Chapter 3
They were everywhere. Swarming the streets, taking over the skies, killing civilians left right and centre. The Avengers watched the aliens pour out of a portal that had been opened above New York, and they did what they did best.
They fought.
It seemed as if the swarms of aliens were never ending, they knocked one down and 2 more would take its place. But throughout the haze, Tony had cried out into the comms, “I found Selvig unconscious on top of Stark Tower. He seems fine, just asleep.”
Everyone had paused at that, wondering why Selvig had been left there, wondering where Loki was. But there were more Chitauri coming and the thought was pushed from their minds.
Thor couldn’t help but feel as if he was being watched throughout the battle. He would turn, feeling eyes on his back, to see only bodies and ruble. But then, out of the corner of his eye, he saw it.
The briefest flash of green.
Thor couldn’t help but breathe a sigh of relief, knowing his brother was still out there, knowing he hadn’t perished in the invasion. Even if he was still committing mischief, he was alive, and that was all that mattered.
That’s what Thor told himself.
As the battle raged on, it wasn’t only Thor, but the other Avengers (minus the Hulk) who noticed there was an extra player on the field.
Steve had been giving it all he had, his shield only taking out so many at a time. He watched as his shield lodged itself in a Chitauri’s chest, dropping with the alien, as more swarmed on him.
There was only so much he could do without a weapon, and the aliens only kept coming. He could feel himself tire, overwhelmed by the amount of enemies surrounding him, he was panicking, swinging wildly, hoping his punches landed, there wasn’t much more he could do, he felt himself being pulled down, when suddenly-
In a flash of green, the aliens had been thrown off of him, their bodies littering the ground. Steven knelt, catching his breath, searching for the source of the light. He saw a dead stare watching him from the side, Loki’s gaze settled just to the side of him, as it always was.
Steve saw Loki smirk slightly in his direction, before disappearing.
“Thanks, I guess?” Steve said, speaking to the empty air. He waited for one more moment, before grabbing his shield from where it laid in the enemies body, running back out onto the field, continuing the fight.
“Fuck, these guys are everywhere, aren’t they?” Tony asked into the comms, not particularly expecting a reply, but deciding to share his thoughts anyways. They were good thoughts and deserved to be shared.
Tony was flying through the air, weaving through the streets of New York, watching the battle unfold beneath him. It really was a grade A shit show.
Tony had been so focused on watching Thor zapping a few of the Chint-ass-ies or whatever the fuck they were called, he barely noticed the giant warship heading straight toward him. He swerved just before crashing headfirst into it, thanks to JARVIS’ voice telling him he might want to think about turning soon, unless he would rather risk irreparable damage to his face.
Thank god for JARVIS.
That did leave Tony with a slight problem, the alien warship flying around the skies of New York. But it was fine, he could handle it. Probably.
“Alright JARVIS,” Tony said, circling back around, flying towards the alien ship, currently wrecking absolute havoc on his hometown, which, rude, “Let’s kick some alien ass.”
“Of Course Sir,” came JARVIS’ reply, and Tony couldn’t help but smile.
Tony had planned on flying in, shooting the ship with some of his blasters, watching ti explode, and calling it a job well done.
He certainly hadn’t planned on it absorbing his blasts and firing them back at him.
Tony swore loudly, dodging the blasts (his blasts) circling the ship, searching for any kind of weak point.
There weren’t any that he could see.
Suddenly, tons of smaller ships were released from the mothership, starting to swarm the skies of the city streets, and wasn’t that fan-freaking-tastic.
Tony tried to shoot the smaller ships, but god damn if they weren’t fast little fuckers, zooming around on their, whatever it was they were riding.
He let out a shout, blaster halting, as one of the ships guns hit him in the shoulder, leaving a trail of smoke billowing out of the mark left of the suit.
That definitely wasn’t good.
Before Tony could do anything in retaliation, he watched as there was a flash of green, and a ship went tumbling towards the street below, a thick trail of smoke following. Multiple flashes of green, followed by each ship following the fate of the first, before all that remained was the mothership, the Big Mama as Tony would like to call it.
He turned midair, looking at the ship, only to find a figure standing on top of it, hands faintly glowing.
JARVIS zoomed in for him, and after getting a closer look, Tony could identify the mystery hero as Loki.
So more of a mystery anti-hero, but hey, he’ll take what he can get.
Loki waved his hand slightly, either in a gesture of acknowledgement or some magical voodoo bullshit, before disappearing.
Minutes later, the mothership exploded, and Loki was nowhere to be seen. Tony couldn’t help but smile.
Clint and Natasha had to agree, that this was absolutely nothing like Budapest.
They were fighting back to back, a swarm of Chitauri soldiers surrounding them on all sides, Clint firing his bow as fast as he could, and Nat switching between her pistols and hand to hand combat.
After her pistol had run out of ammo, she had grabbed one of the Chitauri weapons off of their corpse, and started firing. Clint couldn’t help but feel a warm sense of pride and respect swell up in his chest.
But no matter how hard they fought, the Chitauri still kept swarming in, and there were still only two of them. Clint was running low on ammo, and he was looking around for the closest gun he could use when that inevitably happened, but his thoughts were cut short when a scream pierced the air.
Natasha.
“NAT,” he screamed, searching for her through the swarm of aliens, not pausing to put an arrow through any alien that came near him.
Then he saw her, clutching a heavily bleeding wound on her arm, still trying to keep the Chitauri back. Clint rushed to her, shooting any Chitauri that had tried to get near her, before going to inspect her wound.
It was deep, and it didn’t look like it was going to stop bleeding any time soon. Clint turned, ciring off the last of his arrows, killing the newest Chitauri closing in on them, before quickly ripping a strip of his shirt off and tying it around her arm. It wasn’t much, but it would do for now.
He saw Nat try to pick up the gun she had previously dropped, but she winced when trying to lift it, so Clint grabbed it, turning to try and kill the incoming Chitauri.
Looking at the amount of them coming towards them, he knew there was no way he could do it on his own. They had barely been able to do it with both of them, and now Nat was out of the field, until they could properly bandage her arm, or at least until she could grab a gun without her arm spasming from pain.
Clint tried, he did. But there were too many, and he saw the moment they closed in, saw the moment it became too much for him alone, saw the moment it wasn’t worth it to keep trying.
But then, there were cut off screams, coming from the aliens surrounding them, and looking around, Clint could see knives lodging themselves into the Chitauri, the aliens dropping one by one, until there are none left.
Clint surveys the area, and all he catches is a glint of green, before it’s gone in a flash, almost as if it had never been there at all.
Clint whispers a silent prayer, before turning and tending to Nat’s arm, telling her it will be alright, everything was gonna be ok.
Loki knew the portal had to be closed, or else the Chitauri wouldn’t stop coming, and the Avengers would fall one by one, and Th-He would win.
He had planned on Selvig closing the portal once the mind control was removed, but Selvig was out cold, and wouldn’t be waking up in the foreseeable future, so Loki made his way from the battlefield to the top of Stark Tower, preparing for what he would have to do, preparing for the consequences.
He appeared on top of the building, his magic sensing the layout of the rooftop, the power of the tesseract drawing him ever closer.
He gripped the scepter, stumbling toward the device, hand held out in front of him. He felt his hand meet soldi metal, and felt the tesseract, heard it singing, and knew this was what he was looking for.
Taking a deep breath, Loki gripped the scepter tighter, before taking a blind (ha) swing, knocking the tesseract from where it rested in the device.
He could feel the portal close, the energy in the atmosphere shifting, and he felt in his mind, the Other trying to force himself into his mind. Loki resisted, stumbling towards where he hoped the stairs were.
Loki could hear the beast raining destruction outside on the city and the remaining aliens running rampant in the streets, and that was exactly what he needed right now.
He sent out a simple light projection, to where he had assumed to beast was, based on what he could hear, hoping to draw the beast to the tower. All he needed was one good hit, one punch and it would all be over-
He heard the slamming of the beast, bricks crumpling,a roar echoing throughout the city, and all Loki could do was smile in relief.
He closed his eyes, not that it made any difference, and waited for the beast to arrive. He stood perfectly still in the middle of what he could only guess to be Starks lounge, but it could be any room in Starks home. Loki truly had no way of telling, not with his magic as depleted as it was currently.
The glass suddenly shattered, the floor shook, and he felt himself being grabbed around the waist, then he was slammed into the floor of Stark’s Tower, and everything went quiet.
He woke up to the sound of beeping, and the pitch black he had grown to know as his world. His magic scanned the room, and sensed 6 other presences with him, and Loki could feel himself automatically tense up, unaware of who they were or where he was.
The next thing he noticed, was the lack of pressure on his mind, there was no pain, no other presence forcing itself into his head, into his thoughts, It was just him.
He wanted to weep at the prospect.
Loki was fairly certain he did weep, because it was at that moment he felt a hand on his arm and a voice speaking quietly, asking him if he was ‘with them’.
He couldn’t help but flinch back from the contact, and the hand respectively pulled away, Loki silently thanked whoever it was for that, and he tried to focus on what they were saying.
“-ki? Loki, can you hear me? Are you awake?”
He nodded, not trusting his throat at that moment, a dry, scratchy feeling making itself present at that very moment.
“That’s good,” the voice said, which sounded like, Banner? But that wasn’t right, Banner was his enemy, he wouldn’t help him, he would lock Loki up, because he did try to invade Midgard, no matter the circumstances, and-
“Loki, can you try and slow your breathing down for me? Just like that, you’re doing great.”
Oh, he hadn’t even realised. How embarrassing. He focused on evening out his breaths, taking in deep, even breaths, like his mother had taught him, all those years ago.
After a few minutes of him getting his breathing under control, Banner spoke up again, “Can we get you anything? Some water maybe?”
“Why?” Loki asked, ignoring his question, despite how badly he wanted to accept the water, he knew better. They would only use it as leverage. Everything always comes with a price.
“Why, what?” Bruce asked, concern leaking into his voice.
“Why help me,” Loki rasped, his throat was killing him, but he pushed on, “I am your enemy, I attempted to enslave your planet, I killed people, surely you cannot just forgive me-”
A new voice had cut him off, the Lady Natasha if he was not mistaken, his memories of the invasion were still hazy, “Yes, you killed people. And yes, it was you who had showed up here, speaking up conquering Earth for some ‘glorious purpose’.
But it was also you who had shown up here, eyes scarred, blind, and according to Clint, under just as much influence as he was, if not more.” Loki was quiet, unsure of what to say to that.
“So,” she continued, “It’s obvious that you didn’t want to do any of this, and, if Clint isn’t responsible for the harm he did while being controlled, why should you be?” She finished, taking a step back.
The Captain cleared his throat, before speaking up, “You hurt a lot of people Loki, you did a lot of damage, and that’s pretty bad, yeah,” Loki couldn’t help but cover his face with his arm at that, hating at hearing the destruction he caused, no matter what had happened to before, it was still him.
The Captain continued, “But that doesn’t mean you can’t help fix everything, or you can’t fix what happened to you, as best as you can. None of us really know what happened, but obviously nothing good. You can stay here Loki, and help us, help the Avengers, and we can help you in return.”
Loki felt a hand grab his, and he heard a voice he never thought he’d hear again speak from right beside him, “Brother, please, we can make this right, together.”
Loki closed his eyes, taking a deep breath, before smiling, and letting out a shaky breath.
“Yeah,” he whispered, “Together.”