Hello everyone! Last chapter here! Tomorrow is my brother's birthday so I'll be taking a break, but I'll post the first chapter of the Interquel for between this book and the second one the day after.

Disclaimer: I do not own Carrie White or the Avengers or MCU characters.

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My thanks to: CarlosCSF, DandyNose97, DovahStark, MarcotheAcro, Nexives, Sabth3607, Scott Simeroth, Spear-of-the-doomed,T-Rex-1000, TheWingedBeatle, the chakra alchimist, comedyfreak94, Ixsnger and (walter)(krewer) for putting it on their story alert list.

Please let me know if I missed you! Now on with the finale!

Chapter 12: Portals

They were resistant, at first. Very hesitant; but in the end everyone acknowledged that it was the best solution. Tony guided the nuke to Stark Tower as Carrie prepared herself. Her heart was beating loudly in her chest, her blood felt red hot underneath her skin, like flames were licking against it.

She was burning. Her thoughts felt strange, not entirely her own.

Tony was in sight now – Carrie licked her lips. The tranquil certainty was a bit singed now, she was nervous but still fully committed to the act. This was New York's only hope.

The Song rose up in pitch smoothly and the lyrics she provided poked a hole into the fabric of Here, to tear a hole that led to There.

"Carrie, what the hell is that?" Tony sounded like he was trying not to panic and only half succeeding. She had opened the portal directly over the ship, so there wouldn't be any chance of missing their target.

"I guess you could call it the main control center. We're going to kill two birds with one stone. I can feel the Chitauri minds connected to it. If it goes, they do too." Carrie replied, trying not to sway. What was wrong? Was she doing too much too fast?

"A Mothership, huh? Okay kid, I'm getting ready to let go."

That was when the Chitauri still on Earth reminded the heroes of their presence.

"Incoming." JARVIS warned. Every Chitauri in the vicinity was changing course to their location. The Hulk growled but seemed to be more annoyed than scared.

"Thor! Get up there!" Captain America shouted. Some of the invaders started to target Tony.

Things quickly became chaotic, and Carrie did her best to protect herself as the Hulk and JARVIS kept the Chitauri occupied on their sides. Thor went to help Tony but had to rely on brute force – no one wanted the nuke being hit by thunder and lightning.

Then finally, Tony guided the nuke through an opening of the attackers that Thor made for him. JARVIS covered his back and his creator disappeared into the portal with the nuke.

Carrie didn't breath a sign of relief, she moved, grasping the Scepter tighter, pressing the Cube against her chest, and pulled the portal back. She could see Tony being pushed from the nuke as he gave it a shove forward.

She needed to act no –

Pain. Burning pain. Her arm.

The Hulk screamed in wordless rage and crushed the Chitauri that shot the Scepter from Carrie's hold. The teen fell to her knees but didn't release the vision. Tony was too close to the blast, if she didn't pull him back, he wouldn't survive the injuries.

The Scepter's humming was distance – had it fallen? There wasn't time to See, she needed to act.

So, Carrie reached for that last bit of willpower and shoved the portal forward – it reached Tony and he fell through, back into New York as the portal closed. The flames of the Mothership's destruction barely brushed the billionaire and JAVRIS dived after his creator to save him.

Carrie White didn't see any of this though. In that moment of Tony falling through the portal she pushed to save him, of closing it after him, her heart finally had enough. There was no Scepter to act as a buffer, and she didn't have the spare power or knowledge on how to use the Cube to save herself.

The sixteen-year-old girl collapsed on the spot, dead before she hit the floor.

Tony didn't know how he was still conscious – it had all happened too fast to completely process in the heat of the moment. Everything after the portal had taken less than a minute.

"Sir?"

"I'm fine J." Tony rubbed the back of his neck; they were in front of Stark Tower. JARVIS hovered nearby, very much in worrybot mode.

The sky above them rumbled darkly and Tony immediately tensed.

"Lord Stark!"

Tony looked up to see Thor and the Hulk coming in hot. He and JARVIS dove out of the way as the two heavy hitters landed. Thor was carrying a feebly moving Dr. Selvig. The billionaire playboy felt the inside of his mouth turn to ash when he saw Hulk was carrying the Tesseract and a limp, pale Carrie.

The suit detected no life signs in her.

"She collapsed after the portal closed!" Thor said urgently as Hulk allowed Tony to take the small corpse from his arms and lay it on the ground.

"She was forced to release the Scepter during the attack." JAVRIS said solemnly. "Without it to make up for the difference. . . the portal was too much for her heart."

Indeed, Carrie's right arm was burnt nastily on the forearm and elbow, in addition to the broken wrist.

No. He was Tony fricking Stark, he was not taking this laying down.

"Find the Scepter and get me the Cube! I have an idea!" Tony snapped as he started doing compressions. Thor swung Mjølnir and was pulled back to the tower's roof. The normal way may not work but on the off chance. . .

The Captain and Fury's agents came upon the scene of Hulk standing in agitation nearby as Iron Man performed CPR on Carrie. The Cube sat innocently near Selvig's knee. The man was coming to, would be alright, but Carrie.

"Is she - ?" Captain started to ask.

"Her heart wasn't able to take it." Tony didn't mince words and continued. Damn it – this wasn't going to work. What the hell was taking Thor so long?

"What happened?" Selvig asked, pale and shaky. Hawkeye stepped over to him and spoke in low tones as Natasha watched everything stoically.

Failure.

Thor came back (finally) and Tony snatched the Scepter from his hand before the god could step forward.

"What are you doing?" Captain asked. He had seen a lot of awful things in his fighting days – but the body of a child was never something a man got used to. It wasn't right, it just shouldn't happen.

"Carrie said that these things see her as a novelty." Tony said, jaw set. "They can think." He grabbed the Cube and kneeled by Carrie's side.

"I doubt things as old as these are going to let go of new entertainment. I'm gonna convince them to invest."

He had no idea what he was doing, but he held the tip of the Scepter and the Cube over each other on Carrie's heart.

"C'mon. I know that you know what's going on." The billionaire growled. "Save her! You like Carrie enough, right? Do you want to lose a wild card like her so soon?" He paused and added painfully. "She's a kid. Give her a chance. Let Carrie have one more go."

One minute turned into two, and then three.

It was Hawkeye who spoke, no trace of sarcasm or snark, just defeat. "Stark."

Tony shut his eyes and started to pull the two energies back.

Then there was a spark.

Everyone jumped as the Tesseract and Scepter sparked off one another and the lights sunk into the corpse. Color flushed back into Carrie's face as she sat up like someone had yanked her forward by her shirt. She started coughing uncontrollably, Tony let the Tesseract and Cube drop to the ground as he grabbed Carrie's shoulders to steady her.

"Holy shit, it worked." Hawkeye said what everyone was thinking in disbelief. He laughed a bit, still stunned.

Captain America smiled at the sight, as Carrie looked around, still red in the face.

"W-what happened?" She asked.

"That's an explanation for later." Black Widow said, there was the barest hint of a smile on her face. "You did well though. Excellent."

"Romanoff is right," Captain said, still smiling. "Although. . ."

He looked up at Stark Tower, everyone else following suit. The smile slipped of the WWII veteran's face.

"We have one more thing to do."

Carrie ended up waiting in the lobby with Selvig and the Iron Man suit JARVIS was still controlling. JARVIS was finishing the first aid he hadn't been able to complete on Selvig, who winced but bore the disinfectants with good grace. He felt normal now – there wasn't a sense of double about him anymore, but Carrie was too tired to dwell on that.

Her whole body hurt. JARVIS had given the burned arm some smelly ointment meant to help – which it did - and bandaged it. Her wrist would have to wait though, and the AI said that it was likely she was be on enforced bedrest for the foreseeable future.

She wasn't happy about it, but there was no point arguing. Carrie did need rest.

SHIELD agents arrived, including some pretty high ranked government officials. Carrie dozed in and out, coming back to full consciousness when something abruptly felt wrong.

She leaned against the wall and stood up. Selvig was gone, but JARVIS hadn't left, and the AI calmly explained that the older man was being debriefed. Carrie looked around, and found her attention settle on Tony, who was arguing with a man she recognized as Alexander Pierce, Director Fury's predecessor.

Something was wrong.

"Ms. White. Your stress levels are rising, please calm yourself." JARVIS was at her shoulder. "What is wrong?"

"Tony." Carrie muttered. "I don't know what, but –"

Then he collapsed. It was a nightmarish replay of Carrie's own brush with death not even an hour ago for Thor. Pierce caught Tony, shouting for a medic as the younger man's teammates and AI rushed forward.

As everyone focused on Tony, Carrie realized that the Tesseract was moving away. She turned and saw a man dressed in SHIELD gear was moving toward the exit a suitcase. Carrie went to follow, extending her powers to poke at his mind, not daring anything else – and was shocked.

Tony?

The thief had turned around and sure enough it was Tony. An aged Tony.

They both stared at each other a several seconds, not sure what to do. Carrie was so stunned she didn't sense the Hulk arriving through the door this Tony had intended to take until it was too late. The green powerhouse slammed through the door, knocking older Tony across the floor.

People started screaming as Hulk angrily stated how he hated the stairs, Carrie checked on older Tony and saw that he was okay. He opened his eyes and looked up at her.

"God, I forgot how baby-faced you were." He muttered, dazed.

"Tony? Why is there two of you?" Carrie whispered.

"The Tesseract? Where is it?" Older Tony started to sit up. "Sorry kiddo, I can't –"

Carrie turned and her heart jumped into her throat.

The Tesseract was at Loki's feet.

She didn't even think and used her powers to throw herself forward as Older Tony frantically said, "Nononono!"

Carrie crashed into Loki, ignoring the stab of pain in her chest and tried to pry the Cube from his hands as he opened a portal. Something else crashed into them and there was more yelling and screaming as she recognized the battered arm of JARVIS' commandeered Iron Man suit.

They were too late. The portal swallowed them whole.

Hope you all enjoyed this Book. Please don't hate me too much for the cliffhanger.

See you Wednesday!

Sincerely,

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