[A/N Late late late… I'm aware! So busy, though!]

Part 20

It wasn't long before we got Loki's second hint. He didn't ask anything in return, which made us worry whether just maybe, he had already taken something without our permission. Thor was very angry that he had managed to get into our home without leaving a trace or without waking anyone of us up. Not even JARVIS, who Natasha had managed to get on our side and working, hadn't stopped him. There wasn't even a trace of him on the security tapes. That damned wizard and his tricks.

The only thing that suggested that Loki had been here was a note, with a few lines of poetry. Another tip that was supposed to lead us to Tony. It couldn't have been anyone's sick idea of a joke, either, because it was our favourite prankster who was still in the hands of the Asgardian psychopath.

"Alright, read it out, pretty boy." Clint handed me the note, and I raised my eyebrow. "What?" He held his hands up, "You look like you are one to enjoy a good piece of poetry." I rolled my eyes at him, but took the piece of paper anyway and coughed before reading it out in my best impersonation of Shakespeare.

"I enjoy the freedom of this city,

However, there are girls who need my pity

Curtains of red, they hide behind,

The men lusting after them, so unkind."

I looked at everyone in confusion, and my eyebrows positively reached my hairline when everybody's faces showed understanding.

"Is there something I'm missing?" I asked, and Clint clapped me on my shoulder.

"There are 70 years you have been missing, Cap." He said, snatching the note back again and reading over the text. "Yup, prostitution. Definitely. Red neighbourhoods is what they call them, the districts where girls offer their body in return for money. There are few places where it is actually illegal." He explained. I wondered incredulously why they would do that, not understanding how women would voluntarily sleep with men they'd never met. "Suggestions on places, anyone?"

"Prostitution is legal almost everywhere, the list is way too long, and we don't have anything to narrow it down with." Natasha sighed.

"That's not true." I said, fetching the other note from my pocket. "We still have the other hint!" I said enthusiastically, pressing both the notes onto the table with my finger.

"Yes, if we can figure out what it means." Clint mumbled, comparing the two notes and looking for a connection. "Mad Star Me… Maybe something about Las Vegas?"

"No, too general. Prostitution and crazy artists can be found anywhere. He is trying to describe a city, here. He is going for specifics, not for just anything." Bruce said, and we were probably looking like idiots, all staring at the two slightly crumbled notes on the table. "Natasha, you have travelled a lot, anything coming to mind?" She shook her head.

We gave up after a while, nobody coming up with anything, and we had decided to wait for another hint before continuing our research. It was nagging at all our minds, though, and everybody was slightly on edge. And the fact that Loki had given a tip without taking anything in return, still worried me. And it didn't occur to me that maybe he had messed with something, before it was too late.

Clint was down in Tony's workshop, bow strained and muscles tight with the back of the arrow held neatly between his fingers. I was watching him trying out one of the prototype bows Tony had been working with, as well as a couple of new kinds of arrows. He was playing around a bit, straining and unstraining the bow to test how much exertion the action took, and seeing how flexible the string was. It had struck me as weird before, that there were two arrows of every kind but one.

2 sharpies, 2 which would explode upon contact, 2 which could take back biological samples, and then there was one extra. One without a partner, one lone arrow with a beautiful green bud at the end. If I had looked closer I would have seen the L engraved in it, but it hadn't occurred to me to check. Of course it hadn't, there was no reason for me to distrust weaponry that Tony had crafted. Tony was the most skilful crafter out there and it was insane to even doubt whether the new equipment was safe to use or not.

But when Clint took the arrow, placing it in the beautiful and stylish bow and pulling his arm back, ready to fire, suspicion arose. It was too late though when Clint released the arrow with a playful glint in his eyes, aiming for the dummy's eye and not missing by an inch. I did jump in time, pushing Clint and myself out of the way from the explosion that was way too big even for one of Tony's arrows. Even in Tony's most creative or lunatic moods he wouldn't have created an arrow that would have blown up half of his own house without warning. Because nowhere in Tony's notes was written anything about an arrow with a green bud that would cause half a building to collapse.

"Barton!" I shouted, my body making impact with his and shoving him as far away from the rapidly increasing amounts of flying rubble. I did land on top of him, probably causing a lot of bruises in the progress, but avoiding the risk of larger injuries. I covered his body with mine, waiting for everything to settle. Upstairs, I could hear Bruce transforming and ripping clothes, I heard Natasha shrieking and the thumping of Thor dealing blows to the green monster.

All that was on my mind was trying to protect Clint who might have been a great bowman capable of self-defence, but whose body wasn't resistant to gigantic heaps of brick falling upon him. It hurt, laying there and having to take the blow myself, but I at least knew it would heal quickly in my case.

"Thanks." Clint said when he had his breath back after recovering from the impact the fall must have had on his lungs.

"No problem. Come on, got to move." I said, pulling him up by his arm and using an abandoned Captain America shield prototype to protect us from the most dangerous pieces of roof falling down. I walked us up the stairs, onto ground level, hoping that we would be safe once outside. However, it seemed that that one arrow had set off multiple bombs throughout the tower and that it was slowly collapsing. Sirens were already howling outside, but there wasn't much that could be done by the police, seeing as in the middle of the chaos, Thor was still trying to distract Hulk.

"Go outside, warn Fury that Hulk is one the loose. I'm going to find Natasha and bring her to safety." When Clint started to protest, probably not happy that he didn't get to be the hero, I interrupted him "There is nothing you can do. Let me handle this." He considered it for a moment, then nodded, deciding that maybe his pride wasn't the biggest thing at stake here. I ran upstairs, hoping against all odds that the floors above wouldn't collapse upon me.

"Natasha!" I shouted, running in the direction of Hulk's roars. She met me mid-way, throwing her arms around my waist in a quick hug, which I was barely able to return in my surprise. "Thank God you're OK. Clint is outside, go on, chop chop." I ushered her out and she left with a nod in thanks. I found Thor and Hulk in a heated battle.

"Banner, come back to us! There is no danger, we are your friends." Thor said while dodging a crazy amount of attacks.

"That doesn't work!" I shouted, turning the attention from both Hulk and Thor to me. "I will distract him, you try to lay your hammer on him so he can't move. Deal?" Thor gave his OK, and I threw a piece of rubble towards Hulk to get his attention again. The green monster, which seemed to have little of Bruce left in him, turned to face me, a scowl on his deformed face, and I wondered for a second why I had volunteered for this. His arm pulled back, coming back with a force that almost knocked me out, missing by an inch and getting stuck in the wall. It took him a mere second to be able to pull his hand out and break half of the wall. Luckily enough, getting his hand stuck was enough distraction for Thor to get him on his back and place his hammer right in the middle of his stomach. Thor let out a roar in delight, pulling me up from my sitting position by my hand.

"Alright, Captain, hold on tight, we are going to jump off." He said, pulling me to the edge of the half-destroyed balcony.

"But you don't have your hammer." I pointed at the frustrated Hulk which was tugging at the hammer with no result, "How are we going to fly?"

"We aren't" Thor smiled, opening his arms for me to step in. I looked at him in surprise, knowing immediately what he meant to do, but wondering if he really was up for it.

"You sure?" I raised my eyebrow, and he smiled confidentially at me, apparently still happy despite just offering to be crushed to near-death.

"Yes, brother, now hurry up before this thing collapses on us." I looked over my shoulder, looking at the helpless Hulk laying there. There was no way for us to battle or distract him for any longer, and I knew the only sensible thing was to leave him there, but I didn't know whether Bruce would survive this.

"He will be alright." I said firmly, getting as comfortable as possible while squishing myself against Thor's armour. Thor let himself fall backwards then, and I closed my eyes when I felt the air around us, the sensation of free-falling creeping in my stomach. The impact we made with the ground was incredible. Thor took most of it, but I still felt my body complain. I scrambled off of him as quickly as I could, immediately crawling around him on my knees to inspect the damage. I breathed out in relieve when Thor gave me a tiny smile and a thumbs up, and allowed myself to fall backwards onto the pavement, sirens blaring all around me.

The next moments were all a blur.

Fury arrived, sending his medical team to take care of Thor, who seemed to be OK despite just having dropped himself off of the 5th floor of a building. I allowed myself to lay on the ground, refusing to accept any offer anyone was giving me to help me up, just letting myself calm down and letting my body recover from the extreme amount of pressure it was under.

I watched Tony's (ugly, gigantic) tower slowly collapse, looking like a modern version of the twin tower's disaster, knowing that Hulk, or Bruce, was slowly falling, the weight of the hammer preventing him from going anywhere and the problem was that I knew exactly how helpless he was feeling. Flash-backs of my own down-under fresh in my mind and all, I watched how he slowly got buried alive, hoping that the other guy wouldn't allow him to die.

[A/N Ohh, they had no choice! Don't kill me! Or them!]