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Chapter Twelve

"I have unfinished business with Loki."

"Yeah," the sarcasm dripped from Clints voice as he messed with an arrow. How had he not run out yet? "Get in line."

Everyone here had issues with Loki just for the whole destruction and world domination thing of his, but nearly everyone probably had personal reasons at this point as well. Elizabeth was extremely guilty of that. She never wanted to talk to him again, but she did want to introduce his face to her fist, or pole.

"Save it." He was such a buzz kill on their antics sometimes. "Loki's gonna keep this fight focused on us and that's what we need. Without him these things could run wild. We got Stark up top, he's gonna need us..." Steve trailed off as the sound of a motor came up.

Not even a good one, and Elizabeth didn't know much about cars, but it still sounded horrible.

They all turned, and Elizabeth couldn't fight the Cheshire grin that hit her face as she saw Bruce practically cruise up. She did a once over and saw no injuries, which in it self was a good thing. But he did look pretty bad. Covered in some dust, dirt, and grime, which she figured was probably due to where he fell.

"So, uh," he looked around to the death, screaming, terror, fire, and alien army that surrounded them. "this all seems horrible."

"I've seen worse," Natasha looked Bruce up and down.

"Sorry."

"No, we could use worse."

"You're back," Elizabeth smiled as she walked up to Bruce. "I knew it. I should have made a bet on it."

Bruce looked her over for any signs of any injury. The smile threatened to tug at his lips when he saw Elizabeth, dressed so casually, but he wasn't any better. She was dressed like she was about to go shopping or to a cafe, and not for war. Despite that burst of happiness, a huge part of him was still utterly terrified that he could have hurt her, or Natasha for that matter. "Hey, about-"

But he got cut off by Tony saying very loudly over the ear piece, "I'm bringing the party to you guys," as he rounded a corner, one of the huge ugly things following him.

Elizabeth sighed, she was growing exhausted, and these things seemed to never end. At this point she just wanted to hit Loki for making this drag on so long. "I don't see how this is a party."

Just as someone was about to respond, another one of the, thankfully smaller, chitauri and snuck up on the group, and within seconds it was shot at with a gun, and arrow, hit with a shield, and smashed in the head with a pole, and for good measures, a hammer, as Bruce just stood there watching.

"Heck outta here," Elizabeth huffed.

As Tony, and the literal definition of a monster, like if you looked monster up in the dictionary, a picture of this thing should show up, got closer, Bruce stood there, half turned, but made eye contact with her. But then he turned fully around to walk away from the group.

"Dr. Banner," Steve rushed as he stepped forward. "now might be a really  good time for you to get angry."

In response Bruce turned his head, a small smirk rested upon his features, "That's my secret, Captain." he turned forward again as he kept walking towards the monster. "I'm always angry."

His transformation was fast this time, unlike the one Elizabeth had witnessed before. It was seamless, with no difficulties. He grew large, and green, his clothes tearing, as he punched the creature in the face.

Yet, this thing was dead set on destruction so it began rolling as Hulk tried to keep it a bay from the others. Clint bent behind a car, Steve hid himself and Natasha underneath the shield, Elizabeth? Yeah, she flung herself right behind Thor, specifically the hammer. The thing fell off of the bridge that they were on, and it was almost like a success really.

The group returned, backs all turned together, weapons out, as it turned into the ultimate protection circle. Elizabeth was in between Thor and Hulk, and honestly? She felt pretty safe. She was between these two, and then behind her was the rest. Sounded like a pretty fair deal to her.

But all was short lived as Natasha pointed out that even more of those things were flying out.

They all turned, ogling the portal and the creatures coming out of it. Even to the point Tony had put differences apart to say, "Call it, Cap."

"Alright, listen up," he began. "Until we can close that portal up there, we're gonna use containment. Barton, I want you on that roof, eyes on everything. Call out patterns and strays. Stark, you got the perimeter. Anything gets more than three blocks out, you turn it back or you turn it to ash."

Both Clint and Tony left as Steve turned to the other four left standing there.

"Thor, you've gotta try and bottleneck that portal. Slow them down. You've got the lightning. Light the bastards up." In all his glory, Thor flung around his hammer and went flying away. "Us three? We stay here on the ground, keep the fighting here. And Hulk," Hulk whipped around grunting. "Smash."

A grin plastered on Hulks face before he too took off, leaving the three stuck to the fighting on the ground. 

----

Elizabeth had stayed on the ground fighting, but honestly, it began to become boring. And when she spotted Loki, she knew that was where she was going to go. This had to be stopped once and for all.

So, in total disregard of the chitauri, she began running through the wreckage, trying to find a point where she could get up high enough to even manage to get on the chariots that followed behind Loki.

But as she saw the building Clint was perched at, shooting down the chitauri, she knew that would be a good place to manage, especially since from a distance she could see Natasha coming up with the chariot army.

The only issue was trying to get up in time.

"Hey, Clint," she spoke through the ear piece while staring at him.

"Yep?"

"Catch this," and with all her might, she chucked it, him just barely catching it. Holding the pole, he looked at it, and then her, as she winked and saluted turning around.

And this was the most unrealistic situation in which pole dancing was ever going to help her.

The streetlight wasn't going to get her fully up to the top, but it was a nice start. From there she could get to a window, which she would only have to climb about five feet.

Climbing up the pole wasn't the hard part, it was getting from the pole to the window, and honestly? She was never afraid of heights until now. Closing her eyes and breathing in, she just jumped for it.

Thankfully she was climbing to the building, and not falling to her death. The chariot army was approaching and she climbed as fast as she could to the top, even for her, out of breath. "Jesus," she muttered as she picked her pole back up from Clints feet.

Natasha lead the chariot army over, and Elizabeth didn't think twice about leaping onto the chariot with Loki. "You li-" 

Her jumping was a big mistake, because within seconds after, an arrow exploded the chariot, flinging both into STARK Tower and on the terrace.