"Can anybody copy? I can shut the portal down", Nat's voice rang through their earpieces. Eleanor could have popped open a bottle of champagne right then and there, she thought that they would never be able to shut that thing down but now her girlfriend had come to the rescue.

"Do it!", Steve shouted back to her via his own earpiece, but Tony seemed to have other ideas.

"No, wait".

Everyone thought he had gone crazy, their first opportunity to shut off the portal and he was turning it down? Eleanor scrunched her eyebrows together tightly as she looked at Steve whose expression was just as confused as he replied to Tony. "Stark, these things are still coming!".

"I got a nuke coming in, it's gonna blow in less than a minute". A nuke? Eleanor's knees wanted to buckle from the sudden anxiety spike she got from receiving news that a nuclear missile was headed directly toward them. "And I know just where to put it".

Their eyes widened in realisation, the portal. That was a risky move, there was no guarantee that he would survive going through and releasing a nuclear device that would blow up any second.

"Stark, you know that's a one-way trip", the Captain spoke in a softer tone. They didn't get a response but it wasn't long before they saw the Iron Man himself flying over their heads, nuke in arms. It was a sight that Eleanor wasn't expecting to see, and wished that she didn't have to see. tony was an ass but he had grown on her, she was praying to a God that she didn't believe in that he would survive this.

He continued his flight, ascending the side of Stark Tower, and consequently directly into the portal. Everyone was now collectively holding their breaths. He had breached the barrier of the portal, and continued into it, disappearing out of view.

"Come back", Eleanor mumbled when he hadn't made a reappearance yet, but her thoughts were cut off by the Chitauri around them collapsing, almost as if they were powering down. It was weird. Relief was initially felt, but that quickly turned to dread as that meant that the nuke had gone off, and with Tony still being up there the situation was looking less and less hopeful.

"Close it", Steve spoke. Eleanor's heart plummeted at hearing these words. Nat must have listened because the gaping hole in the sky was getting smaller and smaller. It was over.

Eleanor looked at the floor and was about to make her way over to the Tower when she heard Steve mumble, "Son of a gun", so she whipped her head around back to him and Thor, seeing that they were looking at where the portal would have been.

What she saw was unexpected but most certainly welcome, Tony had gotten back through the portal just in time. She grinned up at the sky, but as he got closer to the ground it was clear that he was in fact crash landing, so that grin quickly disappeared.

Thor started swinging his hammer in circles, preparing to catch him, "He's not slowing down!", but before he got a chance to be airborne, Hulk came flying through the sky, grabbing Tony before hitting the side of a building and scraping down the wall to try and slow their fall. But then they barrelled onto the bridge that they were currently standing on.

Eleanor's eyes widened and she stumbled back slightly at what she had just seen. This was an emotional rollercoaster.

Steve, Thor, and Eleanor ran towards the other two, Thor flipped Tony onto his back and tore the face of his helmet off. "Is he breathing?", she asked. He wasn't moving, and she was scared to hear the answer.

He still hadn't moved, they all silently accepted the horrible truth that Tony Stark had died getting that nuke away from Earth. Eleanor took a few steps forward and crouched next to him, silently saying goodbye.

Hulk apparently did not accept this answer, as he let out an ear-splitting roar, making Tony wake up and gasp out in shock. Eleanor fell backwards from her crouching position and right onto her ass as Hulk let out yet another roar. Her heart couldn't take any more shocks, or surprises, or plot twists, this just needed to be over like she thought it had been when Nat announced that she could close the portal.

"What the hell?", Tony breathed out. "What just happened? Please tell me nobody kissed me. Why are you sat on the floor?", he directed the last question at Eleanor who just looked at him with a blank expression for focusing on that. But then she broke out into a small smile, Tony was okay, they were all okay.

The group let out large breaths trying to come to terms with what just happened, their lungs all burning from all of the smoke that was around, and the masses amount of exercise they had just done.

"We won", Steve interrupted the silence.

"Alright, yay. Hurray. Good job guys. Let's just not come in tomorrow. Let's just take a day. Have you ever had shawarma? 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 interrupted Tony's ramblings, making them all look up towards Stark Tower. Right, Loki. Eleanor's eyes widened when she realised that Nat was alone up there with the God and cursed herself for not realising sooner.

"And then shawarma after?".

Eleanor scrambled to her feet as quick as she could, with searing pain in her ankle, this was just a minor twist, this was quite a bad sprain, but she soldiered on anyway hobbling as fast as she could to the tower, somehow going faster than the four men behind her.

She had almost tripped and fell flat on her face quite a few times, but the group eventually made it to the tower, and swiftly got into the elevator, going to the top floor. Except for Hulk who had to take the stairs, he didn't seem overly pleased with that.

The short trip to the top floor felt like it took hours, Eleanor was full of worry about whether Nat was okay, so when the elevator dinged letting them know that they had reached their destination, she ran as fast as she could out of it and towards the balcony area. there she saw Nat holding the Sceptre and talking to Selvig about something.

Due to her foot dragging sometimes with the hobbling she wasn't very quiet when nearing Nat, so it attracted the attention of the spy very easily. She looked over to the younger woman and smiled, but her features soon displayed worry. She gently placed the Sceptre on the ground and excused herself from Selvig, rushing over to meet Eleanor halfway, and embracing her tightly as soon as they reached each other.

"You're okay", they both breathed out at the same time. Nat pulled away and cupped Eleanor's face with her hands, smiling when their gazes met. "What happened to your foot, детка?".

"I got kicked down a few flights of stairs and it twisted on some steps awkwardly", she shrugged. Nat wasn't really happy but considering that they were just in an alien battle, a sprained ankle was very relieving all things considered.

Nat saw the others in the middle of the room and decided that the two of them should be there too, so she placed a kiss on Eleanor's forehead and went to pick up the Sceptre. When she returned she wrapped her arm around Eleanor's waist as they walked over to the group.

Loki was unconscious but had woken up and started to drag themselves to a seated position on the steps, looking very intimidated when they saw the group of Avengers staring down at them. Clint readied an arrow in his bow, aiming it at the God to show that he would shoot if any funny business went down.

"If it's all the same to you, I'll have that drink now". The Avengers just looked at Loki with very unimpressed looks.

They dragged Loki to the bottom of the tower and handed them off to the authorities who would work on the detaining side of things. Now, for the group of heroes, it was shawarma time. Tony had really meant it, everyone had thought it was a joke, but the group found themselves in a shawarma joint a few blocks away.

Eleanor had wanted to ask the people working there why they were still open, but she was hungry so just inhaled the delicious food instead. Nat sat in the middle of Clint and Eleanor. Clint had his leg propped up on Nat's chair, and Eleanor had her head rested on her shoulder as they ate. This felt familiar to the three Agents, even though there were a lot more people sitting with them, and they were bruised and battered, they couldn't help but feel safe to be back in each other's company.

---

Loki had been detained, so now it was time for the warriors to get their ailments checked out before bidding Thor a farewell. He, Loki, and the Tesseract were going back to Asgard.

Nat had managed to come out of it relatively okay, a lot of cuts and scrapes and a crap tonne of painful bruising, but nothing that would require more than bandages and soothing creams.

Eleanor on the other hand was wearing a giant airboot, making her look like a penguin as she waddled about the place. She would have to wear this for 2-3 weeks, must to her dismay as whenever she walked, Nat laughed at her. A very supportive girlfriend.

They had all stayed overnight in the hospital just in case, and luckily they were all discharged in the morning. Staying overnight in a hospital is awful.

After being laughed at for what felt like the thirtieth time in the last 5 minutes as they made their way out of the hospital to greet Clint who would drive them to the meeting place, Eleanor gave Nat a very unimpressed look. "Bub", she whined trying to get Nat to shut up.

"I'm sorry, you just look so funny", she chuckled, but quickly continued when she saw that the unimpressed look turned into a murderous glare, "And adorable!". Nice save.

"You bet I look adorable", Eleanor stated as she had her head held high. Nat wanted to laugh again but the likely outcome of that scenario would be Eleanor shoving her down a flight of stairs as well so she bit on the inside of her cheek instead.

"Hey you two", Clint smiled as they approached him at the exit. They smiled at him and headed towards the car with the SHIELD logo on the side that had been brought to the hospital for them.

"Are we gonna be on time?", Nat asked the archer.

"We should be, just gotta hope that I manage to pick a route that doesn't have much damage". Obviously, the city repairs had barely been started yet, so it was going to be trouble to manoeuvre through the city.

Nat helped Eleanor into the back seat, she leaned her back against the door so that she could have her legs laying across the seats, it was more comfortable for the boot. Nat was reminded of that time she yelled at Eleanor for lying down in the back of the truck four years ago, and a warm feeling spread through her chest at how far they'd come. She wasn't going to yell at her this time because of the boot and it wasn't like Clint could go very fast with the ruin across the city.

It was a bumpy and uncomfortable ride, it was near impossible to void all of the rubble and other debris from going under the tyres. A few times Eleanor had to put her hand against the front seat to stabilise herself as Clint yelled a "Sorry!" through the car.

Looking out of the window made Eleanor's breath hitch, and she had to focus to keep her breathing steady, it was a harsh reminder of the terrors that thousands of people, including those in the car, had lived through just a few hours ago. It would be hard to move on from something like this, but first, she focused on the fact that the Tesseract was being removed from the Earth shortly, the thought of that brought her great comfort.

Natasha was also struggling in the front seat, wanting nothing more than to just be able to forget the events that had taken place.

The trio shortly arrived at Central Park. They met with the rest of the Avengers at Bethesda Terrace, making their way towards the centre of the empty paved area, Thor with a tight grip on a handcuffed Loki. Eleanor was still very wary of having the God of Mischief so close, but the handcuffs helped ease the fears ever so slightly.

Eleanor stood by Clint and Nat as Selvig took out a cylindrical container from the nearby van, prompting Bruce to open a metal briefcase that contained the Tesseract. Everyone held their breaths as Bruce placed that damn cube inside of the container, and a collective quiet sigh of relief was given when it was secured. This was it. This nightmare was finally over.

Thor gave Selvig a friendly pat on the shoulder and turned to face Loki. Eleanor turned her attention over to Nat when she saw her mumble something at Clint that she couldn't hear, making Clint smirk a bit.

She elbowed Nat in the ribs, wondering what was going on, but Nat just gave her signature smirk too and shook her head. What?

They soon turned their attention back to Thor though when he made Loki grab the other side of the container. The blonde God nodded at the group before twisting the handle in his grip, making the pair teleport away with blue light engulfing them.

It would normally be a sight that they would question, but it was one of the most normal things that they had seen in the last 24 hours.

The three Agents headed back to the SHIELD car that they had driven there in, Nat got a bag of Bruce's stuff that was left on the helicarrier and handed it over to the Doctor before helping Eleanor into the backseat again, this time having her seated properly as they would be embarking on the four-hour drive back to D.C.

The Agents were glad when they reached the outside of the city, they were going home. Clint was going to be going back to his farm and gave out the offer to the two women that they could tag along. They usually always said yes, but Nat politely turned down his offer this time, making Eleanor frown slightly in confusion, but she didn't argue. If Nat didn't want to go then she wouldn't force it, especially after all that had happened.

The rest of the journey was comfortable, music softly played through the speakers, and gentle conversation ensued along with nice silences. They were safe, and they were going home.