Loki's Return in Manhattan

Natasha on the same hand was able to bring herself up from hanging on a chariot. She took out a small knife from the scabbard on her back. With a strong force, she was able to cut the chain that is holding the chitauri gunner in place. Afterward, she pivoted and kicked it away and let it fall from the sky. Gathering all of her strength, she was able to drag herself steadily across the chariot until she was close enough to the driver.

With the right timing, she jumped and landed on the back of the driving enemy. Using the same knife, she pierce the enemy's back to gain control of it.

"Okay, turn... turn, left," Natasha worriedly said as she tried her best to maneuver the chariot by controlling the driver.

She was able to do so but at the same time it was a little too late and they hit a building ledge a little bit but after that, she was able to drive it straight and away from other enemies. Some enemies tried to catch her and shoot her. Hopefully, Tony came in time to blast off the enemy before he quickly went on his own route.

He saw that Steve is a little outnumbered on the ground so he went down there to help him. Steve throws his shield and fights the aliens while Tony uses his suit to fight them, punching some of them or shooting them with his own gun. When they found the opportunity, Tony used Steve's shield in order to refract his laser weapon and hit the enemies in line as Steve moved it sideways. On his way up, he shot a few Chitauris on the sides of the building where Clint is currently stationed.

On the way to the Stark building, Natasha encounters Loki who is riding one of the chariots as well. He follows her around and shoots her and the chariot she's on in an attempt to bring her down.

"Oh you," Natasha said as she looked back and saw Loki. "Hawkeye."

The certain call of his name caught Clint's attention. From his position, he looked at Natasha and saw her current situation. "Nat, what are you doing?"

"Uh... a little help?"

Clint clicked his bow to set the next arrow that will be released as a special arrow. Then he aimed at Loki. He waited for them to come closer before he smiled. "I got him."

Clint let go of the arrow and the wind was perfect as well as the curve of his shot. Though it almost hit Loki if only he wasn't able to catch it. Without even looking, Loki held the arrow even before it could hit him. He felt disappointed at Clint for even trying to attack him without him knowing that it was an exploding arrow.

Before he knew it, the arrow exploded and it caused him to fly and fall down on Stark Tower veranda. When he regained his posture, he looked up only to see Hulk jumping and coming strong on his way. Hulk hit him so hard like a quarterback and Loki found himself flying towards one of the center walls inside of the tower. He hit the wall and made a small crater on it.

After seeing the enemy fall down, Hulk hit the ground with his closed fist before preparing himself to attack Loki again.

"Enough!" Loki shouted with a matching hand gesture.

That made Hulk stop and listen to Loki.

"You are all of you, beneath me," he continued. "I am a god, you dull creature. And I will not be putty by-"

Before he can even finish his sentence, Hulk takes him by the ankle and hits him down on the ground a couple of times before Loki got hit by the power of his own sceptre. The blast made Hulk let go as he too got a little hurt from it. He wasn't really sure who was the one who used the sceptre but when he was able to regain his sight. He saw another Loki, kneeling on top of the one he was just fighting with earlier.

"I'm sorry, but this has to be done." The new Loki pierced his dagger through the heart of the other one, immediately killing him.

Hulk, although he has a little of Bruce's consciousness, didn't want to back down from the fight so he launched himself towards the other Loki. The other one sensed this and he immediately backed away with his hand in front of him.

"Hey, hey, hey," Loki said. "I'm not gonna fight."

Hulk stopped and looked at him. Loki stayed calm before he slowly kept his dagger and pointed at the scepter on the floor. They both looked at it before Loki spoke.

"Natasha might need that," he said.

Hulk took the scepter before he looked at Loki and once again Loki raised his hand up as if he's telling him that he's not going to fight anymore. Good thing that Hulk only left the place to go and find Natasha.

While all of this is going on, Tony continues tailing a Leviathan. Flying beside the monster, he tried to hit it with a laser but Jarvis, knowing better, spoke to him to give him a warning.

"Sir, we will lose power before we penetrate that shell," Jarvis informed Tony which made Tony stop.

Instead, he looked for a new route before doing a U-Turn to fly straight towards the Leviathan. "Jarvis, you ever hear the tale of Jonah?"

"I wouldn't consider him a role model," Jarvis answered.

Of course, Tony didn't listen to his assistant, instead, he went straight into the mouth of the monster and killed it instantly; however, the situation made Tony lose his momentum and balance. He fell down on an empty street but he was able to stand up. However, came the Chitauris shooting at him. At the same time, he heard Fury Fury speak at him from the earpiece.

"Stark, you hear me?" Fury asked. "You have a missile, heading straight for the city."

While trying to stand up from all the beatings he's receiving, Stark responds to him. "How long?"

"3 minutes, max," Fury answered. "Payload and wipe out midtown."

"Jarvis, put everything we got into the thrusters," Tony said before blasting off the enemy coming his way.

"I just did," Jarvis replied to him.

Then he flew up to go and find the missile.

Meanwhile, Thor and Steve continued fighting on the ground. They get hit and they hit them back just like how a normal battle is. However, Steve got unlucky and was hit on his stomach, making him fall down forward. Thor saw this and he used his hammer to hit the nearby car towards the incoming enemies. Afterward, he reached out his hand towards Steve and pulled him up to stand.

"You ready for another bout?" Thor asked as he looked at Steve who's holding onto his stomach.

"What? You getting sleepy?" Steve asked.

Suddenly Natasha spoke through their earpiece that caught their attention. "I can close it. Can anybody copy? I can shut the portal down."

"Do it!" Steve commanded upon hearing that.

"No, wait," Tony stopped them.

"Stark, these things are still coming," Steve informed him.

Flying near the bridge Tony spotted the missile. "I got a nuke coming in and it's gonna blow in less than a minute."

As the missile continued to move towards its location, Tony boosted his thrusters to match the speed and catch up with it.

"And I know just where to put it."

As Tony gets a hold of the missile above him, he hears Steve speak again. "Stark, you know that's a one-way trip."

"Save the rest for the turn J," Tony said as a command to Jarvis.

"Sir, shall I try Ms. Potts?" Jarvis replied instead.

Tony looked at the contact that he saw right in front of him inside of the suit and he had to pause for a while before replying. "Might as well."

Tony continued moving up while holding onto the missile and because the portal is just right above his Stark Tower, he waited to reach the building before completely flying up and out through the portal. He successfully did so and it was a few more kilometers away from the opening before his suit powered down and let go of the missile.

From afar, Tony watched as the missile hit the mothership of the enemies, completely shutting down the Chitauris on Earth and even the Leviathans. While the other Avengers kept looking up in the sky, waiting for Tony to come back.

"Come on Stark," Natasha said while looking up straight at the portal.

But after a few minutes, he still hasn't come back. This made Steve give out a command to Natasha even though it was against his will. "Close it."

For a few more seconds Natasha waited before she looked back down at the machine in front of her before she pushed the scepter forward even more so that the crown of the machine meets the end of the scepter. In a sudden, the power was cut and the portal started to slowly close. There's still no sign of Tony until the sky cleared out and that's when they saw him falling from the sky.

"Son of a guy," Steve commented as he and Thor continued to look at Tony falling down.

"He's not slowing down," Thor said as he swung his hammer to prepare himself to fly.

But even before he could fly to catch Tony, Hulk was the one who came from nowhere and jumped to catch Tony mid-air. He used the building as a way to slow down their fall and upon impact, he made sure that he's the one who hit the ground as he hugged Tony. When they came to a stop, he let go of the guy and Steve and Thor approached them both.

Thor was the one who took the face part of the Iron Man suit so that they could look at Tony. While Steve who crouched down beside Tony tried to feel if he's still breathing. However, his heart's power is still off which means that his mechanical heart isn't working.

The three boys stared at Tony as they waited for him to wake up, but without getting any response from the latter guy, Hulk roared at him. Due to this, Tony gets back his consciousness in a sudden. He gasps loudly as he catches his breath. As for Hulk, he felt like he's done a wonderful job and he started hitting his chest while roaring. It's a gesture known to symbolize greatness and kingship.

"What the hell?" Tony asked, looking at Steve and Thor. "What just happened? Please tell me nobody kissed me."

After panting for a few times, Steve looked at a faraway sight. "We won."

"Alright, hey, good job guys," Tony commented while groaning. "Let's just... not come in tomorrow. Let's just... take a day."

None of the three answered him so he continued.

"Have you ever tried shawarma?" he asked, pointing at Hulk. "There's a shawarma joint about 2 blocks from here. I don't know what it is, but I wanna try it."

"We're not finished yet," Thor said, making Steve look up at him.

They all kept quiet.

"And then shawarma after?" Tony asked rhetorically.

After that conversation, they all went to the Stark tower. They saw Clint and Natasha pointing the scepter and arrow at Loki who is silently sitting on the stairs inside of the room.

"Loki, you've lost already," Thor said as soon as he saw his brother.

"That's not bad Loki," Hulk suddenly said, making them look at him. He then pointed at the body far from them and near the bar area of the room. "That's bad Loki."

The rest of the Avengers looked at where he pointed at and they all became puzzled.

"You've killed... Loki?" Steve asked.

"Be careful, he has a lot of tricks," Thor warned Steve.

"I don't think that's the most important thing to know right now, cap," Tony contradicted. "The important question is, how did it happen that there are 2 Lokis?"

"I happen to come back from a different universe, Stark," Loki answered. "I was admiring this universe but I accidentally got sucked in."

"So you mean, you can time travel?" Tony asked.

"I can use the Tesseract-" Loki answered but was cut off when Thor lightly growled at him. "I'm not saying that that's what I'm going to do. But that's what I already did."

"You traveled from the future to come back here?" Natasha asked as she put down the scepter.

"I didn't really intend to be here, but since I'm already here, might as well help stop what I've started," Loki said.

"Loki, if you think that you can trick me again, I'm telling you, brother. I already know all of your schemes," Thor countered him.

Loki sighed before taking out his dagger, startling everyone. Natasha pointed the scepter at him once again but when Loki threw the dagger away, they became even more confused.

"Thor, do you remember when I told you that I just want to be your equal?" Loki asked. "That I only want a brother. Someone who will look at me the same way he looks at himself?"

"Yes, before you destroyed the Bifrost?" Thor asked back.

"You can take me back to Asgard and punish me, I don't care. But that will never change anything," Loki said. "I came back here and I can finally have my brother so I will do anything to make things right. No matter what it takes."

"Am I hearing the same thing you guys are hearing?" Thor asked before looking at the other Avengers.

"He said he'll make things right," Clint said. "No matter what it takes?"

"I just..." Loki replied.

Suddenly Thor pulled Loki in for a hug. He embraced him tightly. The other Avengers just stared at them until Thor broke the hug and then he held Loki's arms before smiling at him. "Why did you have to wait this long? I always knew you're still in there somewhere."

Loki smiled at Thor because he didn't know how to respond to that statement.

"How sure are you Thor that he's not tricking you?" Tony asked.

"He's my brother," Thor simply answered. "I just know."

"Okay, so what's gonna happen now?" Steve asked, looking at them all.

"We will bring back the Tesseract to Asgard," Thor answered. "And then everything's going to go back to normal."

"I'll be fine with that," Clint said before putting down his bow.

"I'm sorry," Loki apologized. It wasn't in his nature to say sorry or admit that he's wrong but right now is just really something new.

"Okay, then," Tony said. "Shawarma now?"

*** Authored by: Alaysa_Deyan ***