Before the sight of Stark falling to his death could really sink in, flashes of red and gold dove after him.
"What the…" Clint muttered.
Pieces of armor raced after their falling ally, but by that point, only Clint seemed to be able to see anything happening dozens of stories down.
"That son of a bitch!"
And suddenly Iron-man rocketed towards the sky, waved at them on his way up, then flew back in the hole he'd made in the window on his way down.
"He's… completely insane," Steve concluded when Stark was flung out of another window where he began fighting Loki on top of his private landing pad. "Drop us off here, see if you can't shoot the Tesseract off the roof, or stop whoever is operating it."
The Black Widow nodded, positioning them over the fight. Steve jumped while Hermione apparated next to him a second later. Moving as they had done a hundred times before on the battlefield, they soon surrounded Loki.
"Took you long enough," Stark said as he used his beam against Loki.
The Asgardian ducked, so Steve used all his strength to hit him in the back of the neck with the edge of his shield. Loki merely stumbled forward, although it would have killed or decapitated any other normal man.
"Had to suit up," Steve replied as he kicked Loki towards Hermione. "This suit is a nightmare to pull on."
Despite the previous blow, Loki managed to dodge one of Hermione's vibrant spells by an inch, but the second one hiding behind it made him flip several times in the air, as if caught in a tornado. Loki he fell back down, and lost his grip on the sceptre, which clattered a couple of feet away. Just then, a huge explosion went off above them which Steve attributed to Romanoff and Clint, although he hoped it was in a good way and not them getting blown up. Whichever the case may be, Stark used the distraction to send a beam of energy at the sceptre, making it fall to the patio beneath, out of reach for now. The fallen God unfolded himself from the floor with such fury shrouding him, it was almost palpable. Steve braced himself for something terrible to hit them, but the large mass of Thor suddenly landed between them and his brother.
"Let me deal with him," he thundered.
If Gods wanted to have a go at smiting each other, Steve wasn't going to object, although Stark tried to. Steve caught Hermione's eye instead, then jutted his chin towards where they had located the Tesseract. He was worried because he'd had no news from Romanoff or Clint since the explosion. Was this earpiece unit even working? Steve took it out for inspection and it didn't look broken, but it wasn't making any sound either. He shook it a couple of times before giving up on it. He knew magic and electronics didn't mesh well, and wondered if he'd been too close to one of Hermione's spells.
Hermione nodded at his suggestion and teleported her way up the building, while he followed with a little gymnastics to get there.
No signs of the Quinjet anywhere, but gunfire greeted them from the rooftop. Loki's minions had been lying in wait, but Steve doubted such a trick had surprised Clint and Romanoff. For their part, Hermione simply levitated the whole lot of them with one flick of her hand, letting them crash down with reasonable speed since they were technically innocents. She tied them up with her wand, but there was one man left standing close to the Cube. This one wasn't armed, if you discounted the Tesseract as a weapon. They approached carefully, unsure of who it was, or what he was doing, if he was trying to disarm the Tesseract or, on the contrary, to set it off. Only when he turned around did Steve recognize him.
"Dr Selvig?"
But his eyes, normally a dull blue, were the brilliant shade of the Cube. He didn't say anything either, just turned around, ignoring them completely to continue his work on the machine that was linked to the Tesseract.
"Just whack him on the head," Hermione said in a half whisper.
"He's old," Steve hissed back. "I might kill him."
"Fine. I'll do it, but you'll be the one fighting the next senior citizen."
Steve hoped that never came to pass, knowing she'd make him uphold his end of the bargain. Or else. She was ruthless in her own way.
"Stupefy."
A bright red jet of light erupted from her wand and hit the poor man in the back. He froze then toppled back, effectively hitting his head on the hard concrete floor. They watched him, then each other. This part of the mission had been rather anticlimactic.
"So… we won?" she asked.
Steve shrugged and walked up to the device the Tesseract was hooked on. Most of the machine was accessible but there was a sort of field of energy surrounding the Cube.
"It looks like it's… doing something?"
Hermione inspected it too, but kept at a reasonable distance, not that he blamed her. Her finger pointed at the cables.
"Can you unplug the machine? Maybe that'll stop it."
That was actually a good idea, and he berated himself for not even thinking of it. Once he had pulled at the cord until it snapped out of the socket connecting it to the building's power source, they turned back towards the Cube and machine, but it was still humming softly. Steve sighed. They were probably the two least equipped people to deal with this thing.
"I'll get Stark to haul his metal ass over here, unless you have another idea?" he asked hopefully.
"Blow it up?"
"Can't make it worse, I suppose. Let's take cover over there."
He pointed at the corner of the platform that would shield them at least in part, but he added his shield as a precaution.
"I don't like this," she muttered as she took aim with her wand.
"It was your idea, love."
"Terrible idea. Must be Jacques' bad influence."
The Frenchman had a tendency to blow everything up, even when there were easier ways, but whatever kept the morale up was always good in his books. Steve knew Hermione did not like interacting with the Cube, but something had to be done, and sooner rather than later.
"Bombarda Maxima!"
The spell itself left in a whoosh of charged air. Steve braced himself for the backlash of the explosion, but he hadn't counted on the spell to simply bounce back right at them. That damn field of energy surrounding the Tesseract must have acted like a shield. Steve braced himself and the spell bounced off his own shield, hitting the side of the building instead, creating a huge cloud of dust and smoke. .
"Oops," Hermione said. "Now, I'm all out of ideas."
An ominous beep sounded and suddenly a beam of light shot up to the sky, stirring the soft blue into a sickly purple. They had to stop it before the portal opened, but so far, they hadn't been able to so much as put a scratch on the device. It seemed Loki had thought of everything so they couldn't ruin his plan.
"Alright, who blew up my tower?" Ironman asked as he landed next to them.
"Technically, the Cube did," Hermione said, pointing towards the installation. "We tried to stop it."
"I'll take care of it," Stark said and raised an arm with a mechanical whir, energy humming at his palm.
"No!" they both exclaimed.
"Don't you think we tried that?" Hermione huffed. "It just rebounded."
"Nothing can penetrate it. There's a sort of energy field around it," Steve added.
Ironman's faceplate flipped up and Stark began inspecting the machine, spouting off so much scientific jargon, it might as well be a foreign language.
"I'll just ask the guy who built it," Hermione said when it didn't look like Stark had a better idea than they did. She cast another spell on Dr Selvig, who groaned and pushed himself up, a hand going to his head. Perfect. It meant he had been whacked pretty hard, but Steve was on the defensive until he actually showed his eyes.
"Dr Selvig?"
Selvig blinked up at them, his eyes a normal shade of blue. Steve smiled and gave him a hand up. "Good to have you back, sir. Could you help us stop that thing you built?"
Selvig turned around, eyes growing wide with realization.
"Oh God. I hoped it was a nightmare. What have I done?"
"Is there a way to stop it?" Steve insisted, more sharply this time.
"I… uhm… Yes. Yes! There's a, uh, backdoor of sorts. The sceptre. Loki's sceptre. You can stop the flux of energy with it!"
"Stark! What's the situation with Loki?"
"They were still smiting each other when I left. Shame I didn't insure my building against Gods. The way they're going at it, it's going to cost me an arm in repairs."
Steve rolled his eyes.
"And the sceptre?"
"Jarvis?" A pause while Stark listened. "Loki is currently trying to eviscerate Thor with it. Ah, no wait… He dropped it again. How are his bones not broken? That hammer really packs a punch. Loki's going after it again-"
"Accio Loki's sceptre!" Hermione shouted, holding a hand up in the air.
"Oooh. It's flying!" Stark said. "Duck!"
Steve ducked, the sceptre swishing through the air above him.
"Got it!" Hermione said. "Now what?"
"Just stick it with the pointy end," Stark grinned, which made no sense to Steve, but Hermione grinned back.
"You know nothing, Jon Snow."
Stark laughed, but then it petered out, replaced by a look of confusion.
"Wait. When the hell did you have time to-"
"Later," Steve snapped, pointing up at the darkened sky. It was almost like a hole forming into space. "Things are coming through the portal."
Small things, but going very fast, some heading right for them, others descending on the busy streets. It wasn't long before they heard the first explosions, but they had their own trouble to deal with by then.
"Do it!" Stark said before flying up to meet the invaders.
He missed a couple and Steve finally had his first look at the chitauris. Ugly as sin came to mind, but not nearly as strong as he was expecting. He glimpsed Hermione slowly pushing the sceptre through the shimmering barrier. Any second now… A large shadow overhead caught his attention. Something much bigger had come through. A whale. A space whale. Swimming in the sky over New York. God, but Bucky would have loved to see this.
Suddenly, the beam of light powering the portal disappeared, cutting a second space whale which had been crawling through clean in two. Steve tore off the arm of the last Chitauri on the roof as it tried to aim for Hermione, then kicked the rest of him over the building. He scanned the skyline, just to make sure the area was clear. Stark was going after the whale, and judging by how the last flying alien crafts were falling like leaves in autumn, Clint had to be somewhere shooting them down. The situation looked to be under control.
For a first alien invasion - that he knew of at least - the outcome wasn't bad at all. Few of the aliens had made it through, and those which had had been kept contained before being dealt with. Yes, even the whale was down, lying belly up on a sidewalk a block away. Now, if only they could make tech that supported a healthy dose of magic, they might actually be able to work as a team, because this fight had been another fiasco in that area.
Or maybe they were just not meant to be…
Not that it was finished, they still had to secure the Tesseract and deal with Loki. Hermione was able to do the first, hiding the Cube under several layers of magic that neither he nor Stark could see through.
"What about Loki?" Stark asked. "If he has magic too, doesn't it mean he can't find it under all your abracadabra?"
"It'll take him time and I'm hoping that by then, he won't be a threat anymore. Shall we?"
Stark flew around his tower once to locate Loki, then came back flying to tell them where to head. No shortcuts for them, they had to use the elevator to get to the correct floor where they found Thor leaning against a pillar, as well as Romanoff and Clint sitting on a whimpering Loki.
"How the heck did you manage that?" Steve asked, because he'd never seen Loki look that defeated. Even when Hermione had sent him crashing against a wall with extra power from the Cube, he had only been impaired for a couple of minutes. Right now, he looked like a rag-doll.
"Aye! My brother will rue the day he angered the green giant you call Hulk. It shall go down in Asgardian History and will be sung about at banquets and feasts!" Thor boomed, while Loki emitted another whimper.
"Banquets and feast?" Clint asked. "Aren't those the same?"
Romanoff shrugged then looked at them.
"Why didn't you keep in contact?"
Steve tossed her his com unit.
"Your ear plug doesn't work. I think magic fried it."
She looked at it briefly, then tossed it at Stark.
"Think you can make these more resistant?"
"Is the sky blue? Am I a genius?" he scoffed.
"So what happened to you two?" Steve asked the two SHIELD agents.
"You fired at the Tesseract with the plane, didn't you?" Hermione asked before either could answer.
"Bounced right off," Clint nodded. "Like water on a duck."
"A very aggressive duck," Romanoff added. "Quinjet is totalled. But I think we can call this a victory, yes?"
Loki whimpered again, but they all ignored him. Steve swore he saw the Black Widow innocently dig her heels into his side.
"We should go celebrate!" Stark enthused. "Where's Brucie?"
"He's gone looking for pants," Romanoff said with a smile that left little doubt she had seen him without. "But we won't be going anywhere until SHIELD secures the Tesseract and Loki, then debrief and-"
Stark groaned loudly.
"No, no, no. I'm not a SHIELD drone and we saved the planet and-"
"We could just order pizza," Clint said. "I'm famished."
"Oh, do you think Lulu's Pizza is still open?" Hermione asked hopefully.
She had loved going there in the forties and had looked forward to returning there as soon as they were shipped back. Best Pizza Place in all of Brooklin, unfortunately, while trying to find the place himself a few weeks back, he found out it had closed decades ago.
"Sorry, love," Steve said, dropping a kiss to the top of her head. "But I'm sure Stark knows a place just as good."
Of course Stark then took that as a challenge and in five minutes, a couple dozen pizzas were on their way. Steve was kind of impressed. Dr Banner returned soon after, dressed in clothes that looked comfortable but not really his style. Better than being starkers he supposed. Banner gave Loki a wide berth and settled on the couch where Stark soon joined him. Thor had wandered off to find Selvig to fly him to a hospital, but promised to be back as soon as possible to keep an eye on his brother. Then they were interrupted again by SHIELD agents coming to take the Tesseract and secure the building and any other places hit by the alien incursion. So it wasn't until much later that they were all sitting around Stark's luxurious white sofas to share the pizzas.
"To Phil!" Stark said, holding his tumbler of whisky in a toast.
They shared many more after that: to Earth, and Asgard, to heroes new and old, to their team, to New York… It wasn't until Stark wanted to toast Spandex that he knew it was time to leave. Everyone looked exhausted anyway. Hermione was leaning against the Black Widow, who, fortunately, didn't seem to mind as she pulled absentmindedly on a stray curl that bounced up everytime she let go off it. Clint was actually snoring softly into a cushion. So, Steve stood and gathered Hermione into his arms, ready to head out, but Stark convinced him to use one of his guest bedrooms instead. Not that he had much convincing to do since he had not been looking forward to the bunk beds. The others seemed of the same mind to find spare rooms in the tower too.
For the first time since he woke up from the ice, Steve slept like a baby through the night.
Everyone met back in the kitchen the next morning, some earlier than others, but all wearing an odd assortment of ill-fitting rock band tee shirts and gym shorts. Stark seemed to find it hilarious to see them all in his borrowed clothes if his smirk was any indication, but it had been a better option than to sleep in their uniforms, stained with blood and alien goo.
"Should we find a place to live together?" Steve asked Hermione over coffee, because the bunk beds were not an option anymore, but he could tell living with Stark would be plain weird. "In Brooklyn, like before?"
"What's that I hear?" Stark butted in. "Are you telling us you two lived in sin back in the day?"
Hermione rolled her eyes.
"We were roommates," she deadpanned.
And it's true they hadn't shared a bed until Bucky visited, right before they were all shipped off, but Stark didn't need to know that, nosy bugger that he was.
"Right. Like I'm going to believe that," Stark scoffed.
"Are you implying men and women can't be friends?" Romanoff asked with a raised eyebrow.
"Well, they aren't now," Clint pointed out, his spoon pointed accusingly their way. "So Stark has a point."
"Don't you guys have better things to discuss that our love life?" Hermione asked, getting a chorus of amused no-s in reply.
"Which reminds me," Stark said, his attention solely on Hermione now. "Sinful living arrangements aside, you, Missy, don't make any sense. When the hell did you have time to read a 5000 pages epic fantasy saga in the couple of days since you've reappeared in the modern age? And learned what hacking is? And bimbos? And don't think I didn't see you using the microwave this morning like a typical eighties kid. I bet Capsicle doesn't even know what it does, and you're using it like it's no big deal."
"Ah," Hermione said when several pairs of eyes turned up towards her, awaiting an answer. "Well, there's a perfectly reasonable explanation for that."
Steve bit back on a smile as he could see Hermione was having a bit of fun with them, looking for all the world like she wasn't even going to give that so-called perfectly reasonable explanation.
"Which is?!" Stark finally burst out when he couldn't take the suspense any more.
"If I remember correctly… I read the books in a fit of boredom in 2002."
Stark scowled.
"I thought you only just got in the present?" Stark argued.
"Technically, 2002 is the past."
"No, wait, I clearly remember Coulson saying you were still wearing your old Lady Liberty uniform when you resurfaced, so you did come from the forties, not 2002..."
"You're the one who's so insistent on keeping a linear timeline. Quite boring, if you ask me." Hermione stood from her seat. "Shall we get ready? There's actually something I'd like to do before the next alien invasion."
Steve nodded and pushed his chair back.
"What do you mean the next alien invasion?" Romanoff asked before they could make it out the door.
"Loki said he had an army, and we hardly put a dent in it. Do you seriously think they're just going to wait around that stretch of space doing nothing instead of trying to find another way in?"
Romanoff nodded, not looking the least bit alarmed, as if she had thought of the issue herself. Steve hadn't, and none of the others seemed to have a clue. He would never say it enough, but women from the future were scary.
Back in the guest room, Hermione magically cleaned their uniforms then transformed them into casual clothes. He doubted anyone would recognized them on the street this way. Just two random faces in the sea of strangers flooding the city streets.
"So where is it you want to go?" Steve asked as they returned to the kitchen to see themselves off.
"I want to visit Bucky if that's alright with you?"
Steve froze and he looked at her with worry. Had she forgotten?
"Hermione…"
She stopped and turned around as she realized he had fallen back, then tilted her head in thought.
"I meant his grave. I haven't forgotten."
Steve shook his head.
"They never found him. There's a memorial, if you want."
Steve had gone there once, but it wasn't the same as when he went on his mother's grave. It was too impersonal, and there was no link to Bucky at all except for what he'd hated most: the war. Hermione seemed to think along the same lines because she shook her head.
"Memorials are good for those who weren't there…" she trailed off, but her eyes were full of determination once more, that same spark he had seen in her that very first day they met, when she'd refused to bow down to a bully twice her size. Steve knew that whatever it was she wanted to do next, whatever mad plan was hatching in that brilliant mind of hers, he would be going right along with her.
"There's somewhere else I'd like to go then, only it's a bit further away, and I guess we'll be needing winter clothes."
Steve smiled and kissed her forehead. They were bringing Bucky home.