Before Tony could leave the jet, he got knocked back by a blur of red cape and blond hair. Spider-Woman did manage to make out a hammer. She didn't really think before reacting so when she webbed Loki's back she was yanked out of the jet and was flying through the air. It was not a fun experience. Especially with the stab wound. She was hit by several tree branches and ended up slamming into the side of a rocky escarpment. She slid down the side of it gingerly and laid on her back holding her abdomen.

"Ouch."

Her armor's AI helpfully added to her misery.

"You have reopened your injury. Applying further sealing measures. Do not move."

By the time Spider-Woman felt capable of moving. She heard two men talking. Then she saw a flash of red and repulsors. She made out Loki saying something else. She realized he was up there alone. She ignored her suit's AI and climbed up the side of the mountain rapidly. Spider-Woman watched as Loki sat down on a rock and waited. She realized he wanted to be captured. She briefly had the urge to beat him into a pulp then let it pass. She hopped over the edge.

"Are you going to surrender buttercup, or do I get to hit you again?"

She heard Cap, Iron Man and she guessed it was actually Thor fighting it out down below. Loki held up his hands in a show of surrender. He looked her up and down. She was teenage crushing hard especially with the accent. The knowledge he was a very, very bad man just added to the appeal. She pushed her hormones aside, it was easier than she expected considering he had stabbed her, and she wanted to break a few of his teeth off. He spoke.

"You want to hurt me."

Spider-Woman nodded.

"I really do, but Cap is right. You're our prisoner. I know you want to be, so I have a feeling we'll get a rematch."

"Really? Why would I want to be a prisoner?"

She shrugged.

"How should I know? I'm just the muscle."

He smirked.

"You are far more then you pretend to be. They have no idea, do they? The soldier sees you as a child. The tin man sees you as muscle. You should consider joining me. You and your friends will not survive what is coming. Choose the winning side."

Spider-Woman blinked. The new suit mimicked her blink.

"You stabbed me. You think I'm going to join you? What? Be a queen?"

He smirked. How she wanted to punch him in the face and remove that smirk, but she held back.

"They hunt you, like they stand a chance. Strength like yours they should be worshiping you. Why do you hide your face?"

She rolled her eyes.

"I have eight eyes breathe through my back and shoot webs out of my ass. Doesn't go over so well with other humans."

He smirked.

"Ah, humor. When my brother bullied me as a child, I used to use that to deal with my fear. Are you frightened?"

She laughed.

"Of you? Not really."

He smiled.

"Ah, but you are afraid of them finding out who you are under that mask. Perhaps realizing you don't belong with their little team?"

She clenched her fists. It took her a moment to realize he was trying to get a rise out of her. She unclenched her fists. The pair were buffeted by a blast of air and wood splinters. She managed to shield him from it. They bounced off of her new suit harmlessly.

"I think the idiots are done their dick measuring contest. Let's go."

He opened his mouth to say something but found it was webbed up. She grabbed him by the arm and started leading him down the hill. He looked annoyed.

"And they say I talk too much. I've heard enough out of you."

The pair reached the forest below which wasn't so much a forest at this point as a field of wood chips. Tony, Natasha, Cap and Thor were starting to organize a search party. Spider-Woman approached and shoved Loki towards Thor.

"You forgot something. Please tell me he's adopted."

Once they got on the Quinjet. Spider-Woman had a new appreciation for Asgardian physiology. Thor was damn hot. She couldn't believe the amount of eye-candy she was seeing on this trip. She tried to pretend she was fine, but she collapsed onto the bench and held her side. Cap looked at her with concern.

"I thought you said you'd be fine."

She flung her hand towards Thor and Loki.

"That was before they dragged me out of a jet traveling at Mach who knows what and then smashed me into a bunch of trees then a fricking mountain!"

Thor's ears got a bit red.

"I apologize for the confusion."

She pointed at Loki.

"You want to make up for it, make sure he keeps quiet for the rest of the trip."

Tony chuckled and motioned to Spider-Woman.

"Better watch it Thor, this one has a temper."

The lenses on Spider-Woman's costume narrowed.

"And what is that supposed to mean?"

Tony held up his hands.

"Nothing. Just making conversation."

She gave up trying to stay awake. She took some painkillers from the medical kit and curled up on the bench for a nap. She woke up to Cap shaking her arm. Lights were flashing red all over the hanger. Sirens were blaring.

"We're under attack. We need your help."

She scrambled to her feet and clutched her side. Apparently, the trip back didn't heal her as well as she'd thought it would. Of course, she'd never actually been stabbed before. He paused.

"Look if you are too injured, I understand."

She shook her head. He started to run. She ran after him. Every footfall made it feel like she was being stabbed all over again. Her AI provided more unwelcome advice.

"You are risking further exacerbation of your injury."

"Tell me something I don't know computer."

They arrived at one of the turbines, it was a mess. An explosion had ripped through it.

"What did you guys do?"

She heard Tony over the radio.

"Was some of Loki's men. I need you two to check the power relays and see what is going on."

Bullets started flying at Cap and Spider-Woman. She intercepted several with her bracers before pulling into cover. Tony continued.

"I'll fix this super-cooler and see about jumpstarting this thing."

She looked at Cap who was looking at the electronics for the turbine engine with a very confused expression. She motioned to the shooters.

"Deal with them Cap. I can handle this."

She held her side.

"Hey suit, got any ideas? This will take me a minute to figure out otherwise."

The suit started flashing different connectors on the electronic control circuit before her.

"You should be able to bypass the blown relays at these points. If Mr. Stark proceeds to do as he suggests the likelihood of him escaping without the termination of his life is minimal."

She groaned as she reached up and started bypassing the failed circuits. The board lit up. She was feeling lightheaded.

"Hey, Ken, if you manage to jumpstart that thing, you're gonna get turned into confetti."

She heard Tony's voice over one of his laser cutters.

"There should be a red lever across from you labeled maglev. If you could flip that before I get this thing going. I would appreciate it."

Cap was exchanging gunfire with Loki's men below. She flicked her wrists and pulled herself over to the catwalk by the lever and was forced to press herself against the wall to avoid more bullets. Cap repositioned himself and provided covering fire for her. She held her side and leaned on the metal wall of the carrier.

"Just say when, Ken."

The structure shuddered and the turbine started to spin up. Tony started yelling.

"Now! Now! Now!"

She yanked on the lever, in doing so she had to expose herself and took several rounds to her back. Unlike Loki's dagger they did not penetrate her armor. In fact, she barely felt them through it.

"Ken, are you still with us?"

She had her answer when he went flying by her and into the open hatchway. She swung over and landed behind Cap. He looked back at her.

"Why do you call Mr. Stark, Ken?"

Spider-Woman blinked a few times.

"Ken and Barbie… uh you know what never mind."

She leaned back against the gangway wall and held her side. She needed to get off her feet to let it heal. Cap offered his hand and helped her up.

"You know, taking a knee when your hurt isn't a sign of weakness."

Spider-Woman looked up at him.

"Would you?"

He shook his head.

"No, I guess I wouldn't."

By the time they reached the bridge the helicarrier had leveled off but it didn't seem to be going anywhere fast. The screens on the bridge were flickering and had no real displays. Cap helped Spider-Woman sit down. She leaned forward on the table and put her head on her folded arms. Fury started giving a speech. She tuned it out because frankly she was in too much pain. Her wrist started vibrating. She groaned and pushed herself up and walked away. Fury, Cap and Tony watched her go. Spider-Woman tapped her wrist. Video feed of Martha appeared.

"Martha? What's up?"

Martha was whispering.

"They're here."

"Who's there?"

Martha shifted her wrist and Loki was in the distance behind her. Spider-Woman's lenses went wide.

"Get out of there. Get out of there now. He's dangerous."

Spider-Woman winced as she saw some of Loki's mercenaries start shooting at Martha. She started running and her armor appeared around her. She jumped out of a window and flew out. Spider-Woman pushed herself off the wall. She didn't have time to explain to anyone. She just ran up to the deck then dove off the side and spread her arms out. The armor formed webbing between her arms and her body turning the suit into a glider. She landed on the building across from Stark Towers. She was too late. A beam of blue light was already shooting up to the sky and something was coming out of it. A lot of somethings. Martha landed beside Spider-Woman. Gwen made her mask vanish. She looked at Martha and shook her head.

"This isn't good. The Avengers got their butts kicked. You have no weapons and I'm wounded. That's an army. We're basically fucked."

Martha nodded. Gwen jumped when she heard Cap's voice through comms.

"What have I told you about language, young lady?"

Gwen smiled at Martha.

"Or maybe we aren't. You ready for this Iron Barbie? There are a lot of innocent people down there that are going to need our help."

Gwen's mask formed over her face. She noticed movement on the top floor of the tower. Her armor's optics zoomed in.

"What is Tony doing? He's got no armor on."

Spider-Woman moved to intercede. Martha grabbed her arm.

"It's coming. Can't you hear it?"

Loki tossed Tony out the window and the pair watched as his armor latched onto him as he was falling. Spider-Woman shrugged.

"Okay, that was cool, not as cool as yours but… I'll give him that one."

Thor started going one on one with Loki. Spider-Woman looked at Martha.

"I have a score to settle with that smarmy… a-something. See you down there."

Martha lifted off and flew towards the civilians below. The streets of Manhattan were a warzone. Spider-Woman flicked her wrists towards Stark Towers and used her webs to slingshot herself over the gap. She landed with a soft groan. Every time that stab wound hurt it just made her more pissed off at Loki. She arrived just in time to see Thor stumble backwards from a similar cheap shot. That was about her last straw. She was more than ready to beat Loki to a pulp now. He had backed away from Thor and right into her. She tapped him on the shoulder, and he looked at her. She smirked under her mask.

"I'm about to kick your attractive yet annoying ass."

She swung. He managed to avoid her punch. He laughed.

"You again. I thought you were dead. You are all so weak. Just kneel to me and get it over with."

His form shimmered and five mirror images formed. He hadn't used the trick on Thor. Spider-Woman silently pondered why. She was well past the point of conversation. She flicked her wrists. Her webs didn't manage to hit the real him. Her spider sense was trying to tell her where to aim but she was letting what she was seeing get in her way.

"Your cause is hopeless mortal. Give up."

Spider-Woman lost her temper. She saw Thor's hammer on the tile roof. At this point in her life, she had no idea there was anything special about it. She ran at Loki and reached down and scooped the hammer up by its handle. Which of the two brothers was more surprised would be a matter of great debate between them in the future. Spider-Woman let her spider sense guide her next strike as she yelled at Loki.

"I'm getting tired of people telling me, who to be, what to do, and how to do it!"

She swung the hammer upwards catching Loki under his chin. He stumbled backwards.

"I'm gonna shut that smarmy Asgardian mouth one way or another!"

She did a spinning swing with the hammer and when her blow connected it sent Loki flying off the edge of Stark Towers. She hadn't held back and the blood that dripped off the side of Loki's head showed it. She screamed in anger as Loki landed on one of the alien hover sleds. He laughed at her as he flew away.

"What does it take to shut him up?!"

Thor held out his hand and in a subdued tone, for him at least, spoke.

"May I have my hammer back, please?"

Spider-Woman looked down at it.

"Uh, sorry, here, Thor, Sir, Sir Thor?"

She offered it up. Thor took it. He nodded to her with more respect than she expected from him. He took the hammer and started spinning it and flew up into the air. Spider-Woman saw Loki's staff just lying there on the roof of Stark Towers. Not one to look a gift horse in the mouth she scooped it up and walked toward the portal generator. She looked it up and down.

"Nope, not a clue how to turn this off."

An older man walked out from behind it.

"It's beautiful, why would you want to stop it?"

He reached for the staff. Spider-Woman had no idea who he was and wasn't about to let him get his hands on the staff. She flicked her wrist and webbed him. He almost fell over the edge of the tower so she yanked backwards and he hit the ground pretty hard. She opened communications.

"So, umm, I have the staff and the portal device secured… any ideas on how to shut this down?"

She saw a text from Martha appear on her suit's HUD. It simply read: On my Way. Once Martha arrived the pair looked at the generator together. Martha spoke first.

"Jonathan please scan for any weak points, or off switches."

Spider-Woman looked at the staff and tapped her foot. She looked between the staff and the tesseract.

"So, what do you think the power source of these is?"

Martha crossed her arms.

"Not magic."

Spider-Woman motioned in the direction of Loki who she could see in the distance.

"The stuff he was using during our fight sure seemed like magic to me."

Martha shook her head.

"Magic is how the world describes things it does not understand yet."

"I'd love to know how he made six perfect copies of himself."

Martha looked at Spider-Woman.

"It can be done with sufficiently advanced holograms."

"Okay, okay, how is Jonathan doing?"

"He is still processing the data."

Spider-Woman looked out over the laser fire and explosions in the city below.

"You should go help some more."

Martha nodded. Spider-Woman leaned heavily on Loki's staff. It was becoming clearer as the day passed that she would not fully heal until she could eat and sleep. She looked down and had the urge to get involved but realized she may be a liability. The situation was deteriorating rapidly. Even the Hulk was losing ground. Natasha crashed landed with one of the alien sleds near Spider-Woman. She looked at Spider-Woman who was holding her side and leaning on the staff still. Natasha motioned to Manhattan.

"I can take care of things here. They need you down there. Can you fight?"

Spider-Woman offered her the staff.

"I'll do my best."

Spider-Woman walked to the edge of the building and saw a swarm of aliens heading towards an already overwhelmed Cap and Hawkeye. She closed her eyes and started nodding her head to the beat of unseen drums. She let herself fall backwards off the building and kicked off after launching webs. She bounced from side to side of the street spinning a web. She left it loose so the aliens couldn't see it then jumped on top of Stark Towers. When it was too late for the aliens to avoid it, she pulled the web taut and pressed her feet on the lip of the roof. It creaked and complained as dozens of aliens crashed into her web. Her eyes went wide when a giant worm the size of a high rise came barreling around the corner. She wrapped the web around her fists and braced herself. The giant armored worm slammed into her web. Crushing the other aliens then crashing to the ground. Spider-Woman lost her footing and was yanked over the edge. She flicked her wrists and realized she was out of fluid. Before she could hit the ground Thor scooped her out of the air and took her to Cap.

She felt blood seeping from her wound. She leaned against a car breathing heavily. She'd used every ounce of her reserves to hold the web against that worm. Thor nodded to her with respect once again. She ejected her fluid cartridges and replaced them before pushing herself up. The aliens were coming for another run. Hawk-eye and Thor rushed behind a bus to guard the other flank. Cap looked at Spider-Woman he spoke off of comms.

"Gwen, in case I don't get the chance to say this later: Your mom and Uncle Ben would be proud."

Spider-Woman continued to lean heavily on the destroyed car. She could feel tears forming at the bottom of her eyes. Whether it was from pain or the thought of her mother and Uncle Ben watching over her today, she couldn't have said. She just said through a quivering lip:

"Peggy and Bucky would be proud of you too if they could see you now."

He smiled and yelled out.

"Avengers, let's send these aliens back to whatever hell spawned them."

Thor yelled out a battle cry in response. Spider-Woman and Cap started blocking energy blasts. Her bracers were glowing so brightly by the time the swarm of aliens got close it was almost blinding to look at them. The latest wave of aliens were backed up by a giant worm. She figured they were done for so why not go down in a blaze of glory. She swept her wrists back extending the gauntlets. She shot two webs at walls on either side of the site of the Avengers last stand. She shot herself forward holding her fists out in front of her angling to hit the worm with the focal point of the Vibranium gauntlets. There was a massive explosion of kinetic energy when they made contact. Every energy blast she'd absorbed was thrown back at the worm through two small points. A wave of force blasted through it, and it exploded, showering the street and buildings with metal shrapnel and worm guts. She landed on the street below. The blast wave she had caused blew through the worm and alien sleds were still falling from the sky. Thor and Cap were looking down at her. Thor held up his hammer and cheered. She held up one of her fists then stumbled and caught herself on the remains of a bus.

Cap hopped down and rushed to her side as Spider-Woman collapsed beside the bus. He looked concerned. She waved her hand dismissively.

"I told you Cap, I get beat down and I get back up again."

Blood was seeping through her suit now. Flesh wound it may have been but the more she exerted herself the worse it tore back open, the armor retreated. It was twice the size it had been originally. He put his hand on her shoulder.

"It looks bad kid."

They heard the whine of more alien sleds. She held up her hand. The armor sealed itself again.

"Help me up please. We're not done yet."

He looked down at her.

"Nothing I say will make you stop, will it?"

She shook her head. He reached down. She grabbed his wrist and he grabbed hers. He pulled her up. Thor and Hawkeye joined them. Thor smiled at her.

"I see now why Mjolnir sees you as worthy. It is not in you to retreat!"

She glanced between Thor and Captain America.

"Is he talking about his hammer? Are you talking about your hammer?"

Thor laughed. Cap adjusted his shield.

"Let's get ready for another wave. Let's hope Natasha and… who was that in the pink armor?"

Spider-Woman shrugged.

"I call her Iron Barbie. She hasn't complained yet."

Hawkeye laughed at the name. He looked between the three of them.

"I hope one of you has an idea here, I'm all out of arrows and they aren't stopping."

Natasha spoke through comms.

"We got an idea here. I think we can get this thing closed."

Cap looked relieved.

"Close it."

Tony spoke up.

"Don't close it. There is a nuke incoming! I need to send it somewhere."

Spider-Woman groaned.

"A nuke? What idiot launched that?"

Cap shook his head.

"It doesn't matter. We still have a job to do. So far, we've kept them confined to a small part of the city. It needs to stay that way. Form up."

They grouped up and prepared for the next wave. Tony and the nuke roared over their heads, and he angled it to the portal and vanished into it. As the aliens were about to attack they started to fall out of the air one by one as if they were puppets that had their strings cut. Everyone looked at the portal. Her armor was showing her energy readings off the scale when she zoomed in. She did the math in her head. A nuke, enhanced by the tesseract energy… The math was not good for them or Tony. Cap looked at her.

"What are you seeing?"

Her heart fell, she shook her head.

"Tony."

Cap looked at her.

"Tell me what to do here. You understand this stuff."

Thor and Hawkeye both looked at Spider-Woman. Her armor's lenses shrunk as if to simulate her closing her eyes, her shoulders slumped. When she spoke, it was barely above a whisper. She knew she was about to kill Tony or strand him somewhere with no air or food. The alternative was hundreds of thousands of deaths. She made the only choice she could make under the circumstances.

"Close it. The blast wave will take out most of Manhattan, maybe more."

Cap spoke through comms to Natasha.

"You heard her, close it."

Spider-Woman hung her head. Cap put his hand on her back. Tears dropped down her cheeks for the second time in the last hour. Thor spoke.

"There he is… why isn't he slowing down?"

He started spinning his hammer. Spider-Woman didn't take long to react either. She launched webs at a building. Neither beat Hulk to the punch. He caught Tony mid-air and landed on the overpass above them. He crushed a car. Everyone rushed to check on him. Spider-Woman content the battle was over, and that Tony was breathing launched webs at one of the buildings. Thor looked at her.

"Surely you're not going to leave before we celebrate."

She held her side.

"How about you have an extra ale for me big guy?"

She yanked herself towards the building and wished walking was an option because this was not making her injury feel any better. Cap watched her go with concern in his eyes. Thor looked at him.

"No need to worry my friend. She is a great warrior. She will be fine. She reminds me of Sif."

Cap strapped his shield to his back and patted Thor on the shoulder.

"I hope so. I hope so."

Thor nodded.

"Now let us go deal with Loki and find somewhere to break bread and drink!"