Author's note: Hey, welcome back! I would highly recommend watching 'The Avengers' before reading this chapter, it will make ever so much more sense. Thank you!

"Hey, Maria!"

I turned to face the person who had called out, "Brienne! God, it feels like it's been so long!" I laughed, giving her a hug.

"I know, right? But, it's good to see you again, how have you been?" she asked. The two of us had gone our separate ways the year before, after that... interesting, summer, off to college. Brienne had moved to New York City to study some kind of criminal psychology or something like that. I had been studying Mythology and had just returned from a month abroad in England. Landing just outside of Manhattan, I had decided to visit Brienne before heading home.

"Oh, same old same old." I replied, "You?"

"Same." she laughed back, "Is it okay for you to take such a long break from your training?"

"Haha, yeah, I've made a lot of progress this past year." I had been training my body rigorously, Tae Kwon Do, Jeet Kune Do, any kind of fighting art I could learn.

"So, what do you want to see first? This is your first time here, right?"

"Yeah, unless you count coming on a Girl Scout trip, like, ten years ago? I want to go see the Stark tower!" I told her, excitedly. I was completely content to play the part of the typical tourist, after having done so for a month in England. Brienne nodded, expecting that to be one of my first picks. We strolled down the streets just catching up as friends do.

"Oh, yeah, there's this guy I think you should meet, Maria."

Uh, what? "Guy?" I asked, hesitantly.

"Yes! He's totally into all the gaming and anime and all that stuff that you like! And he's to die for cute!" she said.

"Well, I'd love to meet him, but... not like on a date or anything."

"Why not? I mean, come on, you have to break your almost nineteen year 'no boyfriend' streak." Brienne pushed. I laughed slightly, because it was kind of true. I had never had a legit boyfriend in all my almost nineteen years(I turn nineteen in a week). But that was overlooking something.

"Aren't you forgetting someone? Sorry I'm taken!" I said. Yep. Me, Maria Lockridge, had a(sort of) boyfriend. If you've read my diary, journal, story, thing before this, you know exactly who I'm talking about.

"It's been a year, Maria. You know, he is a king, he might have some kind of arranged marriage or something. Maybe that's why he hasn't come back?" my friend smiled gently. I smiled back.

"He asked me to wait for him. So, until I hear a rejection from his mouth, I'll wait."

Brienne looked at me worriedly, I knew why. Here I was, waiting for a man that fell out of the sky, straight out of myth, onto my doorstep. But it's not like I'm just sitting idly by, waiting. I was no astrophysicist, or whatever, that studied the atmosphere and all that. I couldn't just go looking for him. So, I trained. I wanted to make myself someone he could be proud to stand beside. Training my body while continuing my studies into mythology.

Anyway, we continued walking towards the towering monument of Tony Stark's ego. I didn't really want to go inside(I think they had some kind of tour or something) I just wanted to see it. It had been on the news a zillion times, it was cool just standing outside. I looked up at the huge tower, perhaps I was hoping to maybe get a glimpse of Ironman, like so many others standing there. I guess... you could call it luck? Or, you could call it misfortune. Either way it's interesting.

"Is that...?" Brienne started. She too was looking up.

"Oh God!" I finished. A man had come crashing out of the top floor window and was falling spread-eagled towards us. As we watched, some kind of apparatus clung onto him from behind. In a rather belated realization, we saw Ironman's suit click together and his flight boosters power up just over our heads, and he blasted back up to the top of the tower.

I shared a look with Brienne, disbelief written clearly across both of our faces, "That..." I glanced back up at the tower, "Shit."

A surge of energy shook the ground below us as a beam of what looked like lightning or something out of Star Wars shot up from the Stark tower, opening ...something. I grabbed Brienne's arm to help her stay on her feet, "This has to happen the one day I'm here!? Really?"

"What's going on!?" Brienne cried.

"I don't know but those don't look too friendly!" I responded pointing up at the creatures issuing out of the hole in the sky. We could see explosions from, assumingly, Ironman and some of the things were dropping nearby, "Run!" I screamed, half aiming it at Brienne, half at the other onlookers beside us. The creatures were getting past Ironman and approaching too fast for my liking. They started to shoot at us and everyone scattered.

"Weapon... weapon..." I muttered, glancing around fervently. One of the flying scooter-things landed in front of me and I rolled behind something. In the panic of the moment I didn't even know what it was. I stood, knowing they had seen me, and ran in the opposite direction of where they landed. More and more came, they were everywhere! I could hear screaming all around me. The things gunfire sounded like laser beams, and were, unfortunately, aimed at me. Fortunately, they had bad aim. One shot a car just in front of me, the shot so powerful it blew the car into the air with an impressive explosion. They were right behind me now. I dove to my right and, conveniently, rolled over a cane that someone had dropped. Hey, I wasn't about to complain. I snatched it up, hearing one of the creatures come up on my left, and swung upward. Catching the thing's face, it recoiled from the blow, and I reversed my cane, double-handing the down swing. That one went down but another was hot on my tail, intending to slice at me with its sword-gun thing. I whipped around and blocked with my cane. God, those things were strong. It leaned into my parry, snarling and drooling grossly, making my feet slide back on the tar. I pushed its force to the left and the creature fell towards me, following its momentum. I took the opportunity and smashed the butt of my cane in its face. They didn't stop there, another came up over the one I had already downed. I lashed out with my right leg, catching its sword-gun thing and ripping it out of its hands. Following my momentum, I leapt and left roundhouse kicked its head.

Pausing to catch my breath, I heard a deafening roar from high above me. I glanced up, "This isn't happening..." I whispered to myself.

An enormous centipede-like thing crawled out of the hole and began to descend. I glimpsed Ironman shoot flares at it and get its attention. It turned to follow him, and they both flew out of my sight. I snapped back into the moment, facing more of the creatures that were landing and advancing on me. Instead of staying put and letting them swarm me, I'd dispatch one or two then run a ways down the street to leave the slower ones behind. As I made my way away from the tower, I could hear fighting ahead. I got closer and saw a man with a bow and a red-haired woman, dressed in black jumpsuits, killing one creature after another. I turned to fight another behind me but another man in a blue and red jumpsuit beat me to it. He threw his shield at the next one, decapitating it cleanly.

"Get out of here!" he said, not turning around.

"I'm trying!" I replied.

Suddenly, though, when you're caught up in the moment, nothing happens suddenly... Anyway, lighting cracked through the air and the last three monsters in front of us fell, sizzling.

My breath caught in my throat and I saw him land there, staggering to lean on an overturned car.

"THOR!" I screamed. He looked up, at first in confusion, then in terror.

"Maria? You shouldn't be here!"

"Don't give me that! Are you hurt?" I ran up to him, worried. He shook his head.

"Maria, you need to get out of here..." he persisted.

"Introductions later, please?" the woman interrupted, "From what I saw, you can handle yourself." That was directed at me. I nodded, incredibly glad I had trained so seriously.

"What's the story upstairs?" the man in blue asked Thor. Thor swallowed painfully and turned his attention away from me.

"The power surrounding the Cube is impenetrable."

I was so lost. Cube? The others glanced around, reacting to something I couldn't hear. Then, the redhead continued.

"How do we do this?"

"As a team." the man in blue finished.

"I need to get Maria out of here." Thor said.

"No, I'm staying." I interrupted, "I can fight. I'm not leaving these people here to die."

"It's too dangerous!"

"I know!"

"Save it!" the man in blue shouted, "I saw her fight, she can defend herself. Loki's going to keep this fight focused on us and that's what we need. Without him, these things could run wild. We got Stark up top. He's going to need us to-" He was cut off by the sound of a moped coming up behind him. A disheveled-looking, older man got off and walked up.

"So, this all seems... horrible." he said.

The redhead deadpanned back, "I've seen worse."

"Sorry."

"No, we could use a little worse."

"Stark, we got him." the man in blue said, seemingly to no one. Then it clicked, they were talking to Tony Stark, I could see their earpieces. Although it seems a little late, it was about then that I wondered, just what had I gotten myself into, "Just like you said."

Ahead of our group, speak(or rather think) of the devil and the devil shall appear, Ironman came flying around a building with the caterpillar creature right behind.

"I- I don't see how that's a party." the redhead said, leaving me feeling completely out of the loop. No one moved for a moment, until the last man to join us started walking towards the thing that was bearing down on us rather quickly.

"Dr. Banner." the man in blue called, "Now might be a really good time for you to get angry."

"That's my secret, Captain." he replied, "I'm always angry." He looked back at the creature, now even closer, and let out a horrifying roar as his skin turned green and he grew. He punched the caterpillar creature's nose into the ground, himself being pushed back almost to us. The rest of the thing's body reared up above us. Suddenly Thor dove over me and the creature exploded overhead.

The street was full of the strange cries of the creatures and I looked up at the hole nervously. Seeing exactly what I was worried I would, I knew it was going to be a long day.

After the battle...

Sorry, I just thought it would be rather boring to continue to explain how we all kicked ass out there and Ironman closed the portal and blah blah blah. In truth, I didn't really see much of it. I stayed on the ground and helped the police get civilians out, killing a few creatures here and there. I did join the Avengers(as I later found out) when they captured Loki, mostly because Thor wouldn't let me out of his sight after I had almost been shot. But anyway, after all that, I finally had some time to talk to Thor.

"May I be, likely, the first, if a little late, to welcome you back to Earth?" I said grinning.

"Maria..." He caught my eyes and held them, a deep pain hidden there, "Don't do that to me. Promise me you won't do anything like that again."

I smiled up at him, "I will only make that promise if you do."

"But..." I shushed him before he could continue.

"I missed you."

"Me too." he said, "I-"

"Don't say it. I know." In truth I had known the whole time, "Don't apologize for what you have to do."

"Come with me."

I had been preparing my heart for this- ...What? I stood in utter shock. Did he just...? No...

"I- I'm sorry, I didn't quite catch that..." I stammered.

"Come with me. I don't ever want to let you out of my sight again." he chuckled slightly.

"I, um, wh- Yes!"

THE ACTUAL END

Author's note: I'M SOOOOOORRRRRYYYYYY! I had to :) Thank you for reading, I hope you enjoyed the true final chapter of Tempering Thunder! If you liked this please check out my other stories as well and leave me a review to let me know what you liked.