Unexpected

Ending It

The higher I flew the more precarious my craft seemed and all around me there was a chaos of aliens and there were no Avengers in sight. Dipping and wheeling, struggling to keep my broken craft from dropping me, I came up to the Penthouse of Stark Tower. Laying on the sky deck, catching the glimmering rays of the sun was Loki's golden scepter. I'd found it! My limbs felt incredibly heavy and it was all I could do to land on the deck next to the weapon with its evilly glowing stone. I didn't land well, however and I ending up skidding on my side, my leg getting caught under my craft. Pulling my ankle out from under the blasted thing I knew something was wrong. It hurt so much! Looking at my side, I was horrified to see that I was no longer healing; I was almost out of juice. My eyes fluttered a bit and I wanted to sleep, my head was so heavy, was I going to pass out? How much blood had I lost? It didn't matter; the scepter was right over there.

Crawling I snatched up the scepter, feeling the cool, smooth gold in my hands. I loathed this thing! This was the cause of so much death and destruction and misery! A part of me wanted to chuck it over the building side and watch it break and bend as it hit the ground far below, but that was nonsense, I had to get it to the Tesseract. The portal had to be closed! With much difficulty I stood up, leaning heavily on the scepter and with tender, hopping steps to try not to put too much weight on my damaged ankle so that it wouldn't send jets of burning pain up and down my leg and spine. I just had to get to the roof!

Wobbling and grunting, I slowly hobbled into the penthouse trying not to scrunch up my torso and cause more throbbing in my side wound. When I saw the state of the penthouse room, however, my pain was forgotten. There, lying in the cracked marble flooring, lying perfectly still with scrapes on his face and his armor in worse repair was Loki. Why was he so still?

Tumbling back onto the ground at his side, I moved my bloody, scraped hands around his neck, trying to find a pulse. The Hulk hadn't killed him? He couldn't have killed him! Where was his pulse? Panic swarmed in my chest like an angry hornet's nest. Then, to my delight, I saw his eyelids flutter. My breath caught in my chest, had I really seen that? Was he alive?

"Loki?" My voice sounded raw and the whisper was so quiet even I could barely hear it. Then his eyes opened fully, for just a second, rolling in his head. I gasped and felt a hot tear trickle from my eye and saw it fall on his cheek. "You're alive!"

He made a thin whining sound and his eyes, a clear bluish green tint, his own beautiful eyes without a hint of the strange glow, focused on me for a fleeting second.

"I'm sorry! I'm so, so sorry! I went against you! I didn't hide... I-I've been fighting, and...I've been trying to find you! The portal needs to be closed, Loki, it does, there's so much death, too much, I couldn't stand by, couldn't let it happen..." a choking cry interrupted me, "I'm sorry."

Cupping the side of his face gently, more tears dirty from my face streaked down my cheeks and onto my neck, I leaned down and gave his slightly parted lips a kiss, "I love you." My voice wavered and with a heave and a gasp as the movement felt like it tore open my wound and my ankle retorted at my weight being put on it again, I stood up and started hobbling as quick as I could toward the stairs leading to the roof, certain that the elevator was out of order. I looked around once more to see him lying there, prone and alone, but I had to finish this. Wiping my face as best I could, trying to hold back painful cries as I made my way up the stairs I tried to refocus, the Tesseract. I needed to get to the Tesseract.

I had only gotten up the first flight of stairs when I heard a scrambling sound coming from above. Fearful that it was another enemy I pushed myself against the wall to support me and raised the scepter with all my remaining fierceness in a defensive posture. From the flight of stairs above me came two legs in skin-tight black pants. Not a Chitauri. The rest of the person came into sight and I saw the same red-headed woman in a black cat suit I'd seen before, the Black Widow.