And today we continue with a Battle of New York! Thank you to everyone who has reviewed, please review more 3 You give me life.
Disclaimer: Marvel owns it all.
Josephine looked up as a deafening blast tore through the sky above Stark Tower. They had only managed to alert the authorities, but nobody had been evacuated from the streets yet.
"Get everybody underground," she said to Caitlin and Piper as she watched Iron Man fly toward the creatures that were tearing through a hole in the sky, "Go!"
It took only a few seconds for chaos to break through the people on the street and spread into the stores and cars. Within a minute, alien fire was raining down. Josephine ran behind a truck, trying to focus through the screaming and the sound of everything being blown up.
"Incoming, kid," her dad's voice came through.
Josephine turned to her right as her dad landed before her, lifting his hand to take out an alien behind her. He grabbed hold of a car and shoved it into place, making a barricade with it and the truck Joei had been hiding behind.
"If you're not going to leave then I sure as hell am not letting you run out here with a pistol and a metal stick. Catch."
Joei caught a large golden cuff.
"Put it on. Shoot anything that isn't a human. You're on evac duty."
With that, he was back in the air being chased by a swarm of aliens.
"Jarvis?"
"The cuff is connected to FRIDAY, Miss Stark, shall I redirect you?"
"Yes. And put all the Avengers on the same channel. I want to stay in contact with all of them."
It only took a moment for FRIDAY's voice to come through, "I believe you're supposed to put it on your left hand, Miss Stark."
"Right." Joei said, changing her watch to her right and opening the latch on the cuff to place her left arm through it. Almost immediately, the cuff began to unfold on itself, revealing an entire golden gauntlet that reached to her elbow, a miniaturized arc reactor on her wrist like a watch, and a blaster at her palm.
"Now what?"
"Point and shoot," said Tony.
"Okay. Got it."
She took a peak from behind her barricade of cars and caught a glimpse of an alien flying a few feet above. She raised a hand, imitating the movements she'd seen Iron Man do a hundred times over, and shot.
The alien was blasted off its strange hovering ship and into the street. A few feet down, a group of people was cowering against an abandoned storefront.
Josephine jumped out of her barricade and ran, looking frantically for the safest way to get the people underground.
"Head for the subway!" she yelled when she was close enough, "I'll keep you safe! Go!"
She followed behind the group, keeping her eyes on the skies. So far none of the aliens had landed on the ground. She took out two more before they reached the entrance to the subway. On the third try, she missed the alien by a good two feet, but he'd spotted her.
Josephine dived behind a car as police sirens sounded closer.
She peaked out as the alien got closer and aimed once more. The creature fell off its vehicle and landed on top of a police car. The vehicle spun out of control and continued down the street until it hit a stoplight, causing a small explosion. Above her, the giant letters of her last name fell from the sky and onto the smaller buildings bellow.
"Stark, we're on your three headed northeast." Agent Romanoff's voice cut through the screaming and the sounds of gunfire.
"What, did you stop for drive thru? Swing up Park, I'm going to lay them out for you."
Josephine lost track of much of what happened after that. She turned away from Park and began finding the quickest routes to get people underground. The police meanwhile seemed at a loss as to what to do.
She ran from shopfront to shopfront, yelling at the people inside to get to the basement. Many times over, people insisted she go underground with them. She always shook her head and told them to go.
"I'll be fine!" she assured a middle aged woman in an apron, "Get underground! This building is small, if it falls the basement will still hold and we can still get you out. Text and call everyone you know. Tell them that if they're in a skyscraper they need to get out and head towards the subway."
"You're Iron Man's daughter!" a teenager called from within the crowd. "Are you a superhero now, too?"
She shook her head, "I'm just trying to help. Get underground. Call your friends."
When the handful of people in the little tea shop had gone, she hid behind the register. A piece of debris had cut into her outer left thigh. The blood wasn't gushing out, but the trickle was steady enough to be a bother if she started running again. She looked around and found a stack of rolled up cloth napkins.
"Friday, how many buildings' intercomm systems can you hack within the closest few blocks?" she asked, removing the fork and knife from a napkin and rolling it like a bandana.
"I'd say about half."
"Get on it. Tell them to evacuate and head toward the subway."
When she was satisfied that the cloth napkin was tight enough around her leg, she stood and went back toward the street.
Most of the street was empty by now, and the fighting had been concentrated to the area around the Avengers. Joei watched the Quinjet go down near the Tower and ran back in that direction.
"You guys okay?"
"We're okay," Steve answered, "Headed out now."
Josephine rounded the corner in front of the bridge and found Steve, Barton, and Natasha looking up at the wormhole that had been created.
"What the hell is that?" Joei asked as a much larger shadow appeared in the wormhole. They watched as what was either a ship or a very large alien exited through the portal.
"What you've never seen an alien centipede whale before?" asked Tony. "You know what, don't answer that."
Joei looked on in horror as alien soldiers on foot jumped from the giant vessel and through the windows of the surrounding buildings.
"Where's Banner, has he shown up yet?" asked Tony.
"Banner?"
"Oh, he'll be here," said Joei.
"Just keep me posted."
Incoming fire led Joei and her companions to hide behind a taxi. Josephine looked down at the map on her watch's interface.
"There's civilians still trapped in those two buildings."
Just then, a ship sped by with a different looking passenger, blasting everything in its path.
"They're fish in a barrel down there," said Steve, referring to the people beneath the bridge.
"We got this," said Natasha, "Go."
"You think you can hold them off?"
"We've got this, Steve," Joei repeated, "Go get him."
"Kid, you've got limited blasts on that reactor. Use them wisely." said Tony.
"How many do I have left, Friday?"
"Twenty-seven, Miss Stark."
"Guns first, then," she said, taking out the gun on her leg.
Joei, Barton, and Romanoff stood up and began to fire as Steve ran off in the direction of the civilians beneath the bridge.
She wasn't sure how much time passed as they shot at one alien after another, sometimes knocking them down, but mostly missing on Josephine's part.
"Concentrate!" Natasha yelled, "Don't let the adrenaline make you messy. Point, shoot, repeat."
Joei nodded silently and grit her teeth, trying to drown out the noise.
"Forget about everything else," Barton shouted at her from a few feet down as he shot an alien right in the head, "Just like target practice. Forget about everything else except the target."
It took a few tried before Joei was finally able to push down the panic over her life, and the distraught over the countless amount of people who were in danger, and the stress of having to save the world. When she managed to drown out the noise and look at the moving targets ahead of her, she was able to shoot the damn thing through the neck, making dark blue blood splatter through the air.
"Not bad," Natasha nudged her as she passed.
"Stark!"
"What?" asked Tony.
"Not you," Steve replied in annoyance, "Maggie, I could use some back up!"
Joei turned to look at Strike Team Delta, who both nodded at her to go.
"On my way."
"I said evac only!" Tony warned.
"Not your call!" Joei yelled back.
She found Steve waiting against a store front, shielding a family that had been caught in the crossfire. A brick one story building with few windows was three storefronts away.
"This way!" Joei yelled from behind Steve, indicating for him to back the family into the storefront as she blasted the door in.
The family rushed inside, the mother attempting to thank them.
"Just stay safe," said Joei, "Grab something sharp and find a storage room or a basement entrance. We'll send out a call when it's safe to come out."
Steve held up his shield and Joei squished herself against his side so that it would cover them both as they ran back to an upturned car.
"We still have another ten feet before we can get to the police."
"Lead the way, Captain." she nodded, reloading her gun and preparing the gauntlet to fire again.
Fire rained down on them as they ran together. Joei almost rolled her eyes as Steve jumped onto an upturned car and then jumped off it just as it was blasted through. She kept her eyes on the sky as much as possible, shooting at anything that tried to shoot her and dodging anything that she didn't hit in time.
The police were standing by, unsure of what to do as they watched the situation in complete panic. Steve jumped onto the top of a car and Josephine ran around to face them, holding up her arms as the police were startled and pointed their guns.
"We need men in these buildings." Steve ordered, "There are people inside and they're going to be running right into the line of fire. You take them to the basements or through the subway. You keep them off the streets. I need a perimeter as far back as 39th."
"Why the hell should I take orders from you?" asked the cop.
Before they could answer, a blast behind them shook the floor. The officer jumped to lift his gun, but Joei and Steve were a lot quicker. Two aliens jumped onto the hood of the car, another appearing in front of the two officers that they'd just been speaking to.
Joei ignored most of what Steve was doing, and the fact that this was the first time she caught a glimpse of one of the monsters up close, and reacted. Her right hand dropped the gun, reaching for the baton at her back as she used the gauntlet to grab the alien from the back of the neck and pull. As the alien was pulled back, she jabbed the baton into a soft spot in the creature's throat between its armor and let it go, shooting its gun and subsequently its arm with the gauntlet, causing alien blood to splatter onto her clothes and the policemen's shoes.
"Anymore stupid questions?" Joei asked as Steve took out his second alien with a hit of his shield.
The cop turned away and began repeating Steve's orders through his radio. Joei picked up her gun again, shoving the baton back into its holster on her back.
"New toy?" asked Steve.
"Is this really a good time for small talk?" asked Joei as they raced back into the fray, returning to their team as the NYPD took control of the street.
"Sorry. Haven't been in a fight in a while," Steve said as he ran beside her.
"Cap, if you keep distracting my daughter and she gets shot, I'll kill you." said Tony. A roar sounded through the comms, seemingly very close to Tony.
"Please tell me that wasn't one of those centipede whale things." said Joei as she stopped behind a pillar to avoid oncoming fire.
"Well, I caught his attention," said Tony, "What the hell was step two?"
Joei ran out from the pillar in time to see a group of Chitauris knocked down by lightning. The God of Thunder had arrived on the bridge.
"You couldn't do that earlier?" asked Joei.
"I was a bit preoccupied with trying to stop my brother from taking over your planet," Thor answered dryly.
"What's the story upstairs?" asked Steve.
"The power surrounding the cube is impenetrable."
"Thor's right," said Tony, "We gotta deal with these guys."
"How do we do this?" asked Natasha.
"As a team."
"Steve, I think we're all looking for something a little more specific here." said Joei. "Were fights this full of cliches in the 40s?"
"I have unfinished business with Loki," said Thor.
"Yeah? Get in line." said Barton.
"Save it. Loki's going to keep this fight focused on us and that's exactly what we need. Without him these things could run wild. We got Stark up top. He's going to need-"
"Captain," Joei interrupted, smiling at the small motorcycle that was approaching them. Steve turned around as Dr. Banner turned off the motorcycle and stepped off.
"So, this all seems horrible." Said the doctor.
"I've seen worse," said Natasha.
"Sorry."
"No, we could use a little worse," the spy reassured him.
"Dad, he's here." said Joei.
"Banner?"
"Scruffy and awkward as ever," she joked.
"Tell him to suit up. I'm bringing the party to you guys."
Iron Man turned the corner, a giant Chitauri monster hitting the windows of a skyscraper as it followed.
"I don't see how that's a party," Agent Romanoff quipped.
"Doctor, now might really be a good time for you to get angry." said Steve.
"That's my secret, Captain," said Banner, already walking away, "I'm always angry."
Josephine had watched all the footage available on Bruce Banner a number of times. She knew what the Hulk looked like, what he moved like, and even what he sounded like. Ever since their first meeting she had wondered at how a man who could make himself disappear so easily into the background, and whose every emotion was always kept behind a mask of calm, could transform into his complete opposite.
Watching Banner's transformation into the Hulk lasted all of two seconds, and she resisted closing her eyes to keep the image in her head as his expression changed and every part of him grew and changed color. It took less strength than she thought it would for the Hulk to punch the giant creature right in the face and push.
Armor began to fall from the monster as its tail was forced up.
"Hold on!" said Tony, coming up to blast through a weak spot in the monster's back and blow through it.
Joei, Steve, Barton, and Romanoff all turned away from the explosion and ducked, Joei holding up the arm that was in the gauntlet to shield her head. The top part of the monster broke off and fell off the bridge and onto the cars underneath.
The feeling of victory didn't last long, as around them the aliens that had been scaling the buildings roared in protest. Around Josephine, the Avengers readied their weapons.
"Josephine," Tony turned to look at her, lifting the faceplate to reveal an emotionless mask over his face, "Any chance I can get you to tap out now?"
Joei shook her head, "Sorry."
With a sigh, Tony put the faceplate back on and turned away from her.
"Guys," said Natasha, looking up at the wormhole as more of the giant space whales entered the Manhattan sky.
"Call it, Captain."
"Alright, listen up. Until we close that portal, our priority is containment. 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 you turn it to ash."
"Can you give me a lift?" asked Barton.
"Right. Better clench up, Legolas."
Joei almost laughed at Barton's annoyed face as he and her father raced off toward the sky.
"Thor, you gotta try and bottleneck that portal. Slow them down. You got the lightning. Light the bastards up."
Thor nodded, and with a spin of his hammer was in the air.
"The three of us," he motioned to Natasha, Joei, and himself, "We stay on the ground. We keep the fighting here. And Hulk?"
The green giant grunted in recognition.
Joei smiled and looked up into Hulk's face, "Smash."
"I thought I was giving the orders," said Steve.
"I'm the boss remember?" Joei shrugged, "Although you do look kind of cute when you give out orders."
She wasn't sure whose sputtering was worse, Steve's in front of her or her dad's in her ear.
"Can we not?" asked Tony.
"Listen," Joei said to Steve, ignoring her dad's comments, "You and Nat are more than capable of taking these things out without me. Fighting and shooting things is not my strong hold yet."
"What is?"
"Psychology," she quipped, before taking a deep breath and explaining. Above them, the Hulk had taken out a handful of aliens already, "I pulled Barton out of his haze without too many after effects because I was able to bring a part of him out before I knocked him on the head. If I'd pulled him out cold turkey, he would hardly be able to function right now, let alone fight. Loki's running around which means he left Selvig by himself."
"You think you can pull him out without hurting him?"
"I think all of you are about as subtle as these giant centipede things when it comes to making a person feel not threatened. I'm his best bet. And having him on our side is also OUR best bet at learning how to close the portal."
Steve stared at her for a moment, before an alien's body landed right beside them. Hulk's fighting had started to get ugly.
"Go."
"I'll cover you!" Natasha yelled as Joei took off at a run toward the Tower.
Gunfire from the aliens was sparse, as they were clearly focusing on taking out the Avengers. As Joei neared the entrance to Stark Tower, she came face to face with what was left of the giant S blocking the entrance.
"Friday, what's the closest way in?"
"Hold still, Miss Stark," the voice of Jarvis answered instead, "Mark Six incoming."
"What?" she said, glancing up as a familiar streak of gold and red descended in front of her, "Nope. Not doing that. No way."
"What were you going to do? Take the elevator? Get in the suit!" said Tony as the back of the Iron Man Mark Six opened before her to let her in.
"But..."
"Loki is circling back to the Tower," said Barton, "I'll try to throw him off but you won't have much time."
"Ah shit," Joei groaned, stepping onto the suit that was just a bit too wide around the shoulders and closing her eyes as the suit was blasted into the air. Not being able to see didn't prevent her from feeling a lurch in her stomach as Jarvis flew her way too fast to the top of the Tower.
It was only a few seconds before she felt her feet touch down on solid ground and the front of the suit opened up, causing her to fall onto her knees.
"You okay, kid?"
"I hate flying."
"When you were twelve you said you wished you could live on an airplane forever."
"Airplanes have floors and walls." she grunted, standing up and finding herself in a balcony above the landing pad, from where she could see Thor standing on the Empire State Building and blasting through another of the giant monsters with his lightning. A few blocks away her dad was following Barton's instructions, getting the aliens behind him to make tight enough turns that they crashed into buildings.
Josephine looked down at the landing pad where Selvig was walking around the Tesseract and staring up at the wormhole in awe and fear. She ran inside and took the stairs down two at a time.
"Friday, shrink the cuff back down." she instructed, leaving the two guns and the baton she had been carrying on a nearby counter.
Selvig was standing by the computer when she reached him.
"Professor Selvig?"
The scientist looked up, a slightly maniac look on his face, "You can't stop it."
"I know," she said, "But I think you can."
"Why would I want to?" he chuckled.
"Well for starters, you have friends in New York, don't you? Your roommate from your freshman year at college, right?"
Selvig hesitated before looking back at the computer, "He lives in Brooklyn, he's safe for now."
"But what about after? If the portal stays open then we won't stand a chance. The Chitauri will start to spread farther and I don't think Loki can control them forever. Once he's king of the mountain I don't think he'll even try. Your friend has a wife, doesn't he? Sarah something, right? And a daughter."
"How do you know this?" Selvig asked, and Joei noticed that his hands had started shaking over the keyboard. He clenched them into fists and crossed his arms.
"I'm the team leader. I'm supposed to take care of them which means I need to know who they're up against. You know a little about that don't you? You looked up everything you could on Thor and you even took on S.H.I.E.L.D when we threatened Jane's research. Speaking of which, I don't think she'll appreciate the fact that you opened a portal that released a bunch of monsters that are hell bent on killing her boyfriend, do you?"
She watched his eyes this time, and noticed that the bright blue had dulled slightly, though not by much. She'd thought Selvig would be easier to pull out of Loki's magic hypnosis than Barton, but now she figured that Barton had been trying to fight it all along. Agents were trained to resist all sorts of psychological torture, which meant that a large part of Barton was still left in him when she had bumped his head. Selvig, on the other hand, was holding no resistance against the power of the scepter.
"Dr. Selvig, please. You know that this isn't right. No amount of knowledge is worth the lives of an entire city of people. You need to tell me how to shut it down. You know how to do it, I know you do."
Selvig looked conflicted for a moment. The blue in his eyes came back stronger, then faded down again. He opened his mouth to speak and Joei took a step closer, ready to assess the man's next words as he looked at something behind her.
"Watch out."
They were said so calmly and quietly in comparison to everything else that was going on around them, that the words almost didn't register in Joei's mind until she heard the ship gearing up to shoot behind her and dived to the right, rolling to land back on her feet. The blast didn't touch her, but it was close enough to Selvig to throw him back against a pillar.
When the smoke and dust had settled, she raced back to the scientist and found him with a bleeding forehead. She crouched down in front of him and grabbed his shoulder.
"Dr. Selvig?"
The man didn't answer, only looked around in horror and clutched her arm painfully.
"Dr. Selvig, I need you to focus. Look at me."
"You're bleeding." he finally said, looking down at the napkin tied around her leg. She had hardly noticed it since she'd joined Steve and the others on the bridge. She chalked it up to adrenaline numbing her injuries. Now that she looked down at it, her thigh was suddenly burning. The dive to avoid the blast had most likely been the reason for a fresh wave of blood, which had managed to seep through the white cloth and stain it completely red. Her legs were covered in dirt and grime, and she was sure the wound was already getting infected.
"I'll be fine," she smiled weakly, dizziness setting in, "I need you to tell me how to turn off the devise and close the portal."
"Joei, I'm on my way to the Tower," said Natasha, "Get inside, stop your bleeding, and find a place to hide. I've got Loki on my tail."
"Wait, bleeding?" asked Tony.
"It's a cut on my leg. I'll be fine."
"Not if you keep walking on it," Barton insisted.
"Will you all stop babying me?!" she cried in frustration.
"I'm not an Avenger which means I still get to boss you around." said Barton, "As your Superior Officer I am ordering you to fall back, Agent 96. You are currently unfit for combat! If you fail to follow orders, I will have you removed from field duty until further notice, do I make myself clear?"
With a huff, Joei stood on shaky legs, teeth grinding as she replied, "Yes, sir, Agent Barton."
"Nice job, Bird Brain," said Tony.
"You don't have to sound so smug, Dad."
"Where are you going?" asked Selvig.
"Inside. You can follow me or you can wait for Agent Romanoff. She'll need your help to turn off the Tesseract."
Joei went inside, one hand clutching onto her thigh as she went. Even if she didn't want to admit it to the others, the pain had come back in full force now and the napkin was no longer enough to hold it.
"What's the verdit, Friday?"
"The dive you took earlier placed too much pressure on the wound and opened it farther. However, it does not seem to have damaged any arteries. Stitches will be necessary."
"Where's the closest first aid kit?"
"Down stairs, behind the bar."
"Okay, well, let's take the elevator this time, shall we?"
When the elevator doors opened silently on the next floor down, Joei was faced with the last thing she wanted to deal with.
Loki had been thrown through the window by the Hulk and was lying face down on the floor as the green giant approached him. Joei pressed herself against the wall as the self-proclaimed god jumped to his feet and yelled.
"Enough! You are all of you beneath me! I am a god, you dull creature." he said as Joei edged her way toward the bar where both the first aid kit and a few knives were kept, "And I will not be bullied by-"
Joei froze as Loki was picked up by his foot mid-sentence. The Hulk swung him from one side to the other, making dents in the floor as he flung Loki around like a rag doll. It was almost entertaining to watch, if she hadn't been downright terrified.
At last, with one irritated grunt, Hulk let Loki fall onto the floor on his back, leaving a dent of his shape in the floor.
"Puny God."
The words from Hulk's mouth startled her.
"You...you can speak?"
Joei staggered back when Hulk whipped around to face her with a snarl. He caught sight of her face and settled slightly, grunting in response and pointing between her and Loki, "Watch god."
Joei nodded with wide eyes, "I can do that."
Hulk walked off, jumping through the window again. From his dent in the floor, Loki wheezed and fell still.
"Yeah, he's not getting up." said Joei, taking a step toward the bar again and grunting at the pain in her leg.
She used the wall to prop herself up as she walked toward the bar, bending over with her leg in the air to keep the pressure off it and grabbing the first aid kit from a cabinet. She hauled herself toward the stool next to a sink and laid out the first aid kit in front of her. She removed the napkin form around her leg, realizing it hadn't done much to staunch the bleeding. The black leg of her pants was wet nearly to the knee. Fibers of the fabric had stuck to the cut, which was maybe two inches deep.
Loki made another noise, and Joei looked up to find him with his eyes slightly open before his head fell back down.
"Friday, if he wakes up for more than two seconds, let me know so I can shoot him."
"Yes, Miss Stark."
Tony's voice came through once more, "How's your leg, kid?"
"Messy," Joei answered, "But it should heal soon enough."
"There's some surgical thread and a needle in the first aid kit."
"Why did you put surgical threat in the first aid kit?"
"In case my only child decided she wanted to become a super spy and got herself fatally wounded."
"I'm not fatally wounded," Joei argued.
"Gotta go, kid! Stay safe and don't let the god wake up!"
Joei rummaged through the kit and found the thread and needle. Putting on the gloves from the kit, she pulled out a pair of scissors and cut around the tear in her pants, removing the bits of fabric that were stuck to the wound. The disinfectant solution burned a little as she poured it over the cut, but she bit her lip and let the liquid fall to the ground.
"Here goes nothing," she mumbled as she warily pushed the thread through the needle, "This is either going to be the most badass thing I ever do, or the second time I faint in my life."
The needle stung as she pushed it through her skin, and she grunted as she made the first and second stitch. By the time she was done, her hands were shaking and she felt ready to throw up again.
She covered the stitches in gauze and widened the hole in her pants to reach around her leg and wrap it. All of her clothes were two floors up, and she was not going to let Loki out of her sight again.
When she was finished, she stood up again and walked over to the god, letting the golden cuff open into a full gauntlet once more.
"You don't look so tough now," she smirked. Loki stirred a little too much for her liking, looking like he might sit up, "Oh no you don't."
She took a step back and aimed the gauntlet toward his torso, blasting him back into the small crater Hulk had made him and knocking him out once more.
"Friday, call a detail to come and get Loki, and bring something tougher to hold him with. Chains and a muzzle maybe."
"Yes, Miss Stark."
Joei walked toward the broken window and out onto the balcony. There was still one of the giant centipede-whales remaining, and her dad was flying towards it.
"Dad, what are you doing?"
"You ever heard the tale of Jonah?"
"No."
"Get ready for a lesson, then."
Joei watched as her dad flew into the mouth of the giant alien, hands flying to clutch her heart before she noticed that the monster had begun to explode from the inside. Iron Man blasted out from its tail and landed roughly on the ground. Before he had a chance to say anything, a group of aliens shot him back onto the floor.
From her place on the balcony, Joei saw a large group hovering before the Hulk and releasing fire on him.
"There's too many," she whispered to herself.
"Joei!" Natasha called from above her, "The scepter!"
Joei looked down at where Natasha was pointing. On the other side of the balcony, Loki's scepter lay glowing and forgotten.
"Toss it to me! I can close the portal!"
Joei limped over to the scepter and picked it up. It almost vibrated in her hands. Natasha was nearly hanging from the edge of the landing pad above her, and when Joei flung the scepter at her like a lance, she caught it and swung herself back up in one swift motion.
"Incoming call from Caitlin, Miss Stark," said Friday.
"Put her through."
"Joei?!" Caitlin was yelling amidst chaos in the background.
"Cait, where are you?"
"At HQ! It doesn't matter!" Caitlin yelled back, "Joei there is a bomb headed for Manhattan! The Council wants to nuke all of Midtown! You need to get rid of it!"
"I'm on it!" Joei yelled back, ending the call and yelling out through her comms once again, "Dad! There's a-"
"Already on it, kid. Don't worry." Tony replied.
"Guys, everybody, I can close it," Natasha said, "Does anybody copy? I can shut the portal down."
"Do it!" said Steve.
"No, wait."
"Dad, these things are still coming."
"I've got a nuke coming into the city."
"What?" Joei asked, knowing exactly what he was planning on doing before he even had to explain it, "You can't just disable it?!"
"It's going to blow in less than a minute and I'm still in the air. I know just where to put it."
In the distance, Joei watched as Iron Man grabbed hold of the missile and began to lead it toward the wormhole.
"Dad..."
"Stark, you know that's a one way trip."
"There has to be another way to do this," said Joei, eyes brimming with tears the moment the words were out because she knew that this was the only way where nobody got hurt. Nobody except her father.
"I'll save the power for the turn."
"Dad...daddy don't. Please don't do this." she cried, hands around her stomach as she realized she might be sick again, "Don't go in there...don't...you can't just die for everybody. You're the guy that cuts the wire, remember?"
"Promise me that if I die you won't be an agent anymore."
The world got extremely quiet. From her earpiece, she could almost feel the rest of the Avengers holding their breaths. A sob wracked Joei's body as she watched the missile enter New York.
"I'm not going to watch you die!"
"Everything I have ever done has been to keep you safe. Promise me!"
"Stop this!"
"Promise me, Josephine!"
"Fine!" she screamed so loud that her voice broke and the tears blinded her as she saw him approach the Tower, "I promise. I'm sorry."
"Was...was I a...was I a good dad?" he asked as he pushed the thrusters to propel him straight up.
She managed a watery chuckle and nodded although he couldn't see her. She looked away from the portal, unable to watch him anymore, "The best."
"Good...that's...that's good," he grunted, sounding short of breath, "Hey, do me a favor?"
"Anything," she sighed, almost unable to let out the word through the gasping and crying.
"Tell your mom that I l-"
He was gone.