Devil of Menace

19 - Shawarma

Tony latches onto the missile and forces it off course. He accelerates quickly and makes his way towards the portal. "Stark, you know that's a one-way trip?" Steve reminds. "Save the rest for return J." Tony says to JARVIS, making no acknowledgment of Steve. "I can't look." I say as my hands begin to shake. I screw my eyes shut as Steve grips my wrist. I hold my breath and peel my eyes open, tears beginning to blur my vision. Tony makes it through the portal as the familiar click of his communications dying deafens me. Fury attempts to contact him and is met with nothing. "Not again." I repeat under my breath as I hope Tony makes it back to me. Suddenly all the Chitauri that advance on us keel over and convulse violently. Then they stop. Dead. Thor and Cap notice the supernova coming towards us, but I don't, "Close it." Steve says to Nat. "Kakogo khrena ty delayesh'?!" I scream. 

The portal quickly closes as Nat pulls out the scepter. I notice a small figure hurtling to Earth at an immense speed. Tony. "Son of a gun." Steve scoffs, smiling. I breathe a sigh of relief, "I'm gonna kill him." I explain calmly. He keeps falling, and falling, and falling. Thor's face drops, "He's not slowing down." I roll my eyes, "That's basic physics." I grumble as Thor swings Mjolnir for the billionth time. Just as Thor flies up, Hulk catches Tony in the air, the pair crashing and sliding down a building. The three of us wince. Hulk tosses Tony to the ground and we run over to him. Thor pulls his helmet off. He's still, unconscious. Clearly the Hulk thinks he's dead as he lets out a roar of anger. Naturally this wakes Tony up. "What the hell? What just happened? Please tell me nobody kissed me?" He blurts out. "Nobody kissed you but I'm this close to strangling you to death." I threaten, holding up my fingers to show a very minute gap. Steve smiles, "We won." He explains. "Alright. 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 about two blocks from here. I don't know what it is, but I wanna try it." He rambles. Thor looks up at Stark Tower, "We're not finished yet." He says.

"And then shawarma after." Tony exclaims.

We head up to Stark Tower until all seven of us are stood behind Loki as he crawls away. He smiles nervously at our pissed faces, "If it's all the same to you. I'll have that drink now." We all remain silent but apparently Hulk can't read social cues and snorts at the god. "I thought we agreed on the silent thing Banner." I say and Hulk shrugs an apology. Thor leans down and cuffs Loki, putting a muzzle on him because nobody trusts that weasel. We leave Loki to the SHIELD agents and head to the shawarma joint, now partially destroyed. 

Dressed in clean clothes once more we congregate in Central Park. Thor shakes hands with the six of us and hugs Selvig before returning to a still handcuffed and muzzled Loki. Tony opens the metal briefcase containing the Tesseract. I nudge Steve, "Imagine if he dropped it and Loki picked it up then vanished." I whisper. Steve shakes his head, "Unlikely." He whispers back. Banner takes out the Tesseract and places it into a glass container held by Thor. Loki reluctantly takes the other end from Thor and the two beam back to Asgard. I hug Natasha, "See you soon." I smile at her and she nods at me. Banner and Tony join each other in Tony's sports car and Tony drives away. Natasha and Clint head back to Fury in SHIELD cars. Steve clambers onto his Harley and a join him, wrapping my arms around his torso. The rumble of the engine soothes me as we drive away from the destruction.

A few weeks later an image of a newly rebuilt Stark Tower appears online, the previous bold letters spelling 'STARK' now replaced with an 'A'.