Closing The Portal
---
Will punched an alien in the face.
He, Will Banner, one of the most awkward men to ever lived just punched an alien in its ugly face.
He has never been so proud of himself.
Will and Steve worked together to get rid of the aliens. Will would shoot an alien that was behind Steve, while he would throw his shield at anything behind Banner. They worked well together.
After a while, Iron Man joined them on the ground. As he flew, he knocked some of them down, then used his replusors to shoot the Chitauri. Tony then shot at Steve's shield, which caused it to reflect and hit a few aliens, and almost hit Will but he jumped out of the way in time. With that done, Tony took off.
Suddenly, four aliens swamped Will. He quickly kicked one in the leg, causing it to fall down, then shot it in the head. One down three to go. He turned to another, but he felt a pain in his shoulder and the force of it made him fall to the floor. Will pressed his hand to his shoulder, he looked down and saw blood covering it.
His heartbeat increased.
New York around started to shift and change into a white hallway. Will let out a small cry. Why does his mind always go back to this?
He looked up and saw the face he expected. The man he killed. Will looked down at his hands and saw that they were covered in blood, his mind didn't make the connection that it was his own blood.
Will closed his eyes tightly and took deep, shaky breathes, "It's not real. It's not real. It's not real. He's not here, he's dead." He whispered repeatedly.
There was a sudden thud and a sickly cry. He snapped his eyes open. He was back. Back in New York, during an alien attack. To be honest, he didn't know which one he preferred.
Looking up, he saw that the thud had been the Chitauri surrounding him, the cry had been their cry of pain. Confused, he glanced up to see Steve standing a few meters away from him, shieldless. Will looked to see the shield lying next to him. The doctor nodded at his Captain in thanks.
Will was about to stand up and hand Steve his shield back, when an alien tackled the Captain to the floor.
Rushing to stand, Will grabbed the shield and ran over to the two on the ground. Using all the strength he had, he pulled his arm back and brought it hard down on the Chitauri, hitting him in the back of the head with the shield. It fell.
Banner also fell to the ground as he grew tired.
Panting, Steve stood up and helped the younger man do the same. He checked his wounds and wondered how the doctor, a person who wasn't prepared for combat, was lasting this long. Clapping a hand on his shoulder, he told him, "Will, you're doing great. You just need to last a little longer, alright?"
Will let out a chuckle, but it made he start coughing, after he recovered he said, "This is a good workout, always wanted to go to the gym."
Steve laughed, slapping his hand on Will's shoulder a few times before letting go and picking up his shield, getting ready for another wave.
"Captain, the bank on 42nd past Madison. They've cornered a lot of civilians in there." Barton informed the Captain over the com-link.
"We're on it." Rogers told him, then looked over to Will, who nodded and followed after him.
They got to the Bank, Steve gave him quick orders before jumping in through the window.
Will groaned as he had to climb up instead, no way was he jumping.
As he finally got in, two Chitauri shot at him. He picked up a chair that was on the floor and thrown it at them, knocking one to the floor. Steve then kicked a table at them.
Will could in a beeping noise which sped up over time. Looking around, he spotted a device on the floor, it uncomfortable looked like a bomb.
Steve had just finished dealing with an alien and threw it over the edge and onto the ground of the people, he was then attacked from behind by another.
Will leaned over the railing, pointed to the door and shouted, "Everyone, get out!"
However, before he could finish, some of the people gasped and yelled. He turned to see a Chitauri behind him. Before he could do anything, it kicked him in the chest causing him to go over the railing and slam against the ground.
"Will!" Steve yelled as he watched. He flipped over the alien behind him, causing the other to shoot and kill it. Just then the tempo of the bomb increase, Steve rolled out of the way to pick his shield up and protected himself as the alien threw it at him just in time for it to explode, making him fly out the window and land on top of a car.
He struggled for a bit to get up due to the pain. As he caught his breath, he hobbled back to the bank entrance. Steve watched as the civilians ran out, some of them thanking him.
He was waiting to see if Will was alright. He got his answer when a man and a woman were holding the arms of Will Banner around their necks. Steve could see a trail of blood running down his forehead. He was unconscious
The Captain rushed over to the three, quickly saying thank you to the two who helped him. Rogers started to drag him along, but then changed by putting an arm under his legs and under his neck to carry him in his arms.
Steve didn't like the way Will dangled in his arms.
Quickly, Steve brought Will over to the doctors and nurses near-by who were trying to help the injured people. Some of them saw Captain America storm over and run up to him and helped him put Will down.
Some of them were calling out the injuries they could see; broken hand, stab wound in the shoulder, big cut along his back, stitches in his head came unloose, more head injuries.
Rogers looked them look in the eye with a deadly seriously look, "You keep him alive, you hear me?" They all nodded, "When this is all over, I will be back for him."
Before he left them to do their work, he looked back at the younger man, "You're going to alright, Will."
While he was running, Steve put his hand up to his ear to activate his comm, "Guys, Will is down."
"What?" Steve heard Natasha shout over the wind, he guessed she was still on that vehicle.
"He got kicked over a railing and got knocked out. I left him with some people that could help."
"God dammit!"
"Oops." Steve heard Tony whisper.
"Stark?"
"Well...I might have told the big guy. And he may or not be going after Loki..."
"For God's sake, Stark!"
"Oh, I'm such I horrible person, aren't I? I was just letting him know about his brother!"
Steve groaned, "Yeah, and he might kill Loki. We need him, we have no idea what the Chitauri will do if he dies!"
Tony was silent for a few moments before saying, "Good point."
Rogers groaned again.
"It's alright, Steve. I'm near the tower now, I will stop the Hulk if he gets out of hand." Natasha informed him, as she saw the Tower in view.
"Thanks, Romanoff."
Natasha started to speed the vehicle up, hopping to stop the Hulk. What she didn't realise was that Loki wasn't even in the Tower but behind her, which she soon found out as he started firing at her.
She asked her friend Clint to try and shoot him, which he did but it fail. Almost. The arrow had a small bomb in it and soon blew up in Loki's face causing him to crash at the Tower. When the assassin got close enough, she jumped and rolled on the ground.
Natasha and Loki made short eye contact before the Hulk jumped up onto the tower and kicked Loki through the glass, making him slam against a wall and groan in pain.
The Hulk started to run towards him but stopped when Loki stood and screamed, "Enough!"
Hulk watched confused as he spoke, "You are, all of you, beneath me! I am a God, you dull creature. And I will not be bullied by-"
He was cut off by the Hulk as he seemed to have enough. He gripped the 'God's' leg and slammed him down on the ground repeatedly. He then paused and slammed him a few more times just in case.
Loki was whimpering in pain on the floor as the Hulk left saying in a deep voice, "For brother, Puny God."
Outside, Natasha watched this with a smile before running off to the beacon.
"The sceptre." A voice said behind her making her look, she sees Doctor Selvig on the floor.
"Doctor."
Panting, he said, "Loki's sceptre. The energy. The Tesseract can't fight, but you can't protect against yourself."
Natasha wasn't sure what he was saying. "It's not your fault. You didn't know what you were doing."
"Actually, I think I did. I built in a safety to cut their power source."
"Loki's sceptre." She said, realising what he was saying.
"It may be able to close the portal." He then looked down over the edge, "And I'm looking right at it."
It took Natasha a few minutes to race down to the lower level and retrieve the sceptre, then run back to Selvig.
He pointed to the centre and shouted, "Right at the crown!"
Natasha listened and aimed the sceptre in the middle and pushed. She was met with some resistance but was able to move past it. As she pushed she got closer, "I can close it. Can anybody copy? I can shut the portal down."
"Do it!" Steve shouted, glad they finally found a way.
"No, wait." Tony interrupted.
"Stark, these things are still coming."
"I got a nuke coming in. It's gonna blow in less than a minute." Tony informed them while flying towards the missile heading toward the city. "And I know just where to put it." He flew to the nuke and held it at the bottom, directing it.
"Stark, you know that's a one-way trip."
"Save the rest for the turn, J."
"Sir, shall I try Miss Potts?" His AI asked.
"Might as well."
Everyone watched with held breath as Iron Man directed the bomb up into the sky, almost hitting the Stark Tower but only skimming it.
And everyone released their breath as they as watched Tony Stark disappear through the worm hole.
"Power shutting down."
Tony let go of the nuke and watched as the Chitauri based blew up, causing all the Chitauri on Earth to collapse and die.
He could feel his body falling. He could feel tears threaten to fall as he thought about the women he loved. He closed his eyes and let his body fall.
"Come on, Stark." Natasha whispered, eyeing the portal hoping to see a metal suit fly out.
"Close it." Steve ordered.
Natasha hesitated for a moment, before pushing the sceptre forward, touching the centre. She watched as the beacon stopped causing the portal to close. Not before a figure fell out, making her smile.
Steve had also smile, "Son of a gun."
However, his smile soon faded as he noticed that he was falling not flying.
"He's not slowing down." Thor stated as he started to wing his hammer to take off but soon stopped as he saw the Hulk jump through the sky, catch Iron Man and land on the floor.
Both Thor and Steve ran over to Tony, "Is he breathing?"
Thor ripped his mask off, then Rogers tried to see if he was.
Tony didn't move.
The three of them watched as Tony lied still, unmoving.
Suddenly, the Hulk roared, causing Tony to wake up gasping, "What the hell? What just happened? Please tell me nobody kissed me?"
"We won." Steve told him, panting relief.
Tony sighed, "All right, yay! Hurray. Good job, guys. Let's just not come in tomorrow. Let's just take a day." He looked over at his friends, "Have you ever tried Shawarma?" Steve laughed, "There's a Shawarma joint about two blocks from here. I don't know what it is, but I want to try it."
"We're not finished yet." Thor told.
"And then Shawarma after."
The Hulk groaned, gaining their attention, "Will?" He asked in a deep voice.
Thor and Tony looked over at Steve, who hung his head down before lifting it up to looked at the big guy, "He's alright. He's with people who can help him. We will get him back later, okay?"
The Hulk nodded.
The six of them met up at the Stark Tower to deal with Loki. They watched as he groaned and moaned as he crawled on the floor when he paused. He turned around and saw the Avenger in front of him, glaring right at him.
"If it's all the same to you, I'll have that drink now." He said, looking over at Stark.
---
The next day New York tried to get back to normal. Everyone had lost someone and were trying to recover after the attack.
After arresting Loki, Steve had taken Natasha and Bruce to where he had left Will. The doctors and nurses had thanked them for what they have done and informed them that Will was still unconscious but would wake up soon.
Natasha had pulled some strings and was able to get Will into an advanced medical room on the Helicarrier, where the most skilled could work on him. Which Bruce was very thankful for.
After that was sorted, the three of them, plus Tony and Clint, went to watch as Thor and Loki used The Cube to teleport back to their home planet. They all took a step back as the two disappeared in a blue light.
Together, Bruce and Tony entered a car and left to the Tower, not before Natasha gave Bruce her number, just in case there was any news on Will.
Steve got onto his motorbike and left, as well.
A car had pulled up to Barton and Romanoff and took them to a plane, which then took them to the Helicarrier.
The Helicarrier was still under repair, so it was a very noise place.
Natasha immediately headed for the medical centre. She almost pushed people out of the way to get there.
When she entered, the doctor lead her to Will.
For the first time she can remember, she was so terrified. And she didn't like that feeling. But the other feeling, the one that made her heart beat faster at the thought of seeing Will, the warm feeling that spread around her body. She liked that feeling.
The doctor brought her to a room with a bed in the middle. On top of the bed was Will. His head was wrapped in a bandage with a dark red spot on the side. His hand was also wrapped up. There were multiple cuts and bruises all over his face and possibly his body.
Natasha turned to the doctors and nurses, thanking them for all their work.
With that, she grabbed a chair and sat down next to Will.
Hesitantly, she placed her hand over his. And waited. Waited for him to wake.