A Taste of Vengeance

There was something magnificently tarrying, yet beautiful about Bruce Banner as he transformed into the green, raging, Hulk. He emitted nothing but pure power and brute force, and watching him thunder down the street, letting nothing daunt him, was somewhat of a lifetime experience. He was incredible, and although Banner saw it as a curse, I saw it as a gift and a rare artifact, no matter how dangerous.

I watched in awe as the Hulk bellowed at the flying serpent machine, and punched it square in the maw, unflinching and unafraid of what it could possibly do to him. I didn’t know if the Hulk was driven by stupidity, rage, or bravery, but whatever it was, was simply astounding and a true honor to watch, as the enemy ship arch up over us, coming to a stand still as the armor snapped off, cracking under the pressure. Iron man sent several explosives into the open spot in the armor.

The creature blew up and we all turned for cover, Steve covering me with his shield even though I had thrown up a barrier to cover the entire team. I looked up at him and smiled, surprisingly fond of the gesture. It was cute, and if we hadn’t been in the middle of the street having a war with aliens, I probably would have kissed him. But we would have time for such shenanigans later.

The chiatuari around the buildings began screeching and roaring out in painful, distressed calls. They were clearly unsettled at the fact that we had just destroyed their prized possession, but we met their calls by form a circle, by forming an unbreakable unit. We were finally all together, and we were unstoppable.

Loki would rue the day he challenged the avengers.

I loaded my gun and looked up as the battles cries and howls of the alien race continued. The portal was still opened, and to my utter dismay, more chitauri flitted out like ticks, behind them more and more of the flying Godzilla’s. I cursed silently, but would not let my fear overtake me, or my hopes dwindle.

“Call it, Captain,” Tony said, giving Steve the reigns. I fought as smile as Steve took a breath, reading himself to take the lead as Captain America.

“Alright guys,” he began, examining our surroundings and working out a game plan. I smiled at the way his eyes took on a blue determination, the way his handsome, strong jaw was set and ready to command. “Until that portal is closed, out main priority is containment. Barton, I want you on that roof as the eyes, spot out patterns and strains. Stark, you’ve got perimeter, anything that get’s more than three blocks out turn it around or turn it to ash.”

“Gimme a lift?” Barton asked Tony. I blanched, remembering what it felt like to fly with Tony. Not fun.

“Sure, better clench up, Legolas.” My eyes rolled back with laugher as the two took off, following Steve’s command without question or hesitation. They truly believed in each other, and they believed in our plan. The thought that we were all in this was enlightening.

“Thor,” Steve continued. “You’ve got to try and bottle neck that portal, slow them down. You’ve got the lightning, so light those bastards up.” Thor smiled and began swinging his hammer and took off into the sky. Steve turned to Natasha and I.” Us three are going to stay on the ground and keep the fighting here. You two work good as a team, I’ve seen it.” He turned to Hulk. “Hulk: Smash.” Hulk grunted and smiled, trampling off to go kill things.

“He’s kind of cute, in that weird puppy way,” I commented, cocking my head to the side as we watched Hulk go.

Steve looked at me like I had grown three heads. “If that’s what you look for in a puppy, we’re not getting a dog.”

He looked away from me but I blushed and found myself smiling stupidly at what he had implied. “We?” I asked him, taking aim and shooting as more aliens approached. I was getting really tired of killing these things.

“Yeah,” he said, casually, firing a gun. “I figure that after this, I can take you on a real date, maybe we could go dancing, and who knows. I need a teacher on this new world of ours.”

I shot a chitauri with a grappling hook, pausing from our conversation for a moment as I ripped the rope down, pulling the creature with it. another one attack and I dove under it’s arm, ripping the string up under it’s arm and around it’s neck, turning and using the strength in my back to flip it over me, throwing it on the ground and smashing it’s throat with my foot. I over powered several more with in the same fashion before finally getting the chance to talk to Steve.

“Dancing,” I grinned and nodded my head. “I like it.”

“You have to promise though,” He said on a serious note, looking into my eyes. “I missed my last date that I promised to go dancing with. I’d really like to go.”

I got up on my tip toes and kissed him on the cheek while simultaneously firing my gun over his shoulder, killing a beast that had attempted to sneak up on us. “I promise.”

We fought endlessly, and I was beginning to feel tired and worn out. I knew that I could keep this up much longer, as I ran up a car, jumping and doing a smooth front tuck, landing on a hostile with a knife, killing it as it tried to kill Natasha. She looked at me warily, just as tired and worn out as I was. Her thought’s were hopeful, but they she would not lie to herself, she would not delude herself into thinking we would get out of this alive if we didn’t close the portal.

“This is all going to mean nothing if we don’t close that portal,” Natasha huffed between catching air. We were allowed a small moment of piece, all other enemies fighting the others or laying dead on the asphalt.

Sweat dripped down my head and into my eyes, burning them. I had cuts on my face and rips in my suit, blood dripping from more than one of them. I had to walk with a limp from spraining my ankle by my own accord, and I could taste salt and copper in my mouth, knowing that I was bleeding where my face had hit the ground on more than one dive.

We were beaten half to death, and we were ragged. Super as we were, we could not go on forever, we were still humans, not machines. The only chance we had at living was to figure out a way to stop that portal and close it, but I had no idea how. I desperately racked my brain, trying to think what my mother and father would do to stop it, what they would try.

“I need to get up there,” Natasha said, gesturing to where the tesseract was doing it’s work.

“You’re going to need a ride,” Steve pointed out, but Natasha was already walking away from us, smirking.

“I have a ride. I could use a boost though.”

Steve and I crouched as Natasha watched the sky, timing her jump perfectly. She ran at us full speed then and jumped, both Steve and I catching her feet and launching her ten times faster and higher into the air. She successfully landed on one of the flying machines, taking over the control by killing it’s drivers. There really was nothing Natasha couldn’t do.

Steve flinched suddenly as more Chitauri began shooting at him, almost hitting him. Rage swelled inside me and I stood in front of him, glowering at them full force and yelling, “That’s my boyfriend, bastard!”

I sent out a blast of energy, wiping the street clean of the group of Chitauri as well as sending several vehicles flying into the air, only to come crashing back down onto the concrete with a metal groan. I turned around to Steve, pleased with myself saying, “I think I am as awesome as we thought. Loki can’t match that, even with his-"

I stopped midsentence, thoughts crashing into my all at once. Of course! I was so stupid not to think of it before- we all were stupid not to have ever considered it. Loki’s Halloween glow stick was made of some kind of energy that was not dissimilar to the tesseract. It could do unexplainable things, and Banner even said it was filled with some unknown force. Loki’s scepter could possibly break through the barrier surrounding the tesseract, because it consisted of similar structure and consistency.

I explained my theory to Steve and a lit touched his eyes, knowing I was right. If we could steal Loki’s little play stick, then we could probably get the tesseract to shut off or destroy it.

“Nat!” I yelled through the earpiece. “Nat you have to get the scepter! I think it’ll counteract the tesseract!”

“Uhh yeah,” I heard her answer before she hollered, followed by a few sounds of fighting. “Okay that takes care of that, I’m on it. I’m on the roof with Selvig now.”

Unbelievable pain shot through my stomach and I roared in pain, clutching my stomach as I hit my knees. The pain of the collision on my knees was nothing compared to the searing hot pain in my stomach. I looked down and saw the scorched uniform, and almost fainted at the sight of my charred, blackened fresh, smoking and rotting away like nothing. Blood couldn’t even ooze out of the burnt flesh, and I gripped around the gaping wound, feeling tears spring to my eyes.

I could faintly hear Steve yelling in a voice I had never heard, but the world was roaring around me, adrenaline deafening me from the sound. One of the bastards had shot me in the stomach with his gun, and it hurt like the pits of hell were burning in my stomach.

I found it hard to breathe as I gasped for air, begging my lungs to take in more oxygen. Steve slid to his knees in front of me, clutching my face in his dirty but strong hands desperately, yelling something at me that I couldn’t hear. I couldn’t hear past the pain, and I squeezed my eyes shut, yelling through clenched teeth. I had never felt anything like it, and I didn’t know how I wasn’t dead yet, how I hadn’t blacked out from the agony.

“Ashlynn!” Steve yelled even louder. I opened my eyes, tears flowing from them as I bit my lip, drawing blood.

“It just hurts,” I croaked, hating the hurt that was laced heavily in my voice. “Don’t t-think it’s fatal-AGGHH- it HURTS.”

“Kid!” Tony was yammering in my ear. “Ashlynn are you listening to me?”

“For Gods sake, Tony,” Steve barked. “Agent Bane is down!”

“What?!” Tony began yelling into the earpiece but I ignored it, clutching onto Steve’s shoulder in front of me as the ache racked through my body, causing me to shiver. “Help me stand.”

“What?”
“STEVE. Just help me stand and get me out of the street before with both die for nothing.”

Several agonizing minutes and thousands of curses later, I was standing on wobbling legs, arm clutching Steve for support as one of his arms lopped under my arm and the other holding my waist as we made a pitiful attempt to get out of the road. Every step was horrible and I cried out in pain soundlessly but I refused to stop. If I wasn’t going to die from it, I was going to make sure I didn’t die from anything else either.

“Stark,” I groaned, tripping over a piece of rubble and snarling.

“Bane, are you okay?” His tone was frightened. “Yeah, bastard shot me, but unfortunately for you, I’m going to live.”

He laughed, but something was off in his tone. “You know that I adore you, right kid? I almost see myself in you.”

“Ew, Tony, why are you- OUCH STEVE- being emotional?”

Steve seemed to realize what was going on before I did. “Stark, that’s a one way trip!”

My fear spiked. “What’s a one way trip?”

“They order a nuke on the city,” Steve sneered, cursing as he helped me lean against an overturned taxi, black with soot. “Stark’s redirecting it into the portal and Natasha is waiting for the signal to close it.”

“Tony, don’t you dare-"

“Don’t I dare what, Bane?” Tony demanded. I looked up and I could see the red glint of his suit. “It’s one man or the world, I know you’re smart Ash. Your parents taught you to be smart and they would be proud of you today. I know you know I have to do this- what would you do in my place?”

It was not a question, what I would do in his place. I would serve my duty, I would give up my life for the millions of people. A million to one was not even a large sacrifice, not to the world. But to me, it felt like I was about to lose part of my world. Somehow, Tony had taken the place of an elder that had been missing for a long time. He understood me in a different way than Steve or Natasha did, and I was at a loss of what to say.

As if reading my mind he said, “You don’t have to say it. Look, I gotta go kid, I have to call Pepper. I just wanted to let you know that I’m proud of you and that you are still in fact, the bane of my existence."

Before I could respond Tony was cut off. I watched as he entered through the portal, and my heart seized. No tears formed in my eyes, but I felt as if a hole was beginning to take place as I watched the sky. the further Tony went, the more the whole was carved, and the more I knew that he wasn’t going to come back.

“Tony!” Natasha called, “I need to close it, where are you!”

“Do it!” he yelled.

“Tony-"

“DO IT.”

The beam of light shooting up from the tesseract erupted with thunder and spewed blue energy like a supernova. I clutched Steve’s arm, squeezing hard as my heart felt. He wrapped a protective arm around me, pressing his lips to my head as we both watched, the beam fading and the portal crackling and clouding over, twisting shut. My heart raced and I felt my throat going dry as the stars of other worlds, beautiful and out of place, began to fade like a dream.

Knowing Tony wasn’t going to come back was nearly killing me, but I knew that I had other things to live for, the main one being the man holding me. I fought the urge to look away from the scene unfolding in front of me, as the final clouds morphed with one another and shut, but I found myself still searching the sky for the inevitable.

And then he was there, falling through the sky the way a light falls into a dream, the way a great thing falls into your life. I screamed in delight, causing both Steve and Thor, who I had not even noticed to flinch.

“Son of a gun,” Steve muttered, smiling all the same. I knew he had become fond of Tony, even if he didn’t want to admit it.

“He isn’t slowing down,” Thor said suddenly, face falling. He began spinning his hammer and I leapt up from the car, ready to catch him with a telekinetic net, but a flash of green blurred across the blue sky, crashing into Tony and snatching him from the air as if he were nothing but a dust mote.

Hulk crashed into a skyscraper and clung to it, Tony dangling from his hands as he let out a bellow that shook the ground and shattered any remaining glass on the building. He then began a very rough journey back down to us, where he laid Tony delicately on the ground.

Steve swept me up bridal style and dashed over to the battered man in the broken suit, gently setting me on the floor next to him. Tony was motionless, facemask gone, but a look of piece on his face. I refused to believe he was gone and screamed at him, even smacking him in the face for good measure. Hulk screamed suddenly, whether as a tactic to get him up, or out of anger, I wasn’t sure.

Tony flinched awake, yelling, “What the hell?” he looked at us all as we fell back, laughing and relieved. “What the hell just happened? Please tell me none of you kissed me?”

“Not even on your finest day,” I chuckled through my happiness.

A silence went through us all, as we looked at one another, bruised, beaten and broken. I delicately wiped the blood pooling on Steve’s lip, the heat from his skin still running through my fingers as I took them away. He caught my hand and held it. “We won.”

“Yaaay,” Tony cheered, although his tone wasn’t exactly what I’d call cheerful. More like delirious. “Let’s uh, let’s call it a day. Let’s not come in tomorrow, take a day off. Has anyone been to Shwarma? I don’t know what it is, but I want to try it.”

I laughed as Thor glanced upwards, reminding us, “We’re not done yet.”

“Right. And then Shwarma after.”

With a collected effort, we made it to Stark Tower, deciding on taking the elevator up to the top floor. Barton and Romanoff joined us. As a team we approached Loki. It seemed the battle hadn’t faired well for him either, for he looked even worse than I did, and was crawling into a sitting position when he turned to face us.

Glancing at us warily he commented roughly, “If it’s all the same to you, I think I’ll take you up on that drink.”

I narrowed my eyes and kicked him in the jaw, surprising everyone. “That, Loki Laufeyson, is a taste of vengeance.”