The Seventh Avenger by ElrondsScribe

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Chapter 10: No Way Out This Time, Cap

All rights belong to Marvel Studios and to the Tolkien Estate.

But of course, the moment of triumph did not last. Almost immediately Black Widow called their attention upward, and the Avengers watched in dismay as easily half a dozen more of the great wingless metal dragons, accompanied by hundreds and hundreds of Chitauri, came charging through the gap in the sky.

"Call it, Cap," said Iron Man.

Captain America took only a moment to form his strategy. "All right, listen up," he said. "Until we can close that portal up there, we're gonna use containment. Barton, I want you on that roof." He pointed at the nearest skyscraper. "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 you turn it to ash."

"Wanna give me a lift?" asked Hawkeye of Iron Man.

"Right," said Iron Man, crossing over to the archer and gripping his shoulder. "Better clench up, Legolas." And he hauled the man up to the assigned rooftop.

"Very funny, Stark," said Glorfindel, rolling his eyes.

"Thor," continued the Captain. "You've gotta try and bottleneck that portal, slow 'em down. You've got the lightning, light the bastards up."

Thor gave a brief nod, and with a twirl of Mjolnir launched himself skyward, eventually landing atop the Empire State building.

"Romanoff, Glorfindel, you're on the ground with me," said the Captain. "We keep the fight here. And Hulk!"

The Hulk turned at the sound of his name, and looked down at his blue-clad leader.

"Smash!" said the Captain, holding up his gloved fist to demonstrate.

Hulk's face broke into a large grin, and he gave a powerful leap that carried him high into the air. He landed on the side of one of the buildings to which Chitauri were clinging, and began to crush them easily in his huge hands. They fired at him as well as they could, but their shots seemed only to make him angrier. He leapt from building to building, and even snagged a hovercraft mid-flight.

Meanwhile, the trio on the ground got to work. Chitauri warriors were dropping to the ground in droves, and it was all the three Avengers could do to keep them reasonably contained. Glorfindel had to admit himself impressed with both the Captain and the Widow - like many Elves, he had a bad habit of underestimating what Mortals were capable of.

Through his earpieces he could hear Hawkeye advising Iron Man, and the cocky man actually thanking him for it. In the distance the Hulk gave the occasional bellow as he smashed his way through Chitauri (and tall buildings). Random flashes of lightning indicated Thor's activity.

When at last the earthbound trio had finished off all the Chitauri immediately around them, all three of them had to pause to catch their breath.

"All of this means nothing, so long as that portal remains open," said Glorfindel glumly.

"Our biggest guns couldn't touch it," said the Captain.

The Black Widow eyed the blue beam shooting up from Stark Tower (most of the lettering was gone by now). "Maybe it's not about guns," she suggested.

The other two followed her gaze, and then looked back at her. "You wanna get up there, you're going to need a ride," said the Captain.

"I got a ride," said the Widow, gesturing toward the Chitauri hovercrafts flying over head. "I could use a lift, though." And she backed up all the way to the railing at the edge of the bridge.

Glorfindel eyed the woman dubiously. "You sure you want to try that?"

"Yeah," said the Widow, and she cracked a smile at him. "It's gonna be fun."

The Captain looked just as skeptical as Glorfindel, but all he said was, "Good luck," and accordingly he adjusted the position of his shield.

The Widow made a running leap at the Captain, vaulting off the front of a car along the way, and bounced off the front of the shield. The Captain gave her a boost at just the right instant, and she sailed high into the air and caught hold of the end of a Chitauri hovercraft as it whizzed by. Glorfindel saw her swing herself up as the hovercraft sped out of sight.

Another knot of Chitauri dropped to the ground and began to approach Glorfindel and Captain America. As the two Avengers fought them off, Iron Man dropped to the ground and pointed his hand rays at the Captain's shield. Glorfindel spun out of the way as the beams reflected off the shield and burned down several Chitauri all at once. Two of the remaining Chitauri tried to grab Iron Man's metal-plated legs as he began to rise into the air; Glorfindel swept off their heads in one swift motion. Iron Man sailed up into the sky again, and as before Glorfindel and the Captain were left to manage the Chitauri on the bridge.

"Captain," came the voice of Hawkeye. "The bank on 42nd, past Madison, they caught a lot of civilians in there."

The Captain, who had just escaped being pinned to the ground by a Chitauri warrior that had made clever use of its gun, picked up his shield and looked at Glorfindel. "You got this?" he asked.

"I'm good," said Glorfindel shortly. "Go."

"I'm on it, Barton," said the Captain, and took off down the street.

There were only about twenty Chitauri left. Glorfindel did not tire easily, but he was out of conditioning for a sustained battle, and he was beginning to feel it. He gritted his teeth and fought on, hoping that there were no more Chitauri on the way. Thankfully, there seemed to be none, and Glorfindel finished off the last of his immediate foes and trotted off to see about the Captain.

He arrived in front of the bank in time to see policemen and firefighters ushering civilians out and down the street. The Captain was leaning against a car, staring numbly at the destruction of the city. His helmet was gone, and Glorfindel suddenly realized just how young the Man really was. He said nothing, but slowly and deliberately wiped his sword and sheathed it, waiting for Steve to gather himself.

"Director Fury is no longer in command," announced World Security Councilwoman Hawley to a SHIELD pilot sitting in a jet. "Override order 7 Alpha 11."

"7 Alpha 11, confirmed," said the pilot. "Prepare for takeoff."

"Stark, are you hearing me?" came the voice of Nick Fury. "We have a missile headed straight for the city!"

"How long?" asked Iron Man, battling alone in the street.

"Three minutes at best," said the Director of SHIELD. "Stay low and wipe out the missile."

"JARVIS," commanded the inventor. "Put everything we got into the thrusters."

"I just did," replied the AI, and after shaking a Chitauri warrior off his legs Iron Man flew skyward.

It had not taken long for Glorfindel and Captain America to find themselves in battle again. Thor had joined them, and the mighty Mjolnir made great headway against the seemingly endless Chitauri. Glorfindel was nearly worn out, and the Captain seemed just a touch slower too - a shot in the side from a Chitauri gun brought him down hard, where he groaned and lay struggling to get up. Thor swung Mjolnir into a fallen car so that it flipped over, felling a few Chitauri as it crashed to the broken asphalt. He then went to haul the Captain to his feet while Glorfindel cut down the last three Chitauri.

"You ready for another bout?" asked Thor.

The Captain's hand was pressed to his side and he was obviously trying not to grimace. "What, you gettin' sleepy?" he asked.

And then through their earpieces they heard the voice of the Black Widow, and what she said changed everything. "I can close it!" she said. "I can shut the portal down, can anybody hear me?"

"Do it!" cried the Captain.

"No, wait," said Iron Man.

"Stark, these things are still coming!" protested the Captain.

"I got a nuke coming in," reported Iron Man. "It's gonna blow in less than a minute, and I know right where to put it."

Glorfindel looked up at the sky in dismay, craning his neck and catching sight of the armored hero with his arms around some large object. "Stark, you know if you do that, you won't come back," he said. There was no reply, and Iron Man sped the missile straight toward the portal without the slightest turn or a moment's hesitation.

He wouldn't - would he?

It was perhaps a good thing that there were no living Chitauri close by. Glorfindel did not know where Hulk and Hawkeye were, but he knew that Thor and the Captain were staring just as intently at the sky as he was. Iron Man took the missile up the side of his own Tower, and flew up beside the blue beam. He soared straight into the portal, and vanished from their sight.

There's no way out this time, Cap.

Glorfindel tore his eyes from the portal, and saw that a few living Chitauri had made their way over. He had just cried a warning to the Captain and Thor when suddenly all the Chitauri staggered and collapsed, and where they fell they lay unmoving. There was one wingless dragon that had still been alive and flying, and it fell abruptly on top of two skyscrapers where it also lay unmoving. The Avengers turned their eyes hopefully back up to the portal, but there was no sign of Iron Man, only a vague blur of color.

"Supernova," Glorfindel noted dully, squinting up at what little he could see of what was on the other end of the portal. "The nuke went off."

And the Captain said, "Close it."

Whatever the Widow had meant when she said she could shut the portal, she made good on it now. In a few seconds, the beam of blue light had vanished, and the hole in the blue of the sky shrank swiftly until it disappeared. And then, impossibly, a dark dot caught Glorfindel's eye, and he shouted aloud.

"What?!" roared the Captain, startled.

Glorfindel pointed up at the rapidly growing dot without a word.

"That can't be -" cried Thor in astonishment.

"Is that -" the Captain squinted, and a smile broke over his face. "Son of a gun!" he said.

But even as the dot became more distinct (and more definitely Iron Man), the Avengers saw that something was wrong.

"He's not slowing down!" said Thor worriedly, and he began spinning Mjolnir again, obviously intending to fly to his comrade's rescue. But the Hulk leapt into the air from a nearby rooftop, caught Iron Man mid-leap, and with his free hand snagged a building to slow his fall. He landed easily on his back just a few feet away from where the trio were standing, and with a grunt he gently set the armored man down on the ground.

Glorfindel, Thor, and the Captain all came running, and they carefully turned Iron Man over on his back and anxiously pulled off his visor. Tony Stark's bruised face inside the helmet was still, and the armor surrounding the Arc Reactor was so thick that there was no chance of hearing a heartbeat.

"Well?" asked Thor and the Captain in unison.

Glorfindel laid a hand on the billionaire's brow, then ripped off his helmet and bent close to his mouth. "He's breathing," he reported.

"But he's not moving," said Thor.

"Wait," said Glorfindel, and there was an anxious silence.

And then the Hulk decided he'd had enough. He gave a loud roar, and Tony started awake with a cry of surprise. "What the hell?!" he squawked. "What happened? Please tell me nobody kissed me!"

Glorfindel passed his hands over his face and drew a deep breath that was partly a groan; Thor and the Captain smiled in genuine relief. "We won," said the Captain.

This seemed to cheer the hero considerably. "Alright, yay!" he said. "Alright, good job guys! Let's just not come in tomorrow, let's take a day. Have you ever tried shawarma? There's a shawarma joint about two blocks from here. I don't know what it is, but I want to try it."

Weary as he was, Glorfindel couldn't help but chuckle as the man rambled. But Thor looked grimly up at Stark Tower (all the lettering but the first "A" was gone) and said, "We're not finished yet."

Loki's up there, isn't he?

Tony Stark frowned. ". . . and then shawarma after?" he suggested.

When Loki dragged himself up out of the crater in the floor that the Hulk had earlier beaten him into, he looked around to see seven very angry Avengers glowering down at him. Hawkeye had an arrow on the string, and it was pointed at him.

Loki took them all in, and seemed to know without asking that he had lost. "If it's all the same to you," he said wryly. "I'll have that drink now."

The Hulk snorted.

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