And here's the next chapter all finished. I wrote this one while waiting for a table in Buffalo Wild Wings. XD Anyway, enjoy!

Disclaimer: I own nothing except for my OC Robin.

We battled for hours, but it seemed like with every ten Chitauri we killed, one hundred more would take their place. We wouldn't be able to keep up this fight for much longer, and I feared that my strength was starting to severely decline. I slouched against an overturned table, my forehead dripping blood and running down my face, there were quite a few cuts and bruises on my face, arms, and legs, and pieces of my armor were torn. I was almost out of throwing knives as well and would soon have to start using only my fire as a weapon. I looked to Steve, wiping some blood away from my eyes, "We can't keep this up much longer, bro," I said, a bit out of breath from the last attack. The Chitauri were attacking in waves, just like the last time they had invaded Earth. History, it seemed, liked to repeat itself.

Steve nodded, "Yeah, I know, but there's not much we can do at the moment. We have no way of figuring out how to close the portal." He looked to Loki, "Any ideas?"

Loki shook his head, "I am afraid that I have none, at the moment."

Steve sighed, "So our only option is to keep fighting right now. You all ready for another battle?"

Loki nodded, "I am prepared. Robin?"

I sighed and brushed some dirt off of my armor, and then moved my wild hair out of my face, "As ready as I'll ever be."

"Good," Steve replied, looking up at the sky and holding up his shield up in a battle stance, "'Cause here come the bastards again."

I looked up at the big hole in the sky, and, just as Steve had pointed out, the Chitauri were once again swarming out of the big, gaping hole in the sky. It was like a nightmare had come to life with the amount of hostile aliens that were coming towards us. Each passing wave seemed to increase in number. It reminded me of those first person shooter zombie apocalypse games, except that the damn monsters could fly on their weird, alien aircraft machines and could shoot back at everyone that attacked them instead of just walking up and clawing off their faces.

I held out my hand at a group of aliens who were flying towards me, and soon, after a bit of concentration, a large stream of fire shot from my fingertips much like a flamethrower. When I lowered my hand, the Chitauri that had been hit by my attack were now on the ground, their bodies now charred corpses from the onslaught of my flames. I sighed and slumped back, a bit weaker now from the attack, it took a huge amount of concentration and energy to do such attacks. The more I used my fire for huge attacks like that, the more stress it put on my small body. I was afraid that if I didn't collapse from exhaustion, I would end up mentally snapping and wouldn't be able to tell friend from foe. It had been a long time since I had pushed myself to that point, and I did not want to start that again.

I saw a bright flash of a bright blue laser fire at me and I jumped out of the way in an attempt to dodge it. Unfortunately, my reaction was too slow. The projectile grazed the skin on my leg, and I fell over, landing awkwardly on the hard ground and letting out a strained cry of pain. Dammit! I was losing my focus and couldn't react in time. It was only a matter of time before I would end up killing myself for not paying proper attention and acting as recklessly as I have. My mind wasn't entirely in the battle, and for this I was ashamed of myself. I inspected the wound on my leg and decided that it wasn't too bad; it could've ended up worse. The armor where it was had now been torn and the skin had a minor burn on it, causing a slight, irritating and painful sensation where it had been hit. Thankfully, I was used to extreme heat, so the burn wasn't as bad as it would've been on a normal person. I tore the tattered armor away from the burn so that it wouldn't cause problems in the future.

Once I was done checking up on my leg, I stood up unsteadily, gingerly testing the leg. It hurt to walk on it, but I had to suck it up and deal with it for now. The World itself was on the line, and I couldn't afford to sit this one out because of some injury. I blinked my eyes for a bit to clear my blurry vision and looked around. A lot of the city was destroyed and in flames. The roads were torn up, cars were flying everywhere and exploding, and the citizens were running all over the place trying to flee the city before they became victims of this attack. All in all, the whole place was a mess. It was a miracle that New York hadn't fallen completely yet. I just couldn't fathom how the Chitauri managed to destroy so much in such a small amount of time. Then, I looked up at the sky and immediately had my answer. The Chitauri were enormous in number and were mercilessly relentless.

Eventually, the situation in the city became so dire that even SHIELD stepped in to help out, sending in their agents and advanced war machines to help fight off the aliens. We were becoming tired from the never ending attack, we were, after all, only human, despite our rather supernatural abilities. We had human weaknesses, we were not perfect. I had to stop fighting and dive for cover several times to get my breath back, and even Thor and Loki were getting exhausted. The battle only seemed endless from that point on. The extra help from the SHIELD Agents was extremely helpful, and we even managed to dock down the Chitauri's numbers at a faster rate with their assistance, but there were still so many of them barreling through the open portal.

I was near collapsing point at that time, reverting to using my dagger and borrowing a gun from Natasha to help fend myself off, since I was too weak to summon fire, let alone manipulate it. Thankfully, after many long hours of battling, we were reducing the numbers of the Chitauri, and I even noticed that the amounts of aliens in the swarms were gradually dwindling down in numbers. What I saw next was an utter miracle, that I hardly believed my eyes. The aliens that were left all shouted at each other in their screeching, banshee like words, their voices like nails on chalkboard, and soon, they all fled into the portal. Their numbers had greatly diminished due to our valiant efforts, and against all odds, we managed to get them to retreat.

When the last one went through the black hole, the portal collapsed itself, the sky returning to normality in a matter of mere seconds. It was almost as if there was nothing that happened, the only proof of a battle being our battered bodies and the destroyed city. We all stood there in shocked silence for a moment before Stark let out a huge whoop of joy, the rest of the people who had stayed or helped with the fight eventually joining in. I was so excited that I could've believed that all that had happened was simply an illusion before my eyes. I looked to Loki with a relieved smile on my face as I gave him a tight hug, and he chuckled softly, wrapping his arms around me in a strong embrace. We were all so relieved that it was finally over.

Stark smiled and looked to all of us, his faceguard pulled back and his red and gold suit damaged and scratched with a few ash stains on it, "So . . . shawarma, anyone?"

Of course, we all unanimously agreed. Nothing sounded better than good, warm, traditional shawarma after as long, tiring battle. We all happily walked towards our favorite shawarma joint, the one that we had eaten at after our first battle as a team. Loki, however, hung back, not walking after us. Stark and I stopped walking, looking back at him in confusion, the others eventually stopping and looking back as well. "Why'd you stop, Reindeer Games?" Stark asked.

Loki sighed, "Your little shawarma tradition is for team members, is it not?"

Stark stared at him, "And your point is?"

Loki looked at him in surprise, "I do not think I am part of the team. . ."

Stark smiled, "Are you crazy? Of course you are! We let you join, didn't we? Besides, you helped us out a lot for this fight, I think you've earned some shawarma." What I saw next pretty much made my whole week, and the week after that, and even the week after that. All of the Avengers nodded, including Natasha, Clint, and Steve, the ones who hadn't really talked or associated with Loki before now. It seemed like they were finally starting to fully accept him, which made my heart practically sing in joy.

Loki smiled and chuckled softly, "Well, if you insist." He walked over to us and took his place beside me before we all headed towards the shawarma joint. A group of battered heroes were finally taking a rest after the long battle. It was funny, the first time we ate shawarma as a team was after we had beaten Loki, but now, the God of Mischief himself was sitting with us and sharing our little tradition. It was funny how the world worked like that.