LIGHTNING STORM |b. barnes| [2]

CHAPTER 08

"GUYS." THE AVENGERS looked up into the sky to see more leviathans and Chitauri soldiers coming out of the portal.

"Call it, Cap." Stark urged and Rogers faced the group,

"Alright, listen up. 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 your turn it to ash." Rogers ordered,

Barton turned to Stark, "Wanna give me a lift?"

"Right. Better clench up, Legolas." Stark said before flying off with Barton.

"Ana you've gotta try and bottleneck that portal. Slow them down. You've got the lightning. Light the bastards up." Rogers said to the Russian before turning to Thor, "You'll help in the air, hit anything that comes near you."

Ana turned to thor, "Mind flying me up there?"

"Not at all." Thor smirked, wrapping his arm around her waist before twirling the hammer and flying off. He dropped her off on the Empire State Building before going to his sector.

Ana gripped the handles next to her and raised her hand to the sky. Storm clouds formed before lightning shot down at her. She absorbed the electricity before shooting it at the portal, killing the soldiers that were flying out of it.

The portal neglected to close and Ana decided that she needed to attack it at the source. She looked below her and found some Chitauri soldiers flying around. "I'm gonna regret this." She said before jumping.

Ana landed on one of the soldiers and kicked it off the flying vehicle and she took control. She made her way towards the Stark tower. When she neared, she jumped off the chariot and landed on top of the tower.

A certain redhead had beaten her to it, "What's a pretty thing like you doing in a place like this." Ana smirked, walking over to her,

Nat looked over at her, "You think you can fry this thing?"

Ana walked up the machine and absorbed the power from the building and shot lightning at the machine. There was some sort of force field around it and she growled in frustration,

Natasha sighed, "It was worth a shot."

"Loki's scepter... the energy...the Tesseract can't fight. You can't protect against yourself." Dr. Selvig stated from the edge of the building, catching Ana's and Nat's attention,

"It's not your fault. You didn't know what you were doing." Nat said, as they walked over to him,

"Well, actually I think I did. I built in a safety to cut the power source." Selvig replied,

"Loki's scepter." Ana stated,

"It might be able to close the portal." Selvig looked down, where the scepter was sitting on the balcony, "And I'm looking right at it."

Ana quickly jumped down to grab the scepter while Natasha stayed with the doctor before she returned to the machine. Selvig was typing away on his computer and nodded at the Russian.

She used Loki's scepter and slowly breaks into the force field, almost touching the Tesseract. "I can close it!" Ana told the others, "Can anybody hear me? We can shut the portal down!"

"Do it!" Rogers ordered,

"No, wait!" Stark demanded,

"Stark, these things are still coming!" Rogers said,

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

Ana watched from the tower as Stark flew into the portal, taking the missile with him. Suddenly, the Chituari fell over, powerless. She waited for Stark to come back through, but he never did. But she still waited, "Come on, Stark." She mumbled,

There was a bright light coming from the other side of the portal, "Close it."

Without hesitating, Ana pushed the scepter to touch the energy beam and the tesseract turned it off. The portal quickly closed and a small figure fell through, plummeting to the earth.

It was Iron Man.

He kept falling without any sign of slowing down. Ana watched as the Hulk jumped into the air and grabbed him. The two hit the ground and Ana waited for the news.

"What the hell?" She heard Stark's voice through her earpiece, "What just happened? Please tell me nobody kissed me?"

Ana laughed to herself and sat down on the gravel, Natasha sitting down beside her, "We won." Rogers answered,

"Alright. Hey. Alright. Good job, guys. Let's just not come in tomorrow. Let's just take a day. Have you ever tried shawarma?" Stark asked, "There's a shawarma joint about two blocks from here. I don't know what it is, but I wanna try it."

"We're not finished yet." Thor replied,

"And then shawarma after." Stark insisted.

Ana and Nat stood up, taking the scepter with her before meeting up with the other Avengers in Stark's penthouse. They gave her a pat on the back for being able to shut down the Tesseract and the portal. She smiled at them but fell as they approached the god who started it all.

"If it's all the same to you. I'll have that drink." He smiled sheepishly at them.