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Chapter Thirteen

Elizabeth groaned as she rolled over.

When they fell, she could feel the scraps running up her legs, and arms, and she knew she was stupid for wearing this outfit. Worst of all was the fact that she had hit herself with her pole, in the head.

And then there was Loki.

She got up fast, the fear outweighing the pain, as he stood too, looking at her, like he wanted her dead. It made her blood run cold. Unsure of what to do, she took her pole and swung it to him, only for him to knock it to the side and grab her neck. It wasn't even hard for him to do, because she was stumbling, unable to regain her composure as easily as he had.

As if she weighed nothing, he lifted her up, legs dangling.

"You stupid girl-" she tried kicking him, clawing at him, but in only angered him more. "I was going to use you, there was going to be fun in that." he began walking. "Turn you against your friends," he spat. "But no, you're becoming an issue now. So I think I'll just kill you."

Her heart race increased as he held her, just barely over the building. All she could do was think that this was how she was going to die. For a moment, part of her even began to think on using her powers, but she couldn't barely get out a sound.

But then she was being flung again, through glass this time, as a flash of green crossed her vision. She was laying in the corner, and this was not how she wanted her first experience at STARK Towers to go.

Her body seriously began to ache, and now glass was stuck in parts of her, she tried her best to pull out the pieces, but there was some that she wasn't going to be able to get on her own. A new injury was placed on her stomach, a large gash from a jagged piece of glass. The blood was sticky, and it made her feel slightly dizzy as she looked down at it contemplating throwing up at the sight.

Loki was just getting up, but Hulk was running towards him. "ENOUGH! YOU ARE, ALL OF YOU ARE BENEATH ME! I AM A GOD, YOU DULL CREATURE, AND I WILL NOT BE BULLIED-"

His efforts were in vain as Hulk just grabbed him by the legs and swung him around slamming him into anything and everything. "Puny god," he spat when down and walked over to Elizabeth who was huddled in the corner.

For a second Elizabeth thought he might be going after her, but a part of her had faith that he wouldn't. Perhaps she was being idealistic when it came to Hulk. But lashing out, or grabbing her weapon was not going to help anything.

When he reached her, he looked down at her for a moment. And then he was scooping her up, and running towards the window again, and then leaping out into the air.

"Holy shit," Elizabeth screamed as she held onto Hulk for her dear life. She thought roller coaster were bad, this was like one on steroids.

Hulk landed perfectly fine though, and actually returned her back to the ground gently, as he took off again, roaring and smashing everything in his way. For a monster, he seemed rather nice. Elizabeth was glad to be back on the ground, but now she had no weapon, and she was not confident enough to actually just fight the chitauri with nothing.

Desperate, she began running around looking for anything to use. Literally even a stick was better than nothing. On the ground, a block away from where Hulk left her, she found a pvc pipe. Groaning, she picked it up hoping that it wouldn't break.

She was finishing off one chitauri when Natasha voice, desperate, came over the speaker. "I can close it! Can anybody hear me? I can shut the portal down!"

Elizabeth didn't know what to say, before this whole Avengers thing, she had never used an earpiece radio system before, "Copy?"

"Do it!" Steve encouraged only to be intervened by Tony.

"No, wait."

"Stark, these things are still coming."

"I got a nuke coming in, it's gonna blow in less than a minute. And I know just where to put it."

As Elizabeth looked to the sky, she saw Tony flying a missile to the sky, towards portal. A part of her wanted to amend him for the genius idea, but it was so stupid. If possible, her heart race quickened, and she felt it drop knowing what this meant.

"Stark," Steve's voice sounded grave. "you know that's a one-way trip?"

But Tony never answered.

Everyone was left to stand there, from wherever they were, and watch as he advanced towards the portal, missile in his arms. The closer he got, the more her stomach turned wanting to throw up. If he did this, he was going to die.

He entered, and Natasha did whatever she was able to do to shut it down. The blue light connected the tesseract to the portal disappeared, and the chitauri began to drop.

The moment seemed to last forever as they all waited, anxiety high, hoping to see Tony once again. And just barely he made it through, plummeting.

Able to move again, Elizabeth raced to the others who were a block away from her, as Tony continued to fall, and horror began to fill her as the thought that maybe he was dead.

As Thor swung his hammer, ready to catch Tony, Hulk appeared out of nowhere catching him, and slamming into a building, and slid down, debris falling littering the ground, before jumped backwards and onto the ground.

Without hesitation Thor, Steve, and Elizabeth were racing to Tony. Thor flipped him over and took off the mask, and Elizabeth swore her heart actually stopped.

Tony's eyes were closed, and he wasn't moving. In fact, he didn't even appear to be breathing. "Jesus," she breathed as she collapsed to her knees, not even caring about the blood that leaked from the scraps, or the way it stung.

But then Hulk roared, everybody jumped, and Tony's eyes opened quickly, as he gasped for air. "What the hell? What just happened? Please tell me nobody kissed me."

Elizabeth couldn't hold in her laugh, although she hadn't even tried to. It was relieving in so many ways.

"We won," Steve spoke looking around.

Tony leaned back, sighing. "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 rambled on.

Thor ruined the momentarily buzzkill by pointing out that they weren't finished, because still laying in the STARK Tower, was Loki, the root of this problem.

"And then shawarma after?"

The group later met up with Clint and Natasha who were waiting for them at STARK Tower. No one dared to say anything, whether due to again, or exhaustion or anger, perhaps all of the above, as they traveled to where Loki was.

As they all stood there, Elizabeth practically leaned against Hulk at this point, because she felt as if she was going to faint and her head was really dizzy, whether it was exhaustion or the blood pouring out of her stomach, she couldn't tell. They watched as Loki began to pull himself up. He was prompted up looking very defeated. "If it's all the same to you, I'll have that drink now."

Yeah, Elizabeth could go for one too.