Storm ≛ Tony Stark ≛

24.

Sue threw her hands up and produced the biggest dome of protection she could muster. She willed it to stretch over Thor and Steve, the latter being at least fifteen metres away. She expected chunks of the leviathan to fall and bounce off the forcefield, but when half of the beast stayed intact as it fell from the sky, the collision was too much for her.

The barrier broke apart as the leviathan's body fell to the side, missing everyone below. But Sue felt the impact and fell backwards, smacking the back of her head against the road. Blood slipped out of her nose, the sign of using too much power. Sue laid on the floor with her vision blurry and her side aching.

The other Avengers were getting tired. Steve was sent out of a building that he was in to protect civilians and landed on a car, caving in the roof. Bruce was surrounded and fired at by chariots, to which he roared and tried to swat them away like a swarm of flies. Natasha jumped off her highjacked chariot and landed on the Stark tower balcony that held the Tesseract and formed the portal. Clint swung through a window and smashed through its glass, wincing on the floor of an office at the collision. Tony fell out of the air after firing through the leviathan and crashed into the road, Chitauri approaching him with their weapons raised. Johnny was caught by a Chitauri that slipped behind him and sent him into the side of a building, his flight dwindling him down to the same street that Sue and Thor were on. He fell to his knees once he met the floor and felt the same dribble of blood leave his nose as his sister's.

'Are you alright, flaming man?' Thor walked over to Johnny and helped him to his feet.

'I'm good,' Johnny let out a hiss and put his hands on his hips, catching his breath. He touched the blood that leaked out his nose and saw Sue get to her feet.

'This is getting to be too much for me,' Sue let out in a breath. 'I don't know how much more I can take.'

'Stark, you hearing me?' Fury's voice filled Tony's helmet. 'We have a missile headed straight for the city.'

'How long?'

'Three minutes, at best. Stay low and wipe out the missile.'

Tony stood up after his moment of recovery and fired his repulsors at the Chitauri closet to him. He then took to the air and got JARVIS to track for a missile that was around the perimeter of New York City.

'JARVIS, put everything we got into the thrusters!'

'I just did.'

Sue stood with Thor, Steve and Johnny. The four of them stood cautious as Chitauri loomed in the streets nearby. They had fought for hours and were beaten, bruised and tired. The Storms stood next to each other and relished in the fact that they were both alive. They both joked over the earpieces during the battle, the other Avengers occasionally chiming in. They all hoped the jokes wouldn't stop, despite some of them being irritating and lame. But it confirmed who was alive and still fighting.

'I can close it!' Natasha's voice flooded their earpieces. 'Can anybody copy? I can shut the portal down!'

'Do it!' Steve cried.

'No, wait!' Tony was heard.

'Stark, these things are still coming!'

'I got a nuke coming in. It's gonna blow in less than a minute.'

Tony attached himself to the belly of the missile that headed for the city. He fired his boosters and repulsors to force its path to change and go upwards towards the portal. Tony used all his might to keep the missile going all the way through the sky and towards the Chitauri ship. He looked to his screen that showed Sue's vitals and even though her suit showed some injuries and fatigue, she was alive.