Thor lands next to Captain America and Sigma who are trying their best to keep the aliens from entering buildings. Steve turns to Thor and asks, "What's the story upstairs?"

"The powers surrounding the cube is impenetrable." Thor walks up to Steve right after Steve takes down the last Chitauri in the area.

"Thor's right. We have to deal with these guys!" Iron Man says through his communicator as he flies by, trying to shake off pursuing chariots.

Wendy grabs the back of one of the chariots, her hand radiating pain from the movement. She chucks the vehicle back over her shoulder and it slams into another Chitauri chariot, making it explode. "And they don't seem like they're gonna let up anytime soon."

Adrena lands roughly on the ground next to Thor, but regains her stance after walking forward a couple of paces. "I can feel the energy radiating from the Tesseract and the forcefield from miles away. There is nothing near that holds that kind of power to take down the portal as of this moment."

"Miss fancy drama-let-down-queen over here." Clint puts one of his feet on top of a dead Chitauri. He grips the end of his arrow and rips it out to try and restock his ammo.

"I didn't see you helping out earlier." Natasha smartly replies, loading her guns and smirking at her archer friend.

Adrena gives Clint an amused look with her eyebrows raised. "She got you there."

Clint chuckles, glad that even though their end is getting nearer and nearer every second his team still has a sense of humor. "In all seriousness, what Thor's saying is I'm not going to be able to shoot an arrow right through the Tesseract."

"So, how do we do this?" Lauren asks, a bit out of breath. She holds her spear with one hand in front of her protectively, watching out for any more Chitauri that could catch her off guard like before.

Steve gives her a reassuring nod and says, "As a team."

"I have unfinished business with Loki." Thor's tone is angered, the knife trick Loki pulled on him still fresh in his mind.

"Yeah? Well, get in line." Clint starts counting the different arrow heads he has. He unscrews the tops and loads them back in his quiver so he can pick more trick arrows for later on.

"That's what I've been trying to tell them from the very beginning." Adrena mumbles, though everyone hears her comment.

"Oh please, I thought we put that debacle behind us already." Lauren says playfully. Adrena smiles as she remembers that petty fight they had in the small section of the forest when they first met.

Steve gives Adrena and Lauren an are you serious look. "Save it. Loki's gonna keep this fight on us and that's what we need."

"I agree. Without him, these things can run wild." Adrena says as she gets back into her serious mode.

"Right." Natasha nods and straps her extra guns to her hips. "So, what's the plan?"

"We got Stark and Evans up top." Steve points upward, referring to the two who are still trying to keep the aliens from attacking them while they formulate a plan. "They're gonna need us to-"

The sound of a motorcycle sounds up from behind Steve. Captain America sees everyone's expression as they look behind him. He turns around and can't believe it when he sees Bruce Banner parking the motorcycle before walking up to them. "Well, this all seems... horrible."

"I've seen worse." Natasha comments. Adrena and Thor silently agree with the red headed assassin. Fighting the Hulk was way more scary than fighting these aliens. The Hulk is more unpredictable, and after all, he's part of the team. No one wanted to hurt him.

"Sorry." Bruce looks nervously at Natasha. He expects everyone to say that he should get clear so he doesn't cause more casualties.

"No." Natasha takes a small breath and clarifies her thought. "We could use a little worse."

"Yeah, we are getting it handed to us out here." Adrena smiles at Bruce, trying to lighten the mood and make him feel more welcome.

"Stark," Steve puts his finger up to his earpiece to make a direct call to Tony. "We got him."

"Banner?" Tony asks to make sure his hopes aren't up for nothing.

Steve nods, but then quickly remembers that Tony can't see him. "Just like you said."

Wendy can't keep in her enthusiasm and sighs in relief, letting out a little chuckle with it. "Tell him to suit up, Cap. We are bringing the party to you."

Iron Man and Air Runner circle around a tall tower flying next to each other. Right behind them, the giant Chitauri space worm makes its rounds. It turns a little too soon, making the edge of its fin clip against the corner of the building. Piles of rock and cement fall down to the floor, but luckily there is no one below it.

Thor summons his hammer and Adrena stands next to him, charging up her weapons. Lauren feels her hands shake a bit as she sees the worm getting closer and closer to the ground. "I-I don't see how that's a party."

"What... what is that thing?" Steve asks and turns to Thor, expecting he might be the one who has the answer.

Thor spins his hammer around the handle and gets in a fighting position. "A Chitauri Leviathan. I learned about them in school, but I never thought I'd see the day..."

Bruce starts walking up toward the Leviathan, knowing that only he can take it down with one swift punch. Adrena takes a step toward him, reaching one of her hands out. "Doctor Banner, now might be a really good time for you to get angry."

"That's my secret, Agent." Bruce turns his head around to face the friendly alien before revealing his ultimate secret. "I'm always angry."

Time seems to slow down as Bruce turns back toward the space worm. As he turns, his muscles get bigger and he gets taller. His skin turns green along with his raging eyes, his curly black hair getting a bit straighter. As he finishes turning around, the Hulk lifts his right arm and punches the worm right where its nose would be.

The golden armor around the Leviathan starts breaking apart as it flips over. Iron Man raises one of his arms and says, "Hold on!" as a missile shoots out of his wrist and lands on the skin of the worm. Adrena blasts off into the sky, right next to the side of the worm. She uses her arm blasters to shoot at the missile, making it explode. Wendy blows the explosion away from her, Adrena, and Tony. On the ground, Clint pulls Natasha over to a flipped over car and they take cover behind it. Steve grabs Lauren's arm and lifts his shield, both of them ducking under it for protection. Thor backs off and uses his hammer to swing a broken car up and off the road, making it take the blast of the explosion instead of himself.

The Chitauri army watches in anger and horror as the Leviathan dies. Some of them take off their masks and face plates so that they can scream at the nine heroes, trying to catch them off guard by their battle cry.

Air Runner softly lands and raises her hands next to her face mask, bending the wind to her will. The Hulk roars louder than all of the Chitauri combined, as they have just seen what he can do with just one punch. Hawkeye picks an arrow from his quiver and aims it upward, but not letting go. Thor spins his hammer in his hand, a bit of blue lightning emitting from the silver end. Agent Virgo clenches her fists at her side, then brings them up fully charged toward her face as if she was going to shoot someone. Black Widow clicks her new gun, taking the safety lock off and bringing it up to her shoulder. Captain America looks around, lowering his shield that he has around his left arm. Sigma's eyes glow through her mask along with the glass on her right hand, as she holds the golden tip of her spear upward. Iron Man scans every single enemy present as his armor lands on the ground, waiting for the right opportunity to strike.

"Send the rest." Loki glares down as he sees the team standing back to back. It doesn't matter how strong the Hulk is, how much morale they have as a full team, he will beat them. From the portal, even more Chitauri fly out with the help of their chariots. Three or four Leviathans fly downward as well, making the one that the Hulk punched feel like a walk through the park.

"Guys." Black Widow says warningly as she looks up toward the portal.

"Call it, Cap." Iron Man turns to look at the portal as well. Everyone takes a few steps back to take it all in as they look up.

"Alright, listen up." Captain America takes one last look at the portal before turning toward his team, a better plan forming in his mind than before. "Until we can close that portal up there, we are going to use containment. Hawkeye, Sigma, I want you two on that roof, eyes on everything. Call out patterns and strays. Iron Man and Agent Virgo, you got the perimeter. Anything gets more than three blocks out, you turn it back or you turn it to ash."

"Wanna give us a lift?" Hawkeye says, gesturing to himself and Sigma.

Iron Man walks up next to him and grabs the back of his quiver. "Right. Better clench up, Legolas." He takes off with Clint to give him a bird's eye view.

"Ugh, he never waits." Agent Virgo rolls her eyes as Iron Man takes off. She turns to Sigma and points her thumb behind her. "Climb on, we can catch up."

"If you say so." Sigma says, a bit unsure. She remembers that she rode on Air Runner's back to get here in the first place, so Adrena should be able to carry her to the top of a building. Sigma hops on and Agent Virgo zooms off after Iron Man.

Cap turns to Thor and Air Runner next. "Thor, Air Runner, you two have got to try and bottleneck that portal. Slow them down. You've got the lightning and the wind. Blast the bastards out." Thor nods and shoots upward in the sky, followed by Air Runner. Captain America looks at an unfazed Black Widow. "You and me, we stay on the ground. Keep the fighting here. And, Hulk."

Hulk turns quickly to Captain America at the sound of his name. The Captain points to Hulk and says, "Smash."

Hulk grins. It's about time someone told him that. He's been itching to get payback on Loki and his minions for making him lose control back on the helicarrier. Hulk jumps up on the side of a building, grabbing onto the wall and smashing the Chitauri who are hanging on. He jumps off the building and throws the Chitauri in his hand at oncoming chariots.

Thor lands on the top of the Empire State Building and raises his hammer to the sky. Air Runner makes sure that she's at a safe distance before lightning strikes Thor's hammer. Thor redirects the lightning to shock the opening of the portal. Air Runner sees some strays trying to get away from the blast, so she raises her fists and directs the wind to push against them, sending them back through the portal.

The Chitauri still resists Wendy's wind because more giant space worms block them from the gusts. Wendy pushes harder, trying to send the Leviathans back to where they came from, but it's not working. She needs more force.

"Thor, hold them off for a second!" Wendy yells, hoping Thor hears her. Using her elbows, she presses on a secret button located in her pink wrist warmers. Her fingers tremble from there being misplaced bones, but she can't feel the pain that much anymore. Right now, they just feel numb.

After a few long seconds, something comes whirling toward Wendy. She raises her arms over her face to protect herself from the objects. The whirling thing turns out to be friendly as it connects to her left wristband. Literally a second later, a similar object connects to her right one as well. Wendy opens her eyes and sees two big, white boomerangs with light pink edges attached to her wrists. She smirks under her mask and brings her arms back before shooting them out. The boomerangs detach from her wrists and start flying toward the portal, a more powerful wind trailing behind them. That surely is enough to help push the Leviathans back.

The boomerangs come back to her just as they should and attach themselves to her wrists again. Thor watches while continuing to electrocute the portal. "I was starting to think you were giving up, Runner of Wind!"

Wendy laughs and flies up to be more level with him. "Let's make a storm, Thor." After Wendy's statement, the two heroes shoot out their respective elements at the portal.

Finally, the Chitauri are forced to lie back in the portal for a few moments. Wendy gasps, a bit tired from using so much of her powers, and hangs on the side of the building. "That should help for now."

"Aye." Thor nods and flies down in front of her. "And we should go and help the others."

Despite her body screaming at her to take a rest, Wendy takes a deep breath. She jumps off the building and flies next to Thor to get back in the battle.

"Agh! Damn, they're resilient!" Agent Virgo says with a worried face as she keeps on flying. She flies right next to Iron Man, trying to keep the chariots from exiting the perimeter. Suddenly, a chariot that was chasing them shoots at Agent Virgo. The energy beam hits one of her boots right on the purple triangle that links the boot's rocket to her mind. "Ah!" Agent Virgo's left boot starts spazzing out, making her fall down a bit. She swiftly turns around and fires her blasters at the chariot that shot her, making it blow up.

Iron Man turns around when he hears Agent Virgo scream. "Princess!"

Adrena's boot completely gives out and she starts falling to the ground. Tony dives down and wraps his arms around her torso before zooming off into the sky again. Tony smirks and says playfully, "You're so falling for me."

"Tch. In your dreams, Stark." Adrena rolls her eyes, unfazed from Tony's comment. "And stop calling me 'Princess'." Adrena bends forward to fix her boot while Tony zips around, trying to shake off the advancing Chitauri.

"Shit!" Tony's grip tightens around Adrena, making the alien know something is wrong. Before she can ask anything, Tony says, "I'll catch you!"

"What does that mean?!" Adrena's eyes widen and she stops trying to fix her boot. She looks up, but only gets a second to see that a Leviathan had rounded a building and is coming straight for them. At the last moment, Tony chucks Adrena up into the sky with Hulk-like strength. Tony gets hit by one of the worm's teeth, but manages to get away from the mouth before it could eat him. Adrena watches as she flies up into the air, but then comes crashing down, looking like she's going to fall on the armored back of the worm. Before she can, Tony flies up from under the Leviathan and catches Adrena out of the air.

"Told you!" Tony says while trying to still be in a playful tone. Suddenly, Tony gets shot in the back by Loki's spear's energy, which makes his suit short-circuit. The light dims from his eyes and his grip loosens around Adrena. The pink skinned girl lands on the back of the space worm, but Tony isn't so lucky.

"Iron Man!" Adrena looks down over the side of the worm to try and find Tony. She sees the blue light flicker in his eyes a couple times before coming on fully. Tony clenches his fists and takes off toward Loki.

Adrena sits down and quickly starts working on her boot. Only the communicator was damaged, so she just has to correlate the metal to completely attach back to the Tungsten boot and, finally, "Got it." Adrena fixes it just in time. Chitauri soldiers start crawling onto the back of the Leviathan, staring hungrily at Agent Virgo.

"Stark, you got a lot of strings sticking to your tail." Hawkeye says from atop a roof. He notches two arrows at a time to hit the driver and the shooter of a chariot coming straight for him and Sigma.

"They made me lose Loki." Tony explains. He swerves to try and get back to the middle of the battleground. "Just trying to keep them off the streets."

"Well, they can't bank worth a damn." Clint says while shooting something out of the sky with his back turned.

Lauren kicks a Chitauri over the edge of the building, making him tumble back down to the ground. "Follow this light path. It'll lead you to a tight corner." Lauren raises her right hand and illuminates the road to show Tony where to go.

"I will roger that." Tony follows the path and expertly weaves through the opening of a parking garage. The Chitauri behind him try to follow, but are sloppy. They hit the walls and start banking off of one another, making their chariots explode. Tony sighs in relief. "Nice call. What else you got?"

"Looks like Thor is taking on a squadron down on 6th." Lauren says over the communicators.

Tony locates Thor on his screen and starts flying off to where he is. "And he didn't invite me?"

Adrena continues to fight, using everything she's got. She points her left fist straight out in front of her and her right one to the right. She blasts both at the same time, making some Chitauri soldiers fall to the ground. One of the aliens rushes at her with its spear raised, but Adrena runs up to it, ignites her boots, and does a backflip while kicking it in the face. Adrena quickly turns around and shoots lasers at two Chitauri soldiers. Another one comes up from her side, but Adrena kicks it in the stomach with the bottom of her foot, igniting her rockets last second to put the soldier on fire. A Chitauri comes up from behind her and roughly grabs her arm. Before it could throw her over the edge, it gets blown away by a boomerang.

Wendy lands on the back of the Leviathan, making a wave of wind push back some enemies. "Thought you could use a hand!"

"What are these things? They just keep coming!" Adrena says, shooting a Chitauri that was advancing behind Wendy.

"I tried to slow them down, but without a way to close that portal they're going to wear us out before we get a say in the matter." Wendy ducks as a Chitauri swings its spear at her head. She swipes her arm out and makes the soldier fall on its back.

"The portal. There has to be something I can find-" Adrena gets hit in the head before she can finish her thought. She yells in pain and then blasts the Chitauri in the chest. "We need to take this thing out, and then we can find a way to close the portal!"

Yet another Leviathan swims down through the air, its fin slamming into the glass windows of a conference room. The people inside scream and back away from the glass. Suddenly, the Hulk comes crashing through their floor and runs straight out the window. Hulk jumps and grabs onto the teeth of the Leviathan, dragging the beast down to the floor.

Black Widow managed to snag an energy rifle from one of the Chitauri she defeated. She hits an alien soldier diagonally across the face before stabbing it in the chest. She expertly shoots another oncoming Chitauri, and spins around to shoot another one. She stops though, seeing that it's only Captain America.

Natasha takes a breath and relaxes her arm when she sees Steve. She holds the gun to her side and looks up at the sky. "Captain, none of this is gonna mean a damn thing if we don't close that portal."

"Our biggest guns can't touch it." Steve says while also looking up at the portal.

"Well, maybe it's not about guns." Natasha hints. She has an idea, a crazy idea, but she has to get up to the Tesseract to do it.

"You want to get up there, you're going to need a ride." Captain America spots the Stark Tower somewhere in the distance, but it's way too far away for Black Widow to run to.

"I got a ride." Natasha drops her space gun and gestures to the chariots that are flying overhead. "I could use a lift, though."

Steve understands what she's saying, but looks at her nervously. "Are you sure about this?" He holds up his shield in front of him as he sees Natasha continuing to back up.

Heart crawling up into her throat, Natasha nods and tries to speak confidently. "Yeah. This is gonna be fun!"

Without another word said in fear that she'll psych herself out, Natasha runs full speed at Steve. Leaving plenty of room, Natasha jumps up. Steve angles his shield up, creating a platform for Natasha to jump off of, and pushes her higher into the air. Steve watches as Natasha grabs onto the bottom of a chariot and starts climbing up to the steering vessel.

Black Widow struggles to hang onto the chariot from the back because it's going way too fast. She doesn't want to draw attention to herself before she can get to the front, or else the Chitauri gunners can just kick her off. Seeing what Natasha is doing, Lauren smiles from atop the roof her and Clint are occupying, and raises her right hand. Lauren makes Natasha invisible and muffles the sound of her footsteps. Natasha almost screams when she realizes she can't see her hands, but then remembers what one of her colleague's powers are.

Using her coverage to her advantage, Natasha climbs further onto the chariot, sneaking behind the two Chitauri gunners. She takes out a knife and slashes at the ropes that are keeping the gunners from falling out. One at a time, she grabs the gunner's shoulders and chucks them over the side. Then, with one faithful leap, Natasha lands on the back of the driver and stabs it in the back, gaining control of the vessel.

"Thanks, Lauren!" Natasha says, knowing that Sigma has a chance of hearing her voice's sound waves.

Sure enough, Lauren catches the sound and smiles. She stops using her powers on Natasha to focus on helping Clint. As Hawkeye shoots chariots out of the air and monitors their allies, Sigma keeps the Chitauri soldiers from climbing on the roof and hurting Clint.

Hawkeye sees a chariot zoom past him, but it's going way too fast for him to notch an arrow and shoot out of the sky. Strange, this one is going faster than the others. It's not carrying Loki or Nat, so why is it in such a hurry?

"Clint, our barrier!" Lauren's words don't make sense to Clint at first, but then he sees where she's looking and understands. The chariots are starting to use all their fuel to go faster and break their perimeter. They want to get away from the Avengers and attack the outskirts of Manhattan.

A Chitauri soldier with a huge gun swings on top of the roof, staring Lauren down. Instead of shooting its weapon, the Chitauri slams it over her head. Lauren raises her spear to try and stop it with the handle, but she only manages to knock it away a bit. Her spear gets shoved out of her grip and the Chitauri swings its gun across the side of her face.

Lauren spins as she falls to the ground, landing on her back. Clint hears the struggle and turns around with an arrow notched, but can't get a clear shot that will end up in not hurting Lauren. The Chitauri is fast and shoots her in the shoulder before discarding its gun and leaping on the human. It claws at her face, but catches its fingers in her mask giving Lauren enough time to kick upward. The Chitauri flips over and lands on its back, but the extra momentum makes Lauren's mask rip off because it's fingers were still caught. A huge claw mark spreads from the side of Lauren's head to her cheek. Clint finally gets a safe shot and implants an arrow in the middle of the Chitauri's face.

"Aww, my friend Troy made this for me." Lauren picks up her shredded mask then sighs before putting it back.

"Sorry..." Lauren turns toward Clint who seems a bit shaken after seeing Lauren caught up in that fight. "I couldn't get a clear shot. Sorry."

Lauren smiles to reassure Hawkeye that she's alright. "It's fine, arrow boy. We have a bigger problem on our hands." Lauren turns to the chariots that are trying to speed away. "Stark, Evans, whatever the hell your last name is Adrena, we've got strays in the west that we can't hit."

"Busy!" Tony, Wendy, and Adrena say at the same time. Adrena and Wendy are up to their waists in Chitauri soldiers that keep jumping off of chariots and onto the Leviathan's back. Not to mention, they are trying to steer the giant space worm out of the way of buildings. Tony isn't having any better luck. He keeps being ambushed by Chitauri chariots as he rounds a corner. He can only fly so fast without using too much fuel.

Clint tries to think of anything they can do to stop the strays from leaving town. "They get past the island, there is nothing we can do. I can try to shoot at them, but my rocket arrows need an extra boost if they're gonna fly that far."

Suddenly, Lauren gets an idea. She runs over and grabs her spear, placing it across her back where her belt automatically hooks onto the spear. She turns to Clint with a wild look in her eyes that shows pure adrenaline. "Shoot it, I'll give the extra boost."

Knowing that they don't have long to talk about the plan, Clint nods and positions a rocket arrow at the chariots that are leaving. "Ready, set... GO!"

Clint lets the arrow fly and Lauren runs toward the edge of the roof. She jumps up and brings her legs out in front of her to kick the arrow forward. The arrow immediately starts going faster. Lauren watches as the arrow blows up right when it reaches the group of strays. Then she remembers that she just jumped off a building.

"Oops. AHH!" Lauren free falls for a couple terrifying seconds before a pair of arms catch her and lift her up. Lauren recognizes the pink, white, and grey suit and then yells with a shaky voice, "Wendy?! How did you get here so fast?"

Wendy nods her head forward where the giant Leviathan glides right in front of them. Of course, Lauren thinks to herself, The space worm they were riding was heading toward me. Wendy flies up and lands on the back of the Leviathan, kicking a few Chitauri soldiers off along the way. She puts Lauren down and crosses her arms. "I kept my end of the deal!"

Lauren suddenly remembers the deal she made with Wendy back in the meadow. If Lauren was falling and Wendy managed to catch her, Lauren had to stay on the team. "Well, I don't particularly want to leave the team."

"That's great and all, but I could use some help here!" Wendy and Lauren turn toward Adrena who's having trouble with the Chitauri.

"Nah, I think you can handle it." Lauren crosses her arms and smirks. Adrena rolls her eyes, but smiles. It is proven that Lauren is just teasing as she takes her spear off her back and uses it to swipe multiple aliens off her friend.

"We need a way to kill this thing." Adrena explains to the blonde, gesturing to the
Leviathan they are standing on. "It alone can destroy this entire city."

"Hmm..." Lauren kneels down on the metal back of the worm and puts her glassed palm on it. "If I can find the right frequency and make enough vibrations, the metal will crack. Then we can use it to kill the worm." Lauren turns to her two teammates. "Cover me while I try to break the armor. I can give you extra coverage in the meantime."

Adrena and Wendy look at each other, confused as to what Lauren means by extra coverage. Suddenly, they can't see each other anymore. Lauren explains, "I'm bending the light to make you invisible. Cover me so I can find the right frequency."

Lauren turns back toward the front and closes her eyes to concentrate. She catches sound waves and channels them into her hand, trying different frequencies to create resonance, which should break the metal. She just needs the right match of wavelength toward the resonance of the metal, and she'll be able to break through. Adrena and Wendy both stand by her protectively, taking Chitauri soldiers by surprise because of their invisible state.

Black Widow tries to shake off pursuing chariots. She may be an expert assassin, but she was never trained to fly alien spaceships. Luckily, Iron Man flies down in front of her, turns around, and shoots the two vessels that were trying to take her down. Iron Man lands on the ground, seeing that Captain America is getting overwhelmed being on the floor by himself. They use their respective weapons to punch, kick, and blast away the enemies. At one point, Captain America sees a bunch of them rushing together all spread out. Iron Man sees this too and points his hand repulsors at the Captain's shield. He fires and the blast bounces off Cap's shield, hitting a spray of enemies. Suddenly, a Chitauri chariot comes flying ground level. Iron Man kicks off the ground to try and get it away from Captain America. Hawkeye shoots an arrow at a Chitauri climbing up the side of the building. He sees the new Chitauri chariot chasing Iron Man, and shoots it right in the back, making it explode. Iron Man flies right by Sigma, Agent Virgo, and Air Runner. A thin outline can be seen of the two fliers as Sigma focuses her powers on sound waves more instead of the light ones. Finally, a soothing sound rings throughout the air as the perfect resonance plays and breaks the armor. Agent Virgo and Air Runner immediately notice that Sigma was able to break through, and blast their weapons at the soft spot of the Leviathan. Sigma stands up, spins her spear over her head, and stabs it into the same soft spot where the other two girls were firing. The Leviathan comes crashing down right behind where Hulk and Thor are fighting, who are standing on top of another space worm. The two seem to work in sync as they swipe Chitauri soldiers off the armored back that they stand on. Hulk leaps up and as he lands, the armor metal of the Leviathan's back breaks upward. Hulk tears a piece off and stabs it right into the space worm's spine. Thor ignites his hammer with lightning right before slamming it onto the piece of metal, making the Chitauri worm fall out of the sky and crash into a museum. Hulk and Thor step into the main museum's exhibit, breathing heavily from all the fighting. Suddenly, Hulk side punches Thor in the head to remind him of who's really the strongest.

Doctor Selvig shakes his head, now completely free of Loki's mind control. He looks at the sky, amazed and horrified at what he's seeing.

There are several tanks that managed to get to the island and start firing up at the Chitauri chariots. Captain America struggles to fight off a Chitauri soldier that has him pinned down with an energy rifle. The Captain twists his legs, breaking the Chitauri's own legs, making it collapse on top of him. Hawkeye's voice sounds through his earpiece, "Captain, the bank of 42nd past Madison. They caught a lot of civilians in there."

"On it." Steve replies, out of breath. All he wants to do is give up and lie down in the rubble. Sure, he was scientifically made for this, but he's starting to think that the serum was only temporary. He's never felt this tired before. Despite that, Steve grabs his shield and sprints over to the bank.

Inside the building, a bunch of people are gathered on the first floor, terrified. They are blocked in by three Chitauri soldiers. One of them stands on top of the overseeing balcony and pulls out a futuristic looking bomb. It presses a button on the bomb, making it start beeping.

Captain America jumps through a window of the balcony and throws his shield at the Chitauri bomber. The device is dropped, but before Steve can make a go for it, the two Chitauri guards aim their rifles at him. Steve jumps and takes cover behind a desk. He kicks the desk forward, making it ram into one of the guards and squishing it against the wall. The other one, Steve throws over the balcony and onto the first floor. The people scream and jump out of the way. Steve runs over to the railing of the balcony and yells at the people, "Everyone, clear out!"

The Chitauri bomber managed to recover from getting hit and grabs Steve from behind. It holds him in a choke hold and pries Steve's mask off. Steve tries to elbow the Chitauri, but it only makes the alien squeeze harder. Blind with tears of pain, Steve uses all of his strength to flip backward and shake off the Chitauri bomber. The device on the ground starts beating faster, and the remaining Chitauri tries to pick it up to stop it. Steve rolls, picks up his shield, and jumps with his shield protecting him just in time before the bomb goes off.

The Leviathan soars downward, now dead in the air, and the three heroes try to steer it so it hits the streets. They are successful, but Adrena, Wendy, and Lauren are tossed upward once the Leviathan hits the ground. The former two try and stabilize themselves in the air, but Lauren isn't so lucky. She lands on a broken car, her head hitting the side of a building. Steve comes crashing through the window of the bank and falls on top of Lauren, not helping the situation.

Wendy stumbles as she lands, but regains her stance and runs over to Captain America and Sigma. "Steve, are you okay?!"

Adrena lands next to them just as Steve groans and struggles to stand up. "Oh goodness, Lauren..."

Steve and Wendy become more alert and look at their unconscious teammate. Steve moves some blonde strands away from her forehead and feels for a pulse on Lauren's neck. The Captain shakes his head in denial.

Adrena grabs Lauren's hand, but doesn't feel any life left to heal. Wendy slowly lifts her hands to her face and stretches out her fingers. Carefully, she blows into her palms and redirects the wind into Lauren's lungs. The passage of air makes her heart beat a few times. Adrena suddenly feels a spark of blood flow starting up again, and her hands pass off healing energy into Lauren's body.

Lauren coughs, trying to stretch out her lungs so that she can breathe easier. She opens a set of tired eyes to see Steve, Adrena, and Wendy looking down at her worriedly. "Ow... watch where you're landing next time."

The three heroes can't help but laugh at Lauren's comment. Adrena helps Lauren stand up and the four look around, surveying the scene. Nothing is working, and they're slowly losing energy while it seems the Chitauri are only getting started. The people that were trapped in the bank are quickly ushered out by police.

Adrena charges up her blasters, rage filling her after seeing one of her teammates almost die. "This needs to end. I'm going up to the Tesseract to find a way to shut it down for good. Please, I need you to hold out for just a bit longer."

"What, you think we're just gonna quit?" Lauren asks, her voice still a bit breathless from the recent event.

Adrena smiles, grateful that she has people like this to back her up, and shoots off into the sky to fly to Stark Tower. Lauren picks up her spear from the rubble and holds it in her dominant hand. Wendy puts a hand on Lauren's uninjured shoulder and says, "You okay?"

"Course I am." Lauren says as confidently as she can. She reckons a couple of ribs are either broken or bruised because of how hard it is to breathe at the moment. "Let's kick the Chitauri out of Earth for good, shall we?"

"Sir, the Council is on." Maria Hill walks up to the bridge and informs Fury. Nick groans at the news, annoyed that the Council would nag him during a tense time like this.

Despite the hate he has toward the Council, Nick walks into the meeting room and logs on. After a long five-minute conversation, Nick realizes that the Council needs to elect new members.

"Director Fury, the Council has made a decision." The secretary of the Council says, trying to get the argument over with.

"I recognize the Council has made a decision." Fury's voice is clearly annoyed and hides a bit of sarcasm behind it. "But, given that it's a stupid ass decision, I've elected to ignore it."

"Director, you're closer than any of our subs. You scramble that jet-"

"That is the island of Manhattan, Councilman. Until I'm certain my team can't hold it, I will not order a nuclear strike against a civilian population." Maria watches Nick and the Councilmen fight over shooting down Manhattan. She knows Nick will never let the Council send a nuclear missile where there's people, but the Council has ways to get things done, too.

"If we don't hold them in the air, we lose everything!" The lead Councilman says, referring to the Chitauri. There were a couple close calls when some Chitauri chariots were almost able to escape the island, but the Avengers have been able to stop them so far.

Nick knows that he can't persuade the Council. They've made decisions before without consenting in him. He needs to act smart, try to get them to understand. "If I send that bird out, we already have." Nick turns off his screen.

Natasha has to take the long way to get to Stark Tower. You wouldn't believe the traffic in Manhattan's skies. Aliens everywhere! Suddenly, an energy blast soars past Natasha's chariot, barely missing her. She turns around to see who shot at her, and rolls her eyes when she sees Loki. "Oh, you."

Loki chases Natasha down, being better at driving spaceships so he has the upper hand. Natasha tries to use her own advantages to lose him, like her knowledge of the city's structure and pathways. Clint catches sight of the chase as he kicks a Chitauri in the face. "Nat, what are you doing?!"

"Uh... a little help!" Natasha keeps swerving around her path, dodging energy beams that Loki is shooting at her.

Clint clicks the trigger in his bow twice, making something attach to an arrow. He takes out the arrow and pulls it back, smiling. "I got him."

At the perfect moment, Clint shoots the arrow. It would have hit Loki right in the head, but he catches the neck of the handle before it could hit its target. Loki smirks and looks back at Clint, but isn't paying attention to the arrowhead that starts beeping rapidly before exploding. Loki is pushed off his chariot and rams right into a window in one of the upper floors of the Stark Tower. Natasha jumps off her chariot willingly and rolls on a rubble platform atop the same building. Adrena flies up and through the open window, sliding expertly as she lands on the ground.

"All you want to do is fight. Why not come peacefully?" Adrena asks even though she knows she's probably not going to get an answer.

Loki dramatically stands up, gripping his spear harder than ever in rage. "Why don't you keep your little secrets and I'll keep mine?"

Loki takes out a knife and throws it at Adrena, but Adrena spins out of the way. Loki tries again, but Adrena lifts up one of her gauntlets to block the metal with her own. She shoots one of her lasers at Loki and hits him right in the chest. Loki doubles over, so Adrena takes this chance to run up to him and jump up to kick him. However, Loki grabs her ankle and flips her over his head, onto the ground.

Adrena quickly turns around just in time to knock away another one of Loki's knives before he could stab her. She lifts her foot and kicks his knee, making Loki kneel down. Adrena stands up and raises her blasters, but Loki slices her upper leg with the sharp point of the knife. Loki spins and stand up, slicing Adrena across her left cheek by her jaw. Dazed, Adrena can't get back into reality long enough to dodge the swift kick to her stomach. The force sends her flying through the window and onto an outdoor platform of the tower. Adrena opens her eyes slowly to see something glowing blue and gold.

Loki smirks as he watches Adrena fall out of the window and down a couple floors. He turns around to get a better look at the battle going on outside, but suddenly the Hulk jumps through the open window. Loki backs up only a couple steps, but the completely loses it and yells, "ENOUGH! You are, all of you, beneath me! I am a god you dull creature, and I will not be bullied by a-"

Hulk grabs Loki around the ankles with one giant fist and raises him up in the air. Without hesitating, Hulk slams Loki on the ground multiple times. Hulk raises Loki up to look at his face. When Loki thinks that he's going to be put back on the ground gently, Hulk slams him on the tiles two more times.

Hulk walks away, only looking back at Loki once. "Puny god." Loki just lies in the floor, completely stunned from what just happened. Suddenly, his head feels blurry and his eyes change back to their normal blue color.

"Doctor." Natasha managed to get up to where Erik was by the Tesseract. She sees a giant gash on the side of his head, which means he was probably knocked out of Loki's mind control.

Doctor Selvig keeps his eyes on the beam that shoots up into the atmosphere, keeping the portal open. "Loki's scepter... the energy. The Tesseract can't fight, you can't protect against yourself."

"It's not your fault, you didn't know what you were doing." Natasha puts a hand on Erik's shoulder to try and comfort him. Maybe if she can get him to settle down, then he can tell her how to shut the portal down.

"Actually, I think I did." Erik's tone is almost knowing. Like he understood that he was doing something wrong, so he put in a little self destruct button on the machine. "I built in a safety to cut the power source."

"Loki's scepter..." Natasha realizes what the doctor was trying to tell her before.

"It may be able to close the portal."

After Erik finishes explaining why the scepter is so important, Adrena flies up to their floor, holding a familiar weapon. "Doctor Banner said this thing holds a similar radiation signature to that of the Tesseract."

"Agent, you're just in time." Natasha smiles gratefully and the three get to work. Adrena lands on the platform next to the Tesseract machine and gives the scepter to Natasha. Erik runs over to the computer that is stationed right beside the machine.

Thor rides on top of a chariot, smacking Chitauri soldiers off. Wendy flies next to him and hits pursuing chariots out of the sky with her metal boomerangs. A giant Leviathan comes floating down to where Steve and Lauren are fighting off Chitauri soldiers. Iron Man swoops into the scene and gains the attention of the Leviathan so it doesn't target Captain America or Sigma.

Iron Man tries to use a hot laser to break through the armor of the space worm, but Jarvis informs, "Sir, we will lose power before we penetrate that shell."

Tony stops trying to break through from the outside and flies up, turning around to face the Leviathan. "Jarvis, you ever hear the tale of Jonah?"

"I-I wouldn't consider him a role model." Despite Jarvis' warning against it, Tony flies straight toward the space worm. As the teeth part to swallow Tony whole, Tony unleashes every arsenal that the suit can carry. Iron Man gets swallowed, but the inside of the worm starts blowing up with all the missiles being fired. Putting more power into the thrusters, Tony gets ahead of the explosion right before the whole worm bursts apart. Iron Man gets pushed back and falls to the ground.

Without Lauren to help him, Clint has to keep the Chitauri from claiming his spot on the roof. Which means, he has to use more arrows. Clint reaches back to his quiver, but there are no more of his precious arrows. Thinking fast, he uses his bow as a weapon to fight off the few Chitauri that are attacking him. Once they are dealt with, Hawkeye quickly pulls a used arrow out of a Chitauri's body and puts it back in his quiver. He clicks a sequence of buttons on his bow before grabbing the arrow again. Chitauri start climbing up the walls in packs, throwing bombs to get rid of Clint. The archer runs, jumps off the edge, turns around, and shoots his arrow at the wall of the building. A grappling hook attaches to his bow, making him swing and crash through a window of the building. Clint gets cut by the glass and he groans.

Hulk holds Chitauri soldiers up by their faces and slams them into the ground. More replace them, and Hulk gets even more angry. Before he can attack them, however, dozens of hovercrafts take aim at him and start firing all at the same time. Hulk gets hit with a blast of bullets more powerful than anything he was ever hit with before.

On the helicarrier, one lone pilot sits in a jet, getting ready for takeoff. A Council member speaks in his earpiece. "Director Fury is no longer in command. Override order, 7 Alpha 11."

"7 Alpha 11 confirmed. Prepare for takeoff." The pilot ignites the engine.

Agent Hill sees on her screen that there is a rogue jet preparing to leave. "Sir, we have a bird in motion! Anyone on deck, we have a rogue bird! We have to shut it down! Repeat, takeoff is not authorized!"

Nick Fury runs out onto the flight deck, holding an airtronic RPG-7 over his shoulder. He takes aim and fires, getting the tail end of the jet so as to not harm the pilot. Suddenly, another 7 Alpha 11 jet takes off, and Fury just stands there, knowing he can't do anything about it.

But, just because he can't do anything about it, doesn't mean there's others who can't as well. "Stark, you hearing me? You have a missile heading straight for the city."

"How long?!" Tony asks, trying to blast Chitauri soldiers out of the way so that he can stand up. He's trapped on the ground, putting all his focus on defense.

"Three minutes max. Stay low and wipe out the missile." Nick orders.

Iron Man gets whacked in the head by the handle of a Chitauri's energy rifle. "Jarvis, put everything we got into the thrusters!"

"I just did." Jarvis says right before Iron Man shoots up into the sky.

The Alpha jet reaches the city and the pilot presses the button on his handle. A missile falls out of the bottom and the rocket ignites, flying toward the city. "Destination is in two minutes, thirty seconds mark." The pilot flies away to get clear of the explosion.

Thor, Captain America, and Air Runner all catch their weapons they threw while Sigma thrusts her spear forward to impale a Chitauri soldier. The four heroes continue to fight in sync until Captain America gets shot in the abdomen by an energy rifle. Air Runner jumps up, kicking the Chitauri that shot Cap in the face, then spins to finish it off with a punch with her boomerang that's attached to her wrist.

Thor finishes attacking his set of Chitauri soldiers and reaches his hand down to help Steve up. "You ready for another bout?"

"What, you getting sleepy?" Steve takes Thor's hand and takes a breath before standing up.

Lauren's breaths are heavy, and it's getting more and more hard to breathe for her. She takes a moment before saying, "Bet I can kill more aliens than you in five minutes."

Thor laughs and pats hard on Lauren's back, making her stumble a bit. "This one is truly mighty."

"Uh, thanks." Lauren says in more of a questioned tone. Out of nowhere, a Chitauri punches its weapon right across Wendy's mouth, making her mask break off and sending her falling face first onto the concrete.

Lauren quickly makes Wendy invisible so that the Chitauri can't hurt her while she's recovering. Steve, Lauren, and Thor exchange pissed off glances before taking their weapons and rushing at the advancing Chitauri soldiers.

Doctor Selvig keeps typing away at his computer. Something pops up on his screen and he points to the Tesseract. "Right at the crown!"

Natasha takes the spear and slowly stabs it into the force field that's protecting the Tesseract. Just like the doctor said, Natasha is aiming to stab right at the crown where the beam of energy is shooting up to make the portal. Adrena fires up her blasters and keeps incoming Chitauri from interfering.

"I can close it." Natasha's voice is tired, but filled with hope as she realizes she can keep reinforcements from coming. "Can anybody hear me? I can shut the portal down!"

"Do it!" Captain America says without hesitation.

"No, wait!"

Upon hearing Iron Man's voice, the Captain says, "Stark, these things are still coming!"

"I got a nuke coming in and it's gonna blow in less than a minute." Iron Man scans the incoming missile, making sure that he slows down enough to catch it and round its path. "And I know just where to put it."

Tony catches up to the missile and grabs it from behind, managing to turn it around and steer it off course. He aims it upward and grabs onto the bottom so he can throw it to where the missile was supposed to be targeting. Tony hears Lauren's and Steve's voice fighting for attention over his coms, "Stark, you know that's a one-way trip - Tony, turn around or I swear - Lauren, get back!"

Tony disconnects his coms so that he doesn't have to hear Lauren and Steve fight. He tells Jarvis, "Save the rest for the turn, J."

"Sir, shall I call Miss Potts?" Jarvis shows Pepper's contact picture on Tony's screen.

After a beat, Tony takes a breath and says, "Might as well."

The Iron Man suit starts calling Pepper, but all that is heard is ringing and ringing. She must be busy or something. In a meeting, or attending something important. Maybe there's no cellular service and she's on a jet. Or maybe, she's watching the news and doesn't even see her phone light up. Whatever the case is, Tony knows one thing: he won't be able to hear her sweet voice one last time.

Iron Man climbs higher and higher into the sky, his chest clipping against the wall of a building because of the tight turn. Tears well up in Laurn's eyes and she mumbles, "I can make an alternate route... make the portal appear more to the left so he misses..."

Steve puts a hand on her shoulder, making her look back down at the city. People are still stranded in building, watching through windows fearfully. For once in her life, Lauren thinks before she acts, and doesn't manipulate the light waves.

Tony flies through the portal, losing all communications. The S.H.I.E.L.D. agents on the helicarrier all cheer and hug one another. Nick Fury smiles and tries to link to Tony's communicator, but nothing happens.

The lights flash dangerously in Tony's Iron Man suit before shutting off completely, including Jarvis. The thrusters on his suit detach and Tony lets go of the bomb. The missile flies straight into the mothership of the Chitauri base, exploding right on impact. Tony's eyes open just long enough to see the explosion before closing just as the light in his chest dims out. He starts drifting back down toward the portal opening.

Down on the ground, all the Chitauri soldiers, Leviathans, and chariot vessels lose power and die. All the Avengers wait with baited breath as they watch the portal. Lauren has to kneel down because the pain in her chest is getting unbearable. Thor sees the supernova exploding on the other side of the portal. He nods toward Steve, letting him know that there was no way Tony survived. Steve waits a few extra moments before saying, "Close it."

Natasha pushes the spear further into the force field, almost connecting with the main beam that's keeping the portal open. Adrena quickly turns to her and yells, "But, he's still up there!"

It's too late to rethink her actions as the gem of the spear breaks the energy wave of the Tesseract's portal beam. Slowly, the portal starts closing, but right at the last second, Tony comes falling out of the hole in the sky. Steve smiles, relieved. "Son of a gun."

Tony keeps falling. Thor starts spinning his hammer to gain up speed. "He's not slowing down!"

Before Thor can take off, Adrena comes flying down at the speed of a rocket and grabs Iron Man under his arms. She tries to lift him up to slow his fall, but he is way too heavy. Suddenly, Wendy shoots up next to her and wraps her arms around Tony's torso. Together, the two heroes land next to Thor, Steve, and Lauren with Tony in their arms. The Hulk jumps over to see if Tony is alive.

Thor rips off Tony's golden face mask to reveal the billionaire's unmoving features. Adrena touches Tony's face, and is heartbroken to find no light of warm life left in him. Lauren kneels down and takes one of Iron Man's hands in her own, starting to shake. Wendy doesn't know if she'll be able to restart his heart like she did for Lauren. Steve puts a hand on the unglowing arc reactor on Tony's chest, thinking that it looks very dull and ghostly without the blue light.

The Hulk takes one look at Tony's lifeless face and lifts his head, letting out the loudest roar imaginable. Suddenly, Tony gasps and opens his eyes, the light in his chest coming back on. "What the hell?! What just happened? Please tell me nobody kissed me."

Steve chuckles, grateful that Tony is alive and making jokes again. "We won."

Tony closes his eyes and gives a big sigh in relief. "Hey, alright, good job, guys. Let's just not come in tomorrow, let's just take a day. Have you ever tried shawarma? There's a shawarma joint two blocks from here. I don't know what it is, but I wanna try it."

Adrena and Lauren chuckle at Tony's comment, the latter a bit weaker than the former. Thor looks up at Stark Tower, knowing that they have a few more things to do. "We are not finished yet."

Tony nods, knowing that they weren't quite finished yet either. "And then shawarma after."

Loki crawls out of the dent in the floor and onto the bottom of the staircase, bruised and beaten. He pauses and then looks over towards the window. All of the Avengers glare down at him, even more beaten and bruised as Loki himself is. Natasha holds Loki's scepter across her chest while Adrena holds the Tesseract safely in a glass case with handles on the side. Thor holds his hammer up in front of him protectively and threateningly. Tony's suit is trashed, but somehow still working and the Hulk glares angrily from behind him. Lauren stands up straight with her right hand holding her spear up to support her and the other on her hip. Steve stands behind her with his shield at his side. Wendy floats above everyone, raising her hands to threaten Loki with one last round of wind if he gets any funny ideas. Lastly, Clint kneels in front of the team, notching a knockout arrow and pulling it back, looking just as pissed as everyone else.

Loki rotates so that he is facing the Avengers, sitting on the bottom step. He chuckles, "If it's all the same to you. I'll have that drink now."

The Avengers say absolutely nothing, not making any jokes as they continue to glare down at the one who started this whole thing.