Beauty and The Beast ((Bruce Banner/Hulk love))

Chapter 21

**Aero's POV**

"That's my secret cap." He paused looking back over his shoulder at the group. Our eyes met for a moment and he gave me another reassuring smile. My heart fluttered in my chest, but I pushed that thought away quickly. I was not about to get myself killed by a whalien because I was doey eyed that a guy smiled at me. "I'm always angry." He hulked out in a matter of seconds, which was a contrast to when I watched him struggle against the change on the helicarrier. Just in time, He slammed his fist into what I assumed was the face of the whalien. He was pushed back a bit before the whale stopped. It's tail still had momentum and started to lean over and almost fall on top of all of us. Tony -who had been watching from close by- shot the tail with a few missiles making it explode into pieces before falling around us. Clint dove to get under an overturned car. Thor held up his hammer blocking anything that may fall on him. Steve pulled Natasha with him under his shield. I crossed my arms over my head to brace myself if anything were to fall onto me. Instead I felt a large hand scoop me up and I was pulled close to a well muscled chest. I slowly blinked my eyes open, I was against Hulk's chest, cradled carefully in his arms. He was protecting me from the falling debris. I bit the inside of my lip, a smile tugged at my pale pink lips. Once all the debris had stopped falling, Hulk gently set me down on my own two feet. The Hulk gave me a grin obviously proud of himself in that moment. I nodded, smiling back in thanks. We all stood together ready to take on the alien army. I heard Hulk roar right behind me. I couldn't fight the smile that made its way to my face. We listened as Steve ran down the game plan.

"Clint, I need you on the roof calling out patterns. Stark, You got perimeter. Anything gets more than three blocks out, turn it back or turn it to ash." Steve started instructing us. "Thor, We need to bottle neck that portal. You got the lightning, Light'em up." Steve told Thor. He looked to Natasha. "Me and you are gonna keep the fight here." He told her. "Hulk... Smash." Hulk grinned and roared. "Aero, Help him out. You're the fastest. Keep Civilians out of harm's way and round up as many aliens as you can." He told me firmly.

"Looks like we're a team, Buddy," I looked at Hulk smiling brightly. He leapt onto the side of a building smashing a few aliens. I bounced on my toes as the adrenaline pumped through my body making me ready to take on anyone or anything. I zoomed off, helping civilians and such out of the way as well as plowing through groups of aliens. I noticed a whole bunch gathering near the bottom of the building the hulk was hanging from, so I ran circles around them gathering them all up nicely. I whistled loudly, getting Hulk's attention. He jumped down smashing through them. I cheered excitedly for my little plan working, before running off to help elsewhere.

~~~

We fought for what felt like forever, smashing through alien after alien. I leaned over catching my breath as I had done nothing but run the whole city most of the time. "I need Loki's scepter... I can't get to it...." Natasha called over the intercom in my ear. I looked up at Stark Tower, which was pretty close to where I had paused to take a breath.

"On my way, Nat." I called out. I turned to the Hulk, who was also near by ripping through some aliens. "Alright, Buddy..." I turned pointing towards the top of Stark Tower. "I need you to throw me up there," I told him firmly. He grunted in what seemed like disagreement, shaking his head a bit. "I'll be okay. I promise," I gently laid my hand onto his large green one. The Hulk looked down at where my hand was touching him for a moment, before he nodded his head and picked me up cautiously. He threw me with all of his force, which I had to admit was a strange feeling. I flew right to the balcony Thor and Loki had been fighting on earlier, where I had wanted to be. I stood up, cheering down to the Hulk to let him know that I was okay. I picked up the scepter. I backed up to the edge of the balcony, the back of my shoe going off the edge a bit. I took a deep breath and ran as fast as I could at the glass covered side of Stark Tower. I could feel my sneakers slipping as I neared the top, which was what I expected from trying to run on glass. I reached up catching the ledge with my free hand, keeping the scepter firmly in my other hand. Natasha looked over the side at me. I smiled a goofy smile and showered her the scepter. I handed it up to her so that my hand was free. Once my other hand was free, I could use it to grip the ledge and hall myself with ease. I made it onto the roof and hurried over to Natasha's side as she was just about to shove the scepter into the center of the machine creating the portal.

"Wait!" Tony called out into the intercoms, stopping Natasha from using the scepter to close the portal. "I got a nuke with an ETA of two minutes... And i know just where to put it," His tone was cocky as always. I gave a small eye roll at the tone of the billionaire's voice.

"That's a one way trip, Stark." Steve told him. Tony didn't answer Steve when it came to the fact that the odds of him making it back were slim to none. I couldn't help but to think about earlier, when Steve told Tony that he was not the guy to make the sacrifice play, to lay down on the wire for someone else. Steve was wrong. Tony cared, about the city, about the people, and about our team. I stood there in shock as Tony came flying by us on the roof headed directly for the portal carrying that nuclear missile on his back. Tony put the nuke into the portal despite knowing the odds of not coming back to us. My heart lurched in my chest as I stared up at the portal. All I wanted was to see his red and gold suit come out of there. The massive glow of the explosion that had happened when the missile hit the aliens' ship could be seen from the portal. If we didn't close it then we were going to get some of the back fire from that. "Close it," Steve instructed through the intercom knowing we couldn't wait any longer. Natasha shoved the scepter into the machine shutting it down. As I heard the machine that had the tesseract power down, my chest tightened making it a bit hard to breath at the thought of Tony up there.

"He made it..." Natasha call out thankful as we saw Tony free falling from the sky. My heart skipped a beat in my chest, excited and thankful that Tony was okay. That excitement wore off very quickly when I noticed that Tony continued to free fall. He wasn't slowing down or doing anything to counter act the momentum from falling out of space, in all honesty it didn't even seem like Tony was awake inside his suit. Just as my heart lurched in my chest afraid that no one would stop him from hitting the ground, the Hulk jumped out of nowhere and caught him like a rag doll. The hulk slammed into the side of the building, slowing their momentum enough to let them both crash into the ground. The hulk protected Tony the whole time. I moved away from the edge grabbing Natasha and pulling her into a large hug.

"It's over... I need a nap." I whined into my friend's ear which made her laugh pretty hard. I'm sure we were all thankful for it to be over with. I released my hold on Natasha and glanced back to the boys who were standing over Tony's body. Worried something was wrong, I raced down to meet with Steve, Thor, the Hulk. Tony laid on his back, where he had been left after the fall. His eyes were still closed and he didn't appear to be breathing. Someone had ripped off his mask to be able to see his face. I moved to rush to his side, maybe start CPR or something, but Hulk let out a loud roar causing me to jump startled by the sound. Tony's eyes flew open in response to the sound as he gasped for air. I let out a sigh of relief and sat on my knees beside him. .

"What the hell!" Tony gasped looking around but not moving from where he laid on the ground. "What happened? Please tell me none of you kissed me," His eyes bounced between the boys that stood around him. "You, I'd be fine with." Tony grinned at me, causing me to smack his metal shoulder.

"We Won," Cap spoke in a tired voice.

"Alright good job guys, Lets just not come in tomorrow." Tony sighed and he leaned his head back comfortably. I let out a soft laugh. Tony started being typical Tony talking about some food joint he saw a couple blocks over that he wanted to try. I got to my feet and hugged Hulk's massive green arm, thankful that he had helped save Tony.

"Good Job, Buddy." I smiled up at him making sure he knew that I wasn't afraid of him and was thankful for all he had done. We gathered the team- who were all pretty banged up from the fight- and went up to get Loki - who was still in Stark Tower. 

(Word Count : 1709)