Guys, thank NANOWRIMO for this chapter. It's thanks to that wonderful writing challenge that I got Chapter 87 and 88 (YES! NEXT CHAPTER IS DONE!) finished. 8K for both chapters together. I hope you guys enjoy it! We only have one chapter left and then... ONWARD TO ASGARD!

Thanks so much to the people who are reviewing. If you guys are interested in voting for Distortions in Time another fanfic contest is going on at inkitt DOT com. Genfic like DIT don't get a lot of readers because it is a mature, slightly depressing story that is super long and heavy and has little to no romance. (Whoever is reading this and still following this story gets full kudos from me, you guys are champs!) Anyways, Book 1 is edited (sorta) with a couple bits added and you can read it (and vote and review it) on Inkitt~ See my profile for more info~!

To Anonymous Guest: Thanks so much for offering to review every chapter! If you want to do that, far be it from me to stop you! Haha. I appreciate the effort, since it does help raise awareness a little. (shrugs) However, if your life is busy as mine, I totally don't see why you should stress yourself over it. Thanks again for the super kind words! This story has rough edges and hopefully one day it'll truly deserve your praise!

Thanks to xfighter4, Nikki Pond, Anonymous Guest, Basia Orci, Elizabeth, and Insolent Katt! Thanks everyone! I appreciate your encouraging words!

Chapter 87
Turning the Tide III

As his green-eyed gaze wandered over the rapidly emptying park, Loki's fists clenched. Overhead, he could already see a dark cloud of the spiky-looking spacecraft so typical of the Chitauri. A long time ago, the creatures had diverged from the vast numbers of the Kree, it was said, and had morphed into something else entirely different. Bionic beings with minds more similar to insects of prey, the Chitauri landed upon planets and devoured them whole. Like swarms of flies, the ships swarmed downwards, blasting away at anything before them. This was not a conquering race, but a devastating species who could only destroy and scavenge.

Against the blue sky of Midgard, the Chitauri's Leviathans looked even more alien and dangerous. The great, dark space worms slowly drew out from the edges of the wormhole. Like worms crawling out from the underside of a rock, Loki shuddered. Those will be holding quite a few of the infantry, and they will cause the most long-term damage on the planet. They need to be destroyed.

"Is your 'bud on?" Natasha reached up and tapped the small piece of technology which he had set inside his ear while on the plane. "We'll be splitting up, but communication is key."
"I'm on my way back to Stark Tower," Stark's voice suddenly resounded in Loki's ear. "I need a new suit. JARVIS says that there's no sign of the Chitauri hanging around the pad yet, so it should be safe."
"Be careful," Loki said quickly. "I sense Flarathir. He is around here... He could have chosen your Tower as his headquarters." The dark-haired prince turned around, his eyes narrowing as he scoured his surroundings for any sign of the old warrior-mage. "I can sense him."
"That's just great," Stark said. "JARVIS will let us all know if he spots Evil Merlin. While you go all hoodoo-voodoo, I'll see about getting that wormhole turned off. Oh, there you guys are! Nice landing."

The group saw a black speck soar overhead with the occasional alarming dip of speed and altitude as it progressed across the city. Behind it trailed a thin line of grey smoke.

"Holy shit! Worms from space!"
"Yes," Loki sighed. "Be careful, everyone. Those are Leviathans. They have little protection, but they can carry around a hundred infantry."
"We need to take them down," Hawkeye said grimly. "I need to get up somewhere and provide you guys some cover."

Swinging his hammer from hand to hand, Thor grinned at the others. He looked if possible even more eager than usual – and with his gleaming armour, long blonde hair and light beard, Thor looked more than ready to take on any foe that should happen his way.

"This is a good day to fight," he laughed – and then sobered. "As a team, however, we not only need to focus on stopping the Chitauri, but we need to ensure that as many civilians can be evacuated."
"I'll talk to the police," Steve Rogers interjected. "We really have no time to lose. Let's go."
"Doctor Banner is coming your way," another smooth voice interjected over the team's channel.
"Thanks, JARVIS!"

With that, the group split up. Whirling Mjolnir a couple times, Thor crowed with delight in the return of his powers and, grabbing Hawkeye with him, shot upward in the sky. Watching a startled, now yelling Hawkeye and his brother disappear in the direction of the Leviathans, Loki shook his head. Well, I would like to say 'as usual', but in this case, it is perhaps better if Thor focuses his wide-range attacks on the enemy. Loki's face hardened at the memory of Thor lying near death in his arms. I will deal with Flarathir.

-0-0-0-

Transporting himself to the top of building, Loki looked around for a sign of the traitorous Asgardian warrior-mage. Allowing his magick to spread outward from within, Loki tipped back his head and shut his eyes. Cold spread throughout his body. Not cold, he admitted to himself. It feels easier this way. More natural. As his fingers twisted into the sigils for Intentions and Directions, Loki whispered a short spell. A very specific working that should lead me straight to him. Loki recalled a dark sanctuary rising before the dark spell of a black hole and the war council of Thanos, the Mad Titan. The sooner the better.

-0-0-0-

Finally reaching the relative safety of a very tall skyscraper, Hawkeye breathed a sigh of relief. After swerving and soaring through the air, it felt good to feel the solid foundation of concrete under his feet again. Looking about, Hawkeye smiled. Since it was quite a tall office building, from the edge, he would be able to shoot at will. It could be a while, he hoped, before the Chitauri noticed where I am located.

"That was some wild ride, Thor," Clint turned to thank his friend, "thanks-"

Thor was already gone. The blonde-haired Asgardian was already making a twisting course toward a Leviathan. However, before he rose upward, Thor dipped downwards toward the congested street now mainly full of emptied cars. Glancing downward as he followed Thor's trajectory, Hawkeye noticed that a familiar, gigantic green muscled monster was plowing over the vehicles in front of it, flaring green eyes locked on the Leviathan and descending Chitauri overhead. The Hulk has arrived. Grabbing the transformed Doctor Banner, Thor darted back upward to the oncoming assailants and the two of them began to tear away at the Leviathan, crushing any unlucky Chitauri who attempted to attack them.

Hawkeye, drawing his first arrow, smiled.

-0-0-0-

Natasha and Steve Rogers discovered that the streets of New York, thanks to the suddenness of the attack, had become a chaotic mass of screaming, running civilians. Overhead, blasts ricocheted, smashing into glass and concrete and wood, raining debris down upon the unprotected heads of tourists, office workers, shoppers – anyone and everyone who had been going about their day as usual in the Big Apple.

Paramedics and police were attempting to make their way down the less populated streets, but getting past the now emptied cars was well-nigh impossible in their emergency vehicles. In the face of the oncoming attacks which blew apart anything in its attacks, the police cowered behind what cover they could, obviously uncertain and inexperienced enough to handle such weaponry. Barricades were being hastily set up and, receiving a running commentary from Hawkeye on the placement of their attackers, the blue, red and white suited Captain America immediately made his way over to the largest group of law enforcement officers. He began to hand out orders to a stunned policeman.

"I need men in these buildings. There are people inside that can run into the line of fire. You take them through the basement or through the subway. You keep them off the streets. I need a perimeter as far back as 39th!"
"Why should we listen to-"

The most important looking cop broke off as a massive explosion resounded overhead. A building began to collapse in on itself, shooting glass and concrete out into the street before them. From another incoming Leviathan, a newly arrived troop of Chitauri began to jump over to the walls, scaling the buildings to smash through the windows.

"Fall back to 39th!" hollered the policeman immediately, recognizing (finally) the seriousness of the situation before him.
"Why isn't SWAT and the military here already?" Steve frowned.
"Politics... but they are apparently on the way," Natasha yelled over the reverberations of a particularly large blast which seemed to come from the far end of the street ahead of them. Most of the police officers were following their chief back while a few huddled behind the barriers which they had erected between the cars. The two superheroes watched as one of the space worms slammed into the side of a building, tearing away its sides and revealing the rows of cubicles and offices within. "We need to shut the wormhole," Natasha glanced around – and then overhead at the small alien spacecraft zooming about, she grinned as an idea occurred to her. "Throw me up!"
"Are you sure?" Steve Rogers swung his shield around and held it up before him.
"Yeah. Throw me when I say go, and I'll be able to rebound off your shield in time," the red-haired assassin reassured him.

Eyes raised, Natasha tensed, sprang while shouting 'Go!", and leaped several feet in the area quick enough to grab onto the lower undercarriage of the Chitauri spacecraft. Flipping up and around, she quickly tossed off the first two very surprised Chitauri, broke the neck of the third gunner and stabbed the pilot, dumping his body into the street. Swerving around, Natasha shot upward. Behind her, Steve battled newly landed troops as a group of cafe customers poured out of a now very trashed cafe toward the relative safety of the police barricade. Natasha nodded and turned her gaze upward.

Now for the Tesseract.

-0-0-0-

"I took the arc reactor off line," JARVIS told Tony Stark as he wound his way around the taller skyscrapers of New York. The suit, now torn up thanks to the Helicarrior's blades, had taken quite a beating and puttered along slowly. "However, the device is now self-sustaining. Furthermore, from my calculations, the barrier now surrounding is pure energy and will not be easily breached."
"What other bad news do you have?" grunted Stark as his tower came into view.

Amazingly, it appeared undamaged and untouched.

"The Mark VII is not ready to be deployed."
"Skip the spinning rims," the man quipped. "No seriously. We're on the clock here."
"Will do, sir," JARVIS replied and then added, "Someone just landed upon on the balcony as well and appears to be pacing back and forth. Initial scans match with the Asgardian Mage Flarathir."
"Damn it," Tony swore briefly. "Merlin has chosen the pad for his hideout?"
"If by 'Merlin', you mean the Asgardian Flarathir, then yes." Tony could swear that JARVIS sounded amused.
"Let Rock of Ages know," Stark said briefly. "By that, I mean Loki. He's probably out hunting for the bastard."

With that, Stark, drawing closer to his tower, saw that JARVIS was indeed right. His right visual (what part was working) showed a tell-tale glint around the Tesseract and the stooped shoulders of the ancient Asgardian could be clearly seen through the windows of his balcony. Taking a deep breath, Stark lit down on his personal landing bay, allowing his suit to be deftly removed by JARVIS, and strode into the room as though he had nothing to fear. Once he got to the bar, the dark-haired man grabbed his best whiskey and began to pour himself and his unwanted guest a drink.

Flarathir, swiveling around, glared at the human from under his grey eyebrows. He doesn't look too happy for someone who's succeeded at invading earth, Tony thought. Well, we'll stop him somehow, but maybe he senses Loki or his crazy Mad Titan buddy is late showing up to the party.

"Hey," Stark raised a glass. "Drink?"
"You hope to offer peace, small man?" sniffed Flarathir. "You hope to reason with the hounds baying at your door?"
"Uhhh... I was actually planning to threaten you," Tony smiled. "I'm guessing that's a 'no' to the drink, then."
"Threaten?" scoffed Flarathir. "A puny mortal, unarmed and unarmoured, dares threaten me. How wonderful."
"Hm. Well, I can put the armour back on," Tony shrugged, "if that would make you feel better. But the suit's seen a bit of mileage." He gestured to the man who now drew closer in curiosity. "You aren't wearing armour... and all you have is that blue stick of destiny."
"Do you think you can hold me here with your idle chatter?" One of Flarathir's grey eyebrows rose, but judging by the dark glimmer in his eye, the man was not amused.

I suppose going crazy and hanging out with megalomaniac Mad Titans does a number on your sense of humour, Tony rolled his eyes. And here I thought Director Fury was bad.

"What? No, no, no! Threatening, remember?" Tony lowered left hand to the bar while his right hand reached for another bottle of bourbon. "Are you sure you don't want a drink? It's just that alcohol, in opinion, really goes a long way towards making things better." A pause as he lowered his hands, slipped on his newest creations– a pair of Colantotte bracelets which would allow the suit to hone in on his location. "Or look better even if things aren't, you know, better."
"Your future is dark," Flarathir grinned madly. "There Chitauri are here and nothing can change that. What do I have to fear?"
"Uh. Well," Tony scratched his head. "The Avengers for starters."
"The Avengers?"
"It's what we call ourselves," Tony shrugged, "sort of like a team. You have teams back where you came from? 'Earth's Mightiest Heroes' and all that. Or," he paused to think for a second, "for you that would be 'Asgard's Mightiest Heroes.'"
"Ah. And you are one of them. You were all on the flying ship."
"Most of us. But the people on the ship are..." Tony thought of JARVIS's update, of Coulson lying on a stretcher. "Never mind. There's a small bunch of us, but we get the job done."
"I don't recall success on your part when we last met," Flarathir sneered.
"Yeah, it does take us a while to get any traction, I'll give you that one. But... let's do a head counte here. There's a super-soldier, a living legend who kind of lives up to the legend; a man with breath-taking anger management issues, who can turn green too in a drop of a hat; a couple of master assassins, who can probably twist you into a pretzel; a newly charged up battery Prince Thor complete with hammer, whom you should know well... and his kinda super strange brother from another mother, Prince Loki... and you managed to piss off all of them."
"That was the plan."
"Not a great plan," retorted Tony, hoping that JARVIS was doing his best to prepare the Mark VII. "When they come, and they will, they'll come for... you."
"I have an army," Flarathir laughed. "An army with great will and the vast purpose of Death itself."
"We have a Hulk with a shitload of anger."
"No one can stop it now. This is the will of the Voice of the Void. This is the unescapable reality, the truest truth of the universe."
"How fun," Tony gave a sharp laugh, "but you do realize that even if you manage to crush New York, maybe you tear the Earth up or whatever, maybe your Voice of the blah blah comes round... That's not going to stop us – because if we can't protect the Earth, you can be damned well sure we'll avenge it."
"Hm," Flarathir drew closer and raised his Scepter. "How will your friends have time for me, when they're so busy fighting you?"

With that, the ancient mage raised the Scepter and tapped it against Iron Man's chest. Clink. Flarathir frowned and tried again to no avail. Clink. Tony gave him a 'what can I do?' shrug.

"Performance issues?" Tony asked cheekily.
"You have... no heart!" Flarathir frowned. "What witchery is this?"
"Witchery? Well, I suppose to the eyes of the uneducated superior technology may seem like magic-"

Before Tony got any further, Flarathir's free hand rose twisting, but before his attack could hit the human, a shimmering wall rose between them. Flarathir flew back from the force of the reflected magick, and his dark eyes instantly flew to the door. Following the line of the Asgardian's glare to the door leading out to his balcony, Tony Stark sighed. There stood a familiar, tall, scarecrow thin figure with a scavenged Chitauri energy spear in hand.

"Fantastic," Tony remarked deadpan. "Now we get a chance to see some wizard on wizard action."
"You are needed elsewhere, Man of Iron," Loki's red eyes fixed unwavering upon Flarathir.
"It's... actually Iron Man." Tony said. "Tony, to friends," he added.
"The more Leviathans are descending," Loki said, moving slowly and catlike into the room. "My brother is a great warrior of Asgard, but although he may like to think he can hold the battlefield... I fear the numbers are too great for him."
"JARVIS is just finishing up the last touches on Mark VII. JARVIS?"
"Almost ready, sir."

Tony glanced over at Flarathir who was glaring intensely at the Jotunn blue of Loki's skin and the startling crimson of Loki's eyes. The dark glittering madness within Flarathir's eyes seemed to hesitate at the sight of Loki. Staring back and forth between the two warrior mages, Tony had a feeling that whatever was to follow, it would not be in his best interests to linger.

"I'll, uh, leave him to you," Tony said. "JARVIS!"

With that, Tony thumbed on the honing device and ran out of the room. Behind him a crackling BOOM resounded as a second blast of power from Flarathir's Scepter was once again deflected by another shield erected by Loki's workings.

"You-!" Flarathir roared, darting forward. "Jotunn runt!"

Tony glanced back and caught a glimpse of Flarathir and Loki clash – Scepter against spear – and beyond them, a red flash of metal. The Mark VII. Without hesitation, Tony threw himself off the building as his newest model of the suit shot past the balcony and began to scan for his rapidly falling signal. Around him the whooshing air nearly took his breath away – as did the ear-shattering explosion above him. Just as the Mark VII had located him and began to surround him, what felt like the entire top half of his building exploded outward in a shower of glass and metal. How the roof is staying on there... well, it's a testament to my genius, just admit it.

"Let's get out of here, JARVIS," Tony grumbled as he followed the indicators which pointed him in the direction of the nearest Leviathan. "No point in getting stuck between..." The man paused as he realized that for once his wit had failed him. No humorous comparison or reference had come to him. "I suppose this day is full of firsts."

For the next fifteen or twenty minutes, Tony sped about New York's skyline, blasting Chitauri off the Hulk's back, blasting away at ambushes set up against Thor, destroying any Leviathan that came close to the city, and ensuring that Steve's stand on New York's streets would not be in fact his last one. When he was just finishing up a particularly difficult chase of a Chitauri chariot, Stark's team channel blared to life with the Director's voice, which sounded particularly harried.

"Stark, you there?"
"Hey, Director, hearing you loud and clear-"
"We've got trouble," growled the black man. "Massive trouble heading your way."
"Why am I not surprised?"
"It's a nuke."
"Aw, Hell no," Hawkeye's voice cut in. "Whose shit idea was that?"
"The Council?" Natasha guessed. She sounded a little breathless.
"I've got JARVIS on it-"
"We need to get rid of that bomb stat," Director Fury sounded more than unhappy. "It was a decision totally taken out of my hands and there's no way I can stop it-"
"Why would they do that-" Steve broke off suddenly.
"I'll try to redirect it through the wormhole," Tony said suddenly. "But we need to shut down the Tesseract at the same time-"
"What if you get trapped on the other side-"
"That could work-"
"Who can get to the Tesseract?"
"It's useless," Tony cut through the chatter. "There's a barrier around the Tesseract."
"The Tesseract's energy is more than likely that of an Infinity Gem," Thor's voice sounded over the channel suddenly.
"So you are thinking that another Infinity Gem could break through?" guessed Tony with his usual flas of genius. "I suppose those things aren't just lying around are they..."
"Loki is facing down Flarathir right now. We need someone to go in there and coordinate with him to get that Scepter."
"The Scepter is an Infinity Stone as well, huh," Tony sighed. "Well, who's up for that job?"
"I'm on it," Natasha said quickly. "Thor, stay where you are. Loki and I can handle this."

There was a long pause and then a short sigh.

"Very well," Thor said finally. "Take care... and keep an eye on him. He's the sensible one, but Loki still has his... moments."
"I'll keep that in mind," Natasha chuckled.

With that, the channel fell silent and Tony, after firing a round of Jericho inside a Leviathan and blasting his way through its innards as it exploded around him, veered around and headed out to the Atlantic. It's time to save the world, he thought. Again.

[What is power?]
[What is the engine of desperation?]
[...it is...]

All that remained of the world were the lines of sfumato shadow as the material gave way to the spiritual, as the physical sense surrendered to magickal intuition. Whirling round, trading blows and drawing upon the well of power found within the planet, Loki summoned and manipulated what came ready to his mind and hands.

This, he thought exultantly as a mist of snow and ice smothered Flarathir's fire attack, raising a wall of steam and fog between them. This is what I was born for.

It was an odd thought.

...this is for that which you were born...
...Other-Soul of the Realm of Ice...

The words echoed and vibrated in the air about him. Whispers of the youthful Heimsrsal, a child perhaps of the mothering force which enveloped the heart of the Realm Eternally Sheltered.

It was an odd thought which Loki would have more attributed to Thor. Nonetheless, he mused, it is true. In the end, perhaps it is my destiny to fight, to rage, to struggle.

The young warrior mage stood stock still now in the center of the rapidly dissipating fog. His keen ears picked out the barely audible crunch of Flarathir's dragon-hide boots on Loki's thin ice field which now blanketed the entire flooring of the room. Stark's furniture had long taken up a smoldering look as various leathers and carpets and draperies had caught fire. Black smoke from a variety of substances, which Loki guessed had less natural origins, billowed out slowly from every broken glass window. Loki, in an attempt to control the blaze, had put out as many fires as he could, leaving most of the room now frozen in varying levels of ice. As with most mage's battles, the environment bore the brunt of their devastating attacks.

"Loki?"

It was the red-headed woman carrying two Chitauri blasters. Natasha, Loki reminded himself. However, there was no time for response as Loki recognized the cant of Flarathir's mumble and dove into a roll. Coming up in front of Natasha, the long, black-haired mage pulled the assassin down into a crouch and scratched a sigil of protection on the icy floor. As a combined wind and fire attack blasted their way, ripping through the tatters of fog, a small energy dome rose up around the two to protect them from the brunt of the attack.

"Wow," Natasha breathed. "Intense."
"Flarathir is a man of cunning," Loki warned her as the attack spent itself around them. "He is an experienced mage in – in my Father's Court, the shadow master of the Mage's Council and advisor to High Mage Agaeti."
"Politics."
"Yes," Loki nodded. "Dangerous politics."
"I can see that," Natasha grunted. "Somehow it has landed an invasion army on our planet."
"The army would have come eventually, Flarathir or no," Loki reminded the woman. "In fact, if not for Flarathir, the army would have traveled slower, yes, but it would have arrived in its entirety."
"The more you talk," Natasha rose to her feet as the barrier melted away, "the less reassured I feel. Just so you know."
"Hm." Loki swung his energy spear and shifted into a defensive stance as he widened his sphere of awareness in order to relocate his now hidden enemy.
"I suppose you played the game too."
"Oh yes," Loki said grimly. "That is our way, our world, and it is yours now as well – thanks to the misuse of the Tesseract-"
"Speaking of which, we need to get the Scepter back."
"I'm not-"
"To shut the Tesseract down – or at least break through the barrier around it," Natasha quickly explained. "Stark and Thor seem to think that the only way to break through a Tesseract-generated barrier is another equally powerful, uh, power source... like an Infinity – Thor said something about an Infinity Stone?"
"They may very well be right," Loki nodded. "If we fight together, we may overwhelm him – and you could take it and run." He glanced at the woman. "Breaching the barrier with the Scepter will not be easy and you may feel a strong repulsion from the magick; however, you must continue forcing it through and that should naturally cause a chain reaction which may even destroy the device, or at least force it to stop."
"Got it."

Loki jerked his head and lifted his index finger slightly in the direction of the door by the another room. Natasha nodded and when Loki summoned another illusion of the two of them, a smile flitted across her face. As the illusions darted across the room to the door, Loki and Natasha followed in time, allowing their steps to resound as though they were the illusions themselves. Flarathir's blast aimed at the illusions' bait ended just as Loki and Natasha slid along the slippery ice sheets, safely below Flarathir's range of fire. Leaping up, Loki swung his staff, staggering Flarathir, while Natasha chopped down hard on their opponent's wrist with her Chitauri gun.

For a second, Flarathir's grip on his Scepter weakened and, as Loki swirled around from behind the man's back, the younger mage gave a mighty blow to the man's torso with the staff and a cutting blast of ice which left a line of blood across the older warrior mage's chest and severed his left arm.

First blood.

The Scepter fell and Natasha flipped head over heels, snatched it up and dashed back toward the balcony.

Flarathir roared with maniacal rage, but his following blow failed to land on the redhead. Loki's shield however shattered once the wind blast bashed against it – and the resulting flare of power nearly blew Natasha across the room and off the balcony. Natasha, gripping the Scepter, began to one-handedly pull out her belaying wire. Throwing the hook onto a sturdy-ish scrap of metal now sticking out where part of Stark's sunroof used to be, Natasha hauled herself up, allowing another blast of icy wind to blow her away from the building and up.

I am so close, she thought as she dragged herself up to the roof. So close. Let me be on time!

[…it is only for those...]
[...who turn their face from despair...]
[...and fight onward in hope...]

Swiveling around, Thor swept three Chitauri off their feet with one swoop of Mjolnir. As the Crown Prince of Asgard raised his hammer to the sky and called lightning down, the green-skinned Hulk at his side with a black sedan battered several Chitauri creeping up on the blonde Asgardian. Steve Rogers ran past, throwing his shield ahead of him, as he led a charge of SWAT into a library nearby.

"Where's he going?" Thor glanced around, noting that for the moment, the horde of Chitauri had thinned.

The Hulk, giving Thor a mighty blow of friendship, roared.

-0-0-0-

As he grabbed the missile in his ungainly hands, Tony gritted his teeth and swore. The pull was massive. It shouldn't have been a surprise, he thought, but somehow it is. This thing feels huge.

It was, Tony knew, not as huge as he was making out. Considering the payload it carried, the missile was a streamlined grey and navy beauty which the engineer in him could appreciate and admire. From a distance.

Now he was clutching an atomic bomb to his breast and dragging it upward toward the wormhole. Over the team channel, Natasha's voice resounded.

"I'm on the roof with the Scepter."
"On my way," he grunted past his clenched teeth.
"I can see you."
"Don't hold back," he replied quickly. "Start now."
"You're not even close."
"Now!"

Raising his speed, Tony ripped through the blue sky now choking with black and grey and hoped that no one would target the tiny man carrying the small missile. For some reason, there didn't seem to be any interference on the part of the Chitauri.

"JARVIS," he frowned. "Have I gone invisible without knowing it or what? What's going on?"
"Thor and the Hulk have been joined by a few others, sir, which has drawn the attention of the Chitauri."
"If you tell me it's Spiderman," Tony sighed, "I'm gonna hurl."

There was a significant pause before JARVIS said, "It's Spiderman."

"JARVIS!" Tony rolled his eyes. "Do you want to know what permanent shut down means?"
"I know what-"
"I'm just joking, JARVIS. Just a joke. I'm glad that the mutants and whatever have gotten off their asses and done something to help."

Really, I'm just lightening the mood because if I think about it too much, Tony thought as he began to climb upwards, as the giant lidless black eye seemed to gobble up the safe, familiar horizon of blue, I just might go crazy. Crazier than I am now anyways.

"Stress on the Mark VII is ri-"
"I can see it," snapped Tony as he passed the event horizon of the worm hole.
"The suit will-"
"I know."

-0-0-0-

Natasha made her way across the roof. It was empty save for a vaguely familiar figure: a tall man with greying wispy hair and blue eyes which glowed with a familiar madness. Doctor Selvig. With a sigh, she carefully approached him, and as he swung around, her fingers gripped the Scepter just a little tighter.

"I need to stop it," she said.
"There is no way to stop it," Doctor Selvig smiled and raised his hand with pride at his creation. "And why would you? There is a new world waiting and She calls to each and ev-"

Before the man could get any further in his cult-like speech, Natasha shifted the Scepter to her other hand, twisted around behind the scientist, and efficiently targeted the base of his neck. Catching him carefully as he slid to his knees unconscious, Natasha let him down to the concrete roof and made her way over to the Tesseract. Remembering Loki's words, the woman rammed the Scepter into the barrier, and as she grunted and yelled in frustration, Natasha shoved the Scepter further and further into the glimmering static.

A few seconds later, the Scepter's stone met the barrier and – BOOM – there was white bright light, there was a great explosion which knocked her on her back and sent the Scepter flying, there was a roaring and splintering boom as the device's outer casing ricocheted off into the distance over her head. The blue energy beam detached from the worm hole and disappeared.

Natasha's gaze however was only fixed on the worm hole into which Stark had just disappeared.

The assassin sighed to herself as she realized that she was actually worried about the cocksure inventor who had nearly made her tear out her hair a year or two earlier.

You better make it, Stark, she told him wordlessly. Don't make me go to hell and back to bring you home to Pepper.

[...and fight onward in hope...]
[...hope...]
[...that is indeed the treasure so hard won...]
[...in the face of the oncoming storm...]
[...in the face of the unceasing dark...]

Well, there you have it readers! There'll be another chapter next week around this time! I look forward to seeing you guys again soon~!

-KI