Very long. 10/11 pages long on pages. 4,361 words.

Chapter 28: The Battle of New York

It seemed like no time had passed when we reached New York city, even though I spent most of the time pacing the length of the jet while trying to keep myself calm. I would have given anything to go back and sit on the Helicarrier; even though that probably would have made my anxiety worse. I most likely would have killed Fury, had I stayed. We were all nervous, and I was rethinking my decision of going with them.

"Alex you need to sit down." Steve said. He was sitting there, fidgeting with a strap on one of the seats.

"I can't sit down. When I get nervous, I do two things; I either start pacing or start muttering to myself about how everything sucks, or both at once. With all the shit that's been going on, you're lucky I haven't started freaking out, and that's when things start getting really bad." I said, ranting.

"What's that like?" He asked. I stopped my pacing and turned to face him.

"Remember when Fury announced over the com that Phil was dead?" I asked. Steve nodded.

"That. It's like that." I said.

"What happened?" Agent Romanoff asked.

"Hysterical sobbing and I had to lead her down the hallway so she didn't bump into anything while she was trying to get out of my grip." Steve said. He turned to me, "You're a lot stronger than you look."

"We're there." Agent Barton said. Agent Romanoff turned on the com.

"Stark, we're heading north east." Agent Romanoff said. I jerked my head in her direction, finally getting out of my own head.

"What, did you stop for drive-thru?" He asked harshly, "Swing that park, I'm gonna lay 'em out for you." Before I knew what was happening the jet was crashing and we were on the ground. We ran outside the jet and onto the street. We stopped in the middle of the street, looking at the destruction that had already befallen the city. That's when we saw the Chitauri.

"Shit." I said, once I saw the airship. It looked like a giant worm, and it was bigger than a skyscraper. Everybody was gaping at it. As it passed Chitauri dropped out of it's sides and onto the buildings surrounding it.

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

"Seeing, still working on believing." Tony said, "Where's Banner? Has he shown up yet?"

"Banner?" Steve asked, sounding confused. Tony was clearly holding onto the hope that Dr. Banner would hold onto what he had said in the lab back on the Helicarrier.

"Just keep me posted." He said, before shutting off the com.

We dodged around some debris. Agent Romanoff, Agent Barton, and I kneeled behind a car, watching as the alien ships over head shot at buildings, dropped Chitauri and did everything they could to make it more difficult for us. Steve ran to meet us and did the same.

"We've got civilians trapped in there." Agent Barton said. Overhead the aliens were just making things worse.

"Loki." Steve said, looking at the ship that was racing across New York. More and more stuff was exploding and being shot at. There was so much fire. "Permission to barrel down there?" He asked. More Chitauri dropped and Agent Romanoff stood up and shot them. Agent Barton moved closer and she sat back down.

"We've got this. It's good, go." Agent Romanoff said.

"You think you can hold them off?" Steve asked.

"Captain, it would be my genuine pleasure." He said. Agent Barton stood up from behind the overturned taxi and shot one. An arrow went right through it's head and it fell. They started shooting at the Chitauri as Steve jumped over the side of the bridge.

"Just like Budapest all over again!" Agent Romanoff said.

"You and I remember Budapest very differently." Agent Barton replied. I didn't know what to think about that. I tried to be helpful during the fight, but the best I could do was shoot at the aliens and keep my focus on the aliens. I got backhanded across

Tony was messing with the worm beast, shooting at it and letting it follow him. It hit a building with it's tail, causing more rubble to fall.

"Well, we got it's attention." Tony said into the com. "What the hell was step two?" He asked. Nobody answered him.

The Chitauri were everywhere. At every street corner, waiting behind every car, they were doing whatever it took to take us down. It was getting worse and worse, and fighting them off was getting it to the point where we were running off of adrenaline and anger; and the battle had barely even begun.

While Agent Romanoff and Agent Barton were working hard to keep the aliens off themselves; I was busy trying to figure out what I was supposed to do. I was killing them, slowly, and it was gross because of all that black goo, but I wasn't entirely sure where we were heading with that. There was no goal in mind yet. They were streaming out of the portal, and there was nothing to stop it.

When I turned away from the aliens, I saw Steve trying to find his way back over to us. I got knocked right on my oblivious ass. I forced myself up and stabbed the aliens, wishing I knew more about what I was doing. Finally, he just jumped at them and used his shield to push the aliens out of the way. I smacked one of them with the back of the stolen gun and knocked it out of the way so I could get down there. Steve used his shield to keep them out of his way, Agent Romanoff was using the scepter she stole, and Agent Barton was shooting arrows at them. I had picked up a broken pole and was using it to stab the aliens. Slowly, we were getting a perimeter of our own, but it wasn't enough to stop them.

The Chitauri's numbers were dwindling, but they still seemed to have the upper hand on us. Before we knew what happened, lightning struck the remanning Chitauri down, and Thor dropped to the ground. He leaned heavily on an overturned car and got himself to his feet, walking towards us.

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

"The powers surrounding the cube is impenetrable." Thor answered.

"Thor is right, we gotta deal with these guys." Tony said into the com.

"How do we do this?" Agent Romanoff asked.

"As a team." Steve said, trying to take a place as the leader. Everybody except Thor found that as a satisfactory answer. Even the ones of us that didn't deal well with authority (e.i., me, Tony).

"I have unfinished business with Loki." Thor butted in.

"Yeah, get in line." Agent Barton said, fixing the tip of one of his arrows.

"Save it!" Steve snapped, getting their attention, "Loki's gonna keep this fight focused on us and that's what we need. Without him these things could run wild. We got Stark up top, he's gonna need us…" He stopped when we heard the sound of a motor. We all turned around to see Dr. Banner on a motorbike. He turned it off and got off the bike.

"So, this all seems horrible." Dr. Banner said, gesturing to the destruction. Everything around us was either on fire, overturned, or completely destroyed.

"I've seen worse." Agent Romanoff said.

"Sorry." Dr. Banner said a little guiltily. Thats when I remembered that they had been thrown in the same direction, and that the Hulk had caused a lot of damage on the Helicarrier.

"No, we could use a little worse." Agent Romanoff said.

"Stark, we got him, Banner, just like you said." Steve said into the com.

"Tell him to suit up. I'm bringing the party to you." Tony said. He came around a building in the suit and the giant worm ship followed him, hitting the buildings on its way.

"I—I don't see how that's a party." Agent Romanoff said. The giant worm creature/ship/thingy, started ghosting along the ground. It was maybe an inch off the ground and taking out everything in its way. Cars, bikes, buses; you name it, it was getting pushed out of the way. Dr. Banner started walking towards it.

"Dr. Banner, now might be a good time for you to get angry." Steve said, walking forward.

"That's my secret, Cap. I'm always angry." He said. The transformation into the Hulk was quick and seemingly effortless. He walked right up to the worm and punched it right in the face, being pushed back with it until it stopped. The worm was overturned, falling over us.

Fire rained from the creature that was impossible to describe; a machine and an animal, and absolutely fucking terrifying. Steve used his shield to cover himself and Agent Romanoff, I ducked behind a car with Agent Barton. The Chitauri on the buildings screamed. The Hulk roared triumphantly as the rest of us prepared our weapons and Tony lowered to the ground.

"Guys." Agent Romanoff said, drawing our attention to the portal.

"Call it, Captain." Tony said.

"Alright, listen up. Until we can close that portal up there, we're gonna use containment." He said, staring up at the portal. He turned back to face us, calling out orders. "Barton, I want you on that roof, eyes on everything. Call out patterns and strays. Stark, you got the perimeter. Anything gets more than three blocks out, you turn it back or your turn it to ash."

"Wanna give me a lift?" Agent Barton asked.

"Right. Better clench up, Legolas." Tony said. He grabbed Agent Barton by the back of his shirt and flew up to the top of the building.

"Thor, you've gotta try and bottleneck that portal, slow them down. You've got the lightning, light the bastards up." Steve said. Thor did as he was told and he turned back to face the rest of us.

"You and me, we stay here on the ground, keep the fighting here." He said. He turned to the Hulk, "And Hulk, smash." The Hulk grinned, before going off to do what he had been told. He jumped over 100 feet into the air, hitting the side of the building and grabbing onto a Chitauri. Then he jumped to the building across from it, and did the same.

"What about me?" I asked.

"I want you to stay out of this fight." He said.

"No." I said simply. He just sighed.

"You really don't like authority." He said. I nodded.

"Now let's kick their alien asses." I said.

The battle continued for a long time. It was getting harder and harder to fight. We were all exhausted and running out of ideas. It was starting to seem hopeless. I hadn't noticed that Steve had disappeared, until I turned around to find him missing. Surprisingly, there were no Chitauri at that moment. An eerie calm was falling over the Battle and I felt like something was wrong. I looked over at Agent Romanoff.

"Do you feel that?" I asked, my spine prickling.

"What?" She asked.

"Nothing. Nothing…where'd they all go." I asked, doing a full 360. She looked around, finding nothing herself.

"I don't know. But this can't last long." She said. She was right, just looking overhead showed that more and more of those things were coming out of the portal. But they weren't coming our way.

"Maybe the—" I started. Then I heard a loud noise around a corner, it wasn't an explosion, but a loud noise like a crash. I was confused, but I didn't think much of it. I just thought it was a Chitauri or two. "I—I'm going to go see what that was." I pointed in that direction before hurriedly running that way.

When I got there, I only saw a few stray Chitauri. Those were easy enough to take out, three bullets. I heard a noise behind me, and when I turned around I got knocked down by one of those blasts. It hit my shoulder and I got the wind knocked out of my with the back end of one of those staffs. I shot it with the handgun, without looking at it. I moved to my feet, but stopped when I heard footsteps and saw a shadow loom over me. I raised my head slowly and was shocked by who I found.

"Alexandra." He said.

"How do you know my name?" I asked.

He looked at me like I was stupid, "I have heard the others address you." I rolled my eyes and groaned as I got to my feet.

"Stupid question." I muttered. He didn't look very threatening without the scepter. "What makes you think I won't kill you where you stand?" I asked, ready to lunge at him. He materialized the scepter. "That's why." I stated calmly, taking a step away.

"I am not here to hurt you—just to give you a warning." He said.

"Why should I believe anything you say?" I asked, skeptical for a good reason.

"Because I am here to give you a final chance." He stated.

"What is it?" I asked, wondering what it could possibly be. My biggest question was why he was addressing me, not one of the others. He must have assumed that I could convince them of something.

"Give up. Give up while you stand a chance." He said.

"And let you—God of Assholes and Morons—take over the entire world?" I asked. I was digging my own grave, and I knew it. But I was missing that gene that told me when to shut the hell up, so I didn't stop.

"You have quite a temper." He said with a laugh. I rolled my eyes.

"Damn right." I was pissing off a man that could very well murder me where I stood. But because I was Alexandra the Great, I had to edge him on even more. Now I understand why my friends gave me that nickname. I was an Imbecullin. I was a freaking Imbecullin because I was so freaking stupid.

"Alexandra, I am giving you one final choice. And you are pushing it." He said. I didn't care. I just didn't care. There was no point, there was no guarantee that anything would go my way.

"I know. But here's the thing. I confuse you. Don't I?" I asked, starting to understand. He didn't say anything, "It scares you. That you don't know who I am—what I can do. You really know nothing about me."

"I am giving you a warning." He said slowly. I was pushing my luck.

"No you aren't. You're trying to get inside my head. You're trying to figure me out. When you destroyed the S.H.I.E.L.D center, I panicked and hid. You thought I was a coward. Didn't you?" I asked. I didn't wait for him to say anything. "Then, once Stuttgart happened. I wasn't one. Ever since then, I stepped up; and you don't understand how."

"Alexandra…" He warned slowly.

"The thing is. I don't exactly know any of this either. I have never stood up for anybody—even for myself. The only time I did that was against a kid that would have otherwise killed me. I let myself get pushed out of a third story window because I didn't want to stand up to my Uncle. But I stood up to you." I said.

That was the one mystery about myself that even I didn't know. He was freaked out by the fact that I was unpredictable. I was freaked out because I was by the fact that I wasn't acting like myself. The one time I stood up for myself, was against Aubrey. That ended in me basically rethinking my entire life and everything about me.

He didn't say anything—didn't do anything. Just watched me. He was trying to figure me out, when that was something that I didn't even want to do. If I could confuse myself at times, what made him think that he could do it?

"You think you can understand me, when even I can't." I said, starting to understand what I had to do. "And I don't give a fuck. I don't give a fuck because you don't matter. I can flat out tell you how this is going to end. You lose. We win. Where I'm from, where I've lived, these are all movies. You've lost before. And you'll lose again. If you won, there wouldn't be a movie. Villains don't win, Loki; you lose. It's your nature; the very nature of your being."

"That sounds a lot like what Agent Coulson said to me in his final moments." Loki taunted.

"Yeah—that's why I got along with him so well." I said, "We both knew how this would end. We win, you lose. Well, hope you enjoy hell jackass." Before I knew what happened, he was gone. I didn't care. I was just happy that he had left. It didn't really hit me what I had just done until I got back, and thankfully there were very few Chitauri when I got back.

"What happened?" Agent Romanoff asked.

"I…just had a mostly civil conversation with the man we're supposed to be fighting against." I said plainly, blinking to see if that would either wake me up or knock me out of my daze. Agent Romanoff stared at me in shock. I turned to face her. "What the hell is wrong with me?"

"Honey, I don't think I can answer that."

Around then, the battle picked up again. Every once and a while, things would calm down a bit, maybe even entirely, before starting up again at full force. It was getting worse and worse and eventually that pattern stopped.

"Is this what working for S.H.I.E.L.D is like?" I asked, "Working your ass off against cosmic threats?" She shook her head.

"Not usually. Depends on the job." She said, shooting a Chitauri with its own scepter.

"This job seems like it sucks." I said. I gave up trying to stab the Chitauri and shooting it with the handgun. The battle, and trying to make small talk while killing things, went on for a while. I learned a lot about S.H.I.E.L.D, guns, poker, and how to create explosives.

Note to self: Remember to ask Agent Romanoff to show me how to make explosives (and to a lesser extent how to actually shoot a gun and play poker)

It wasn't much longer until Steve reappeared from wherever he had gone, or whatever he had been doing. Both Agent Romanoff and I pointed our weapons at him, thinking he was one of the Chitauri. Once we saw that it was him, we relaxed a bit.

"Captain, none of this is gonna mean a damn thing if we don't close that portal." Agent Romanoff said.

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

"Well, maybe it's not about guns." Agent Romanoff said, looking up.

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

"I got a ride." She said, gesturing up, "I could use a lift though." She looked at the shield.

"Are you sure about this?" Steve asked, bracing the shield.

"Yeah, it's gonna be fun." She said, though she didn't sound convinced. She took a running start and jumped on the shield and she jumped to grab one of the hover boards.

"What do we do now?" I asked, once we were sure that she was ok.

"I don't know. We wait and we fight them off." Steve said. I sighed.

"You know, I thought when we actually got into a battle, things would be a little more interesting. Now, all that's happened is that I've been shot at, shot, and emotionally scared. This sucks." I said. He nodded.

"Battle's not exactly fun."

"Well, I learned that now." I said, "But there's got to be something we can do. What about S.H.I.E.L.D? What about Fury? When are we going to get some information?" I asked. He shook his head.

"Alex, I just don't know. We have to wait. That's all we can do." He said. As soon as he said that, more Chitauri appeared. "Scratch that. We fight."

And that's what we did. We fought, and fought, and fought. I was slipping up, not able to catch myself, not able to block attacks. The bulletproof vest wasn't helping as much as I needed it to. I had cuts, burns, and bruises. It was getting worse and worse and those scepter burns hurt worse than a bullet ever could. I had run out of bullets and was in the middle of using a rifle as if it was a baseball bat.

At some point, Thor had joined us, since nothing was working with the portal. Steve got shot down by one of the scepter blasts. Thor helped him to his feet.

"You ready for another bout?" Thor asked.

"What, you gettin' sleepy?" Steve asked.

"I can close it! Can anybody hear me? I can shut the portal down!" Agent Romanoff called into the com.

"Do it!" Steve yelled.

"No, wait!" Tony yelled.

"Stark, these things are still coming!" Steve objected.

"I got a nuke coming in, it's gonna blow in less than a minute." Tony said, we watched as he flew towards the missile, "And I know just where to put it."

"Stark, you know that's a one way trip." Steve stated. He didn't say anything. I took a deep breath, then spoke into the com.

"Mr. Stark—Tony, if you do this. You might not make it back. God knows what's waiting for you on the other side." I said. The others turned to look at me. "Most likely, the suit's going to die as soon as you go through. Nothing, on that suit can withstand the vacuum of space for long."

"Well, I don't have much of a choice, do I kid?" He asked.

"Not really." I stated, my voice quivering a bit.

"The world's gone to shit and it's the only chance we've got." He said.

"But—" I started, until he cut me off. But you'll die, I had meant to say. By the look on his face when I shot him a panicked look, I could tell that Steve knew what I was going to say.

"Alex, they're about to Nuke Manhattan." He said, "We don't have a choice. There is nowhere else I can throw this that won't hurt somebody."

"This'll end the battle." I said.

"It should." He said. After that, he turned off the com.

"He's not coming back through. Is he?" I asked Steve. He didn't say anything. We didn't know anything.

"Close the portal." Steve said, once Tony was through and hadn't come back. After a moment, he fell through, right before the portal was closed. "Son of a gun."

"He's not slowing down." Thor pointed out. He started whirling the hammer, as if he would use it to slow Tony down, but before he could do anything the Hulk snagged him out of the air and dropped him to the ground next to us.

Steve ripped off the face mask, but he didn't move. I sat down next to him, to see what was going to happen. Tony didn't even look like he was breathing. After a moment, the Hulk yelled. It was enough to startle him awake.

"What the hell? What just happened? Please tell me nobody kissed me?" He said, his eyes darting around like a madman.

"Nobody kissed you." I said, "The Hulk…" I gestured in his direction, "Did some roaring thing…or…whatever. Good god I'm tired."

"We won." Steve said.

"Alright. Yay. Alright. Good job, guys. Let's just not come in tomorrow. Let's just take a day." He said, "Have you ever tried shawarma? There's a shawarma joint about two blocks from here. I don't know what it is, but I wanna try it."

"We're not finished yet." Thor said.

"And then shawarma after?" Tony asked.

"Considering the fact that shawarma involves food, I think nobody's going to say no to that." I said. After everybody was able to get to our feet, the next challenge was getting up to the penthouse without destroying anything else.

It was hard, but we mostly managed to do it. I mean, everything was already destroyed. There were going to have to do major renovations anyway, so it wasn't much of a problem.

Getting the Hulk up there was the problem. Yet we did it anyway. Tony will need to install a new elevator though. And we had to use the stairs to get back down.

When Loki woke up from the Hulk-Smash induced coma, we were the first thing he saw. Well, Agent Barton's bow was the first thing he saw.

"If it's all the same to you," He said with a sigh, "I'll have that drink now." The Hulk just growled at him.

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