Dedicated to Kyla, who's shown me how to use gimp so I can now photoshop my own photos of Clint and Sharon! I will be posting those soon and I will give you all the links to them as soon as possible!

CHAPTER TWENTY

Tony got to Stark Tower before anyone else. He hovered above the portal device while it was starting up; he then attempted to destroy it with an energy blast. However there was a protective force feild around the device that deflected the blast and knocked Tony back several feet.

While Tony was recovering, the device let out a strong beam of light into the sky that slowly opened the portal. Tony looked up and watched as Chitauri soldiers entered through the portal and flew down to earth like a swarm of bees from a hive.

"Right…. Army…" he said before flying up and starting to fire at the soldiers, "Barton you copy!" He yelled into his radio.

"Please tell me that is not a portal I'm looking at Tony," His sister's voice rang through the radio.

"Tell Barton to shoot as many as he can, don't let them get past three miles of the portal opening." Tony commanded before shooting a few more.

Angel turned to Clint, "The Chitauri are entering earth rapidly, we need to try to bottleneck the opening as much as possible."

They flew up close to the portal entrance and began rapidly shooting at the entering soldiers. Sharon opened the back of the jet and set up her sniper and began shooting the soldiers who were farther away and getting past the jet and Tony.

There was a flash of green through her scope, Sharon looked up and saw Loki riding one of the Soldier's pods and heading rapidly up to the jet.

"Clint lookout!" She screamed but was too late, Loki fired at the right engine on the jet. The plane jolted suddenly with the blast, Sharon slid off the back end and dangled out of the ships opening with one hand holding on for dear life and the rifle in the other.

"CLINT!" Sharon screamed as she held on for dear life.

"SHARON HOLD ON!" Clint yelled as he tried to maneuver the falling jet that was rapidly descending down on Manhattan. Sharon tried to keep a hold but the speed was too much and she lost her grip and screamed.

"NO!" Clint yelled. Angel quickly slammed a hand on Clint's head and manipulated him to keep flying the jet.

"STEVE!" She yelled, but he was already five steps ahead of her and had a parachute strapped to his back. He leapt out of the jet and went after Sharon who was rapidly falling, he caught up to her and grabbed her close before letting his parachute out and guiding them to the top of a nearby building.

Sharon took a moment to center herself before giving Steve a quick hug, "Thank you," She said.

Steve smiled and patted her on the back, "Trust me, without you I wouldn't have a chance with Angel."

Sharon couldn't help but chuckle, "So you saved me for the sake of your love life? Good to know cap."

"No that's not what I meant-" Steve sputtered out but Sharon held up a hand for him to shut up.

"I'm just kidding Steve, now lets take down some Chitauri." She said as she went to the building's edge and set up her rifle.

Back on the jet Clint did the best he could to maneuver the jet as it crash-landed on a street. He and Angel unbuckled their seat straps and grabbed their weapons before exiting.

"Sharon and Steve landed on that building over there." Angel said indicating the building she saw them land on. Clint nodded and touched his earpiece.

"Shar do you copy?" He said.

"I'm right here, Cap and I are taking care of the action from up here." Sharon's voice said in his ear. Clint let out a sigh of relief at the sound of her voice.

"Stay there and maintain your position, Angel and I will take care of the ground. And don't forget your promise you made!" He said, feeling his chest squeeze when Sharon chuckled.

"I gotta get my adrenaline rush somewhere." She said before the connection ended.

Clint turned to Angel, "Thank you for what you did, manipulating me to stay focused. I needed it."

"Yeah well, I wasn't about to let you ruin all our chances of beating the Chitauri. As adorable as it was that you freaked out over Sharon, I'd rather like to stay alive and get a chance at my own happiness as well."

Clint smiled, "Alright, let's get down to business."

Several things happened within that next hour. Thor made his way to Manhattan and joined the team. He and Cap joined Clint and Angel on the ground fighting the soldiers who made it to the ground and were trying to wreak havoc on the city. Sharon remained at her post taking out enemies until she ran out of ammo.

She was unholstering her other weapons when she heard a loud groaning coming from the portal entrance. She looked up and her eyes widened almost like a cartoon character when she saw what looked to be a gravity-defying spiny space whale floating through the entrance and descending to Manhattan.

"Uh…. Guys?" She said into her radio, "Are you seeing what I'm seeing?"

"I'm seeing," Said Tony, who flew towards the space whale trying to figure out it's weak points, "I'm still working on believing."

That portal needs to get closed Sharon thought to herself, knowing only she and Angel were the only ones who had the best shot of closing it. With that she made a quick decision and jumped from the building, landing on one of the Chitauri pods that was speeding by. She threw off two of the aliens and climbed on the back of the driver, stabbing two blades into its back so she could control the pod through the alien.

"Uh Shar, what are you doing?" Angel's voice said over the radio.

"Oh you know… improvising?" Sharon said as she awkwardly maneuvered the pod to head towards Stark Tower.

Having heard this exchange Clint looked over at Angel after shooting several soldiers down, "What's going on?" He asked her

"Nothing you want to know about without being manipulated to stay calm," Angel said as she took out several soldiers.

It was that moment that they all paused when they heard a motorcycle pull up. Bruce got off the bike and looked at his surroundings.

"Well… this all seems… horrible…" He said.

Angel smirked, "I've seen worse."

"How's Natasha?" Bruce asked, looking concerned. Angel's face fell a little.

"She's in the medical ward in a coma." She said, feeling sad when she saw the look of devastation cross Banner's face.

"I'm sorry Banner, as soon as you help us out here we can take you to her," Steve said, not entirely understanding the situation but having an idea that there was something more between Bruce and Natasha than he had expected.

"It's just as well, this will make for some good motivation…" With that Bruce turned and morphed into the Hulk in a seamlessly graceful move.

*.*.*.*.*.

Sharon hopped off the pod and landed gracefully on Stark tower. She looked over the portal device, seeing that the force field was preventing anyone from getting close to the Tesseract. From what she could tell, the only way for it to be shut down would be for someone to press the switch located just below the Tesseract. She decided that the computer would tell her what to use and started to move towards the computer when she felt a hand on her back.

"I've been waiting for you," Loki's voice said in her ear as she felt a sting in her neck as and blacked out.

Yes I know I'm evil for the cliff hanger. Reviews are better than candy! I love hearing your feedback so please review and tell me your thoughts!

Alasiel