at SHIELD cheered but only Fury seemed to realise the true implications of what Toni had just done and looked anything but happy.

"Nick Fury may be many things but he's not stupid," Phil said, "he'll be regretting doubting that Toni should have been on the team because of that move."

"I was regretting everything I said too," Steve admitted seemingly forgetting that Toni was still in the room, "it was heat of the moment stuff sure but she proved me wrong on every count."

In space Toni appeared to be in a lot of pain if the look on her face was anything to go by and her breathing was shallow. JARVIS faltered and the power to the suit failed as all systems went offline. Toni had just enough strength left to let go of the missile and begin to fall as the missile flew forwards and collided with the mother ship causing an explosion.

"So that's why everything powered down," Clint said not letting go of Toni although she attempted to shrug him off, "they lost their link to what was keeping them active."

"I knew the missile would continue in a straight line because nothing in space changes direction unless it collides with something else," Toni explained, "there was no reason the chemicals wouldn't work on something in space so I thought I could at least cut down their back up. I trusted you guys to get rid of the rest."

Back on Earth the Chitauri dropped to the ground and even the leviathans powered down crashing on top of buildings as everything ground to a halt. Thor and Steve looked around confused as back in space Toni's eyes flickered shut as she continued to fall. "Come on, Annie," Natasha muttered.

Suddenly the light from the explosion reached the team and Steve faltered slightly before saying, "Close it."

"Well done," Toni complimented.

"What?!" Steve said confused as he had been expecting outrage.

"In that situation the nuclear fallout could have come back through the portal and the radiation could still have wiped out everyone in Manhattan and possibly even more than that. For all you knew I was already dead Steve. You made the right call," Toni insisted.

"Thank you I guess," Steve stuttered, "but I thought the explosion was you actually so…"

"It would still have been the right call Steve," Toni interrupted.

Natasha reluctantly turned back to the Tesseract and pushed the sceptre completely in cutting the connection which was keeping the portal open. As the energy stopped transmitting one last beam shot up and the portal began to close as Steve looked down sadly.

But Toni was still falling at speed and she just made it through the portal before it closed. Upon seeing the falling suit Natasha's lips quirked into a smile and Steve exclaimed happily, "son of a gun."

But Toni didn't stop falling.

"So you were telling the truth," Bruce said shocked, "the Hulk really did save your life."

"Why would I lie about something as serious as that?" Toni said offended. She knew she bent the truth on occasion but flat out lying about something as serious as someone saving her life was lower than she would ever dare to go.

"She's not slowing down," Thor said panicked beginning to spin Mjolnir as if to go up and catch her.

Toni mouthed 'thank you,' to Thor for this and was rewarded with a beaming smile.

But the Hulk got there first leaping across and catching Toni whilst slowing their descent by digging his heels into the building. Then he softened the landing by jumping onto a car and then skidding to a halt throwing Toni off him.

Steve and Thor ran to her side and Thor rolled her over as Steve asked, "is she breathing?"

Thor ripped off her mask and threw it aside and Steve leaned down to check but he obviously couldn't hear anything and the arc reactor wasn't glowing which even Steve could tell was probably not a good thing.

A/n: Back to over 4K again :) And it's not technically a cliffie seeing as y'all know what happens next