The Avengers x Y/N Barton

Pt. 8

"Where's Tony?" You struggle to fasten your seatbelt in the passenger seat.

"Flied ahead," Steve clarifies, bends down and with one brisk pull followed by a clack salvages you from wrestling stuck safety belt.

"Great job, by the way. With Clint and all that," he sits and secures himself in a seat next to you and hands you an earpiece. "You've got guts."

"Thanks." Rouge touches up your face before you insert the communicator in your ear and wince when whiny feedback painfully hits your eardrum.

"She did what?" Clint jerks his head to the copilot. Natasha's recounting of your actions over the last days leaves him open-mouthed.

"You should've seen her," her smile flattens as she relives the horror from hangar. "I was scared out of my wits. Petrified. And she stayed coolheaded, like it all was a childsplay. I owe her life."

Clint looks over his shoulder and finds you chatting with Steve. He'd prefer not to see Captain's leg touching yours. "We're almost there," he calls out.

You make an ok feature with fingers as an answer and unbuckle yourself.

Pressing a button, Natasha establishes a radio connection with Tony. "Please tell me Doctor Two-Face hitched a ride with you," he asks for you.

"Bring it up again and I'll rip you in half," your death stare pops up in camera frame of his suit.

"Look at that! Pretty flower has thorns," he smirks. "Good, we're gonna need them."

Glued to the back of Natasha's seat, you have a clear view from the windshield. Streets are full of panicking people trying to hide and escape from laser beams destroying buildings, cars, outdoor seatings of restaurants and overall everything.

Arriving to a terrace of Stark Tower, you see Loki fighting Thor. That's when 'sibling rivalry' takes on new dimensions.

Natasha, in a control of the rail gun, zooms in on Loki's horned helmet and commands the gunnery to fire. You feel the artillery coming off the jet's chassis right under your feet.

Loki, untouched, returns your doing by emitting a ray from the Scepter and hits your left engine.

The brunt causes intense disturbance and sends your unbuckled body pingpong from one side of the jet to the other.

Detecting your trouble, Steve releases himself, grabs you, locks his arm around your waist, presses you to his side and holds you both in one place during harsh emergency landing.

"Phew, that was a close one," Clint takes off his headphones and stands up from his seat. His eyes come across image of you being cuddled to Steve who's pulling his face away from yours with a soft smile.

"Nah-uh" Natasha wags her finger to stop Clint from interfering. "Not your business, buddy."

Going down the loading hatch at the rear, you enter a scene of wreaked havoc. Streets are plowed into concrete rubble. Black, acrid smoke from burning buldings and exploded vehicles irritates your noses and throats. Sirens and alarms are wailing, terrified civilians are running zigzag as repulsive alien creatures are gunning them down.

"We gotta get back up there," Steve juts his chin towards the terrace.

A gate comparable to the one opened when Loki arrived is spreading across the sky above Stark's monument.

Bloodcurdling mechanical growl cuts your race to the tower short.

You gasp as you tilt your head back. "You seeing the armored, toothy, flying whale too or am I tripping?"

"Seeing," Tony confirms your sanity over comm, "and still working on believing."

Hiding backed up to a cab's door, Clint alerts of civilians being trapped in buildings. After brief planning accompanied by elimination of alien soldiers, Steve separates from you to take command of confused NYPD units.

"So," Clint drives his hand to his face, releases the bowstring and hits one of the creatures exactly between its eyes, "you and Cap?"

"Clinton!" Natasha shouts at him, shooting a monster point-blank.

"Are you two a thing, now when he kissed you?"

No matter how frantically you rummage through your memory, you can't remember kissing anybody. Especially not Captain America, whom you know couple hours only.

"The fuck?" You're too dumbfounded to ask in a meaningful sentence.

"After landing. His face was pretty close to yours."

You throw your elbow behind to cock Chitauri in throat, then snap its neck with resounding crack.

"He was checking out the cut on my face, you nosy asshole," you peg a piece of crumbled sidewalk at your brother. "My stitches broke!" You indicate a circle around your face.

"But I ship you!" Natasha whines. "You have a chemistry!"

You spin kick another alien brute and put a bullet in his head, lacking of ability of verbal defense.

"Y/N, watch out!" Steve runs up, tosses the shield and takes down attacker aiming you with the rifle, extends his arm and helps you to get up. His chivalry conjures a pleased grin on Natasha's profile and daggers in Clint's eyes.

Crowding monsters are knocked out by a cackling electricity surging through their bodies. Thor lands next to you.

"What's the story upstairs?" Steve tucks the shield onto his back.

"The power surrounding the Cube is impenetrable," Thor presses on his bleeding ribs.

Steve takes on leadership. "Loki's gonna keep this fight focused on us and that's what we need. We got Stark up top, he's going to need us to..." he falters in his instructions, hearing approaching motorcycle.

And there he is. Bruce. All dusty and in different clothes, but alive and seemingly well.

"We got Banner," you update Tony, planning on giving Natasha a taste of her own medicine whilst you watch her intimate interaction with Bruce.

"Great, tell him to suit up. I'm bringing the party to you." A red streak of Ironman's hard shell lures a Leviathan towards you.

"I- I don't see how that's a party," Natasha stares incredulously.

"Doctor Banner, now might be a really good time for you to get angry," Steve approaches Bruce.

"That's my secret, Captain," Bruce's headed towards the extraterrestrial threat, "I'm always angry." He transforms on his own initiative and slays the serpentine creature with one punch.

"Guys," you draw their attention to the sky again. The portal grows even wider and more Chitauri are descending upon the city.

Steve splits the tasks. The priority until you can close the portal is containment.

Clint's sent to one of the roofs to keep an eye on the strays. Tony watches the perimeter to send anything that gets more than three blocks out back, or to turn it into ash. Thor is ordered to bottleneck the portal. You, Natasha and Steve keep fighting on the ground.

"And Hulk," Steve faces the green behemoth, "smash."