Manhattan ⇻ The Avengers [1]

chapter twenty-three

"I can close it!" Natasha yell from over the comms stopped Gen's staring after Tony and spurred her into action, "Can anybody hear me? I can shut the portal down!"

"Do it!" Steve responded, clearly tiring of fighting.

"No, wait!" Tony shouted in response.

"Stark, these things are still coming!" Steve replied.

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

Gen watched as he went by, holding onto and directing the missile as he started going upward toward the portal, "You do know that's a one way trip, Tony?" she asked, using his first name for once, "There's no going back."

"I'll never know until

I try," Tony replied, getting closer and closer to the portal, "I won't let all these people die."

Then he disappeared through the portal. Seconds later, all of the Chitauri soldiers keeled over and the rest of the leviathans fell from the sky.

"Come on, Tony..." Alison whispered, the rest of the personalities silent and waiting.

"Close it," Steve's voice came over the comms.

"No!" Gen protested, frantic.

But despite this, the beam to the portal stopped and it began to close. The speedster raced over to the top of Stark Tower to get a better view of the situation, her heart becoming heavier with each step. But then...

A form began to drop out of the sky and Gen slipped into superspeed, everything going at a caterpillar pace. She was frozen, watching as Tony's limp form barrelled through the sky as the last of the portal closed. He wasn't slowing down, she could tell, and that made her worry even more.

Then a flash of green caught her eye, and she turned, it was the Hulk. He was jumping off of a building, flying toward Tony. Gen began to race forward, to meet him halfway, running down the side of the building as he caught the billionaire and both crashed and slid down the building.

Gen let out a sigh of relief when she reached the bottom, the world around he returning to normal speed as she did too. Hulk landed beside her, all but throwing him off of him and onto the ground. The speedster rushed over to his side, soon being joined by Steve and Thor. The latter ripped off the mask off of Tony's face, only for them to find him still unmoving and seemingly unbreathing.

The Hulk roared in his face.

And Tony bolted awake, gasping in a breath,

"What the hell? What just happened? Please tell me nobody kissed me?"

Winter was the one that ended up dropping to her knees next to him, "No one kissed you, Stark, you son of a bitch."

"Language," Gen huffed, sour from being kicked out of the driver's seat at that important moment.

"We won," Steve told him, seeming just as relieved as all of Legion.

"Alright. Hey. Alright. Good job, guys. Let's just not come in tomorrow," all of them let out shaky laughs at that, "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."

"Yeah, sounds good to me," Winter could practically hear the smile in Kae's voice.

But sadly, Thor hadn't forgotten their main problem, "We're not finished yet."

"And then shawarma after," Tony concluded.

Winter stood, helping up Tony along with Steve, the five of them headed up the ruined tower until they reached the floor where they met up with Natasha and Clint, then the Avengers strode to where an injured Loki lay in a dent of concrete.

Winter aimed her gun with it's last bullet as they all stood over him, "I told you you should've gone for a more primitive planet."

"If it's all the same to you. I'll have that drink," she just scoffed.

I changed my mind about waiting an extra week. So, welcome to the last Manhattan Monday, because on Friday I'm going to be posting the epilogue and the sequel to this book, Sokovia. So, I hope that you'll all have a fabulous week, and I'll see you all again on Friday (actually Friday this time because I ended up writing both this chapter and the epilogue in the few hours after I finished writing chapter twenty-two).
~ Aria