I am stunned at the amount of positive feedback I've gotten already. Thanks to all my readers, truly. Reading your reviews makes my day. Now, on with the show!
SHIELD moved the Tesseract to an abandoned mining town in the Rockies. The hope was that the mountains would act to contain the blast if the energy spike turned out to be a full thermonuclear boom. Tony was actually impressed at how reasonable they were being about the whole thing.
Right on schedule according to Tony's model, the Cube let out a beam of energy. A portal formed, a circle in the air that showed the vast darkness of space. Inevitably, the portal collapsed, leaving eldritch blue flames to flicker in the air, chasing each other in a circle that would steadily build up in energy until it exploded.
A figure crouched in the space the portal had been.
Loki looked exactly as Tony remembered him. Long black hair, green-and-gold armor, manic grin on his face. He clutched the Scepter in his hand. Tony kept one eye on it. Hidden inside that blue orb was the Mind Stone. The thing that had birthed the Maximoff twins, Ultron, and the Vision. An awesome and terrible power, literally beyond the minds of men.
Come hell or high water, Tony was going to get his hands on it.
See, he'd had a revelation over the years. Hiding the Stones wouldn't work. If Thanos didn't track down and find them, someone else would down the line. That was the thing about power, it drew people to it like a moth to a flame. Even just the idea, the whisper, the hint of it. And destroying the Stones was just too risky. Even if it were physically possible, which Tony wasn't entirely sure it was, the potential backlash could vaporize star systems. Even tossing them into a black hole wouldn't be a safe bet.
Therefore, if they couldn't be broken or buried, they should be borne. Tony was going to fight Thanos at his own game, fire with fire, Infinity Stone for Infinity Stone.
Tony would become the Anti-Thanos. And if he had to sell his soul to do it, he would. The price was worth it. Countless species would be able to sleep in their beds without being afraid of genocide. The Earth would be safe. Pepper, Rhodey, Captain, Bruce, his friends would be safe.
Even if he lost them along the way, at least they would be alive and well.
Tony shook himself out of his brooding. Fight now. Existential crisis later.
"Hey, Rudolph!" Tony called, making a very obscure crack at Loki being a runt among Frost Giants. "Welcome to Earth! Drop the weapon and put your hands in the air, and no one will kick your ass."
The (Asgardian?) prince narrowed his eyes at the man in a t-shirt and jeans before him. "You dare to order me, Midgardian?"
Tony grinned and patted his chest, where a blue triangle once again was placed. Like a flow of water, metal smoothed outwards over his skin, forming a skintight suit of living armor. Hello, Mark LI. "Oh, I dare."
Loki narrowed his eyes. He hadn't thought the humans of this backwater world had access to that level of technology yet. "Is violence really necessary? I've come to help."
"Really? How exactly are you going to do that?"
"I am Loki of Asgard, and I am burdened with glorious purpose. I come with glad tidings of a world made free."
Tony tilted his head. He hadn't heard these ravings last time. "Free from what?"
"Freedom." Loki spat the word out like it was filth. "Freedom is life's great lie. Once you accept that in your heart… you will know peace," the lithe man breathed out, like he was saying a prayer.
"Uh-huh." Tony held up a glowing palm. "I won't ask again. Drop the Scepter and surrender, or I'll prove to you that a god can bleed."
Loki's answer was an energy blast.
The two began fighting, Tony rushing in for close combat only to foiled by illusions and impressive spearplay. Loki look shocked at how difficult it was to physically overpower him. Leaping back into the air, Tony began an assault of repulsors, lasers, and a great many explosives. Loki responded in kind with blasts from the Scepter and throwing daggers that were sharper than any blade found on Earth. What Loki didn't know was that every second the fight went on, his chances of victory went down as JARVIS applied all his considerable thinking power to analyze his fight pattern and make predictions of how to outmaneuver him in Tony's ear.
In the chaos of the fight, a drone that Tony had hidden in the surrounding rocks launched out and wrapped itself around the Tesseract, launching away to place it in the temporary base SHIELD had set up.
"Bring it back! I need it!" Loki roared when he saw his prize being taken away.
"Make me, Damien!" Tony called back, morphing his arm into a mallet and coming in with a swing to launch Loki into the nosebleeds.
The two continued to fight back and forth. To the eyes of the SHIELD agents watching from afar, it looked like a battle between demigods.
And then what Tony had been waiting for happened. The portal residue hit critical mass.
In a split-second, Tony abandoned the fight and went full supersonic into the sky, leaving Loki watching belatedly from the ground.
And then there was a blue blast of bombastic brutality.
Loki was blown over a hundred yards from where he was standing. There was a small rockslide in the area as the shockwaves spread out from the angry batch of dark energy. Tony landed by the smoking body of the God of Mischief. Iron Man bent down and pulled the Scepter out of the slack grip of the 'invading' alien. He jumped up and back into the air and called into his helmet "VERONICA, send down the cage."
Four rods came down from the sky, cables bursting out form each to form a cube around Loki. Nanotech wove into the gaps, creating a seamless room around the prisoner. Loki looked up and had just started to yell in rage when it sealed up around him. Tony, Scepter in his left hand, picked up the cage like a suitcase with his right, a handy handle forming from the liquidlike alloy.
Tony dropped the cage in front of Nick Fury himself. "One Norse god with plans of world domination, served up toasted."
The eye-patched man gave a dry chuckle. "You didn't seem too surprised when he showed up."
"Well, the legend of the Tesseract back in Norway says that it originally came from Asgard. And since the Cube is essentially a door to the other end of space and of course doors open from both sides, I factored the possibility of an alien invasion into my model. When we got word of a spontaneous event, I just assumed. And, unlike most people, my assumptions tend not to make me an ass." Tony waved the Glow Stick of Destiny. "I'm keeping this, by the way. Right of conquest and all that."
Fury eyed the weapon. If he'd known it had the potential for mind control, he'd have put up more of a fight. As it was, the superspy had only seen it function as an oddly-shaped gun. "Fine. I'll leave it out of my report to the Council. We're still keeping the Tesseract, of course."
"Of course," Tony drawled. Like hell they were going to let something silly like an alien coming through interfere with Phase 2. If anything, they'd find a way to use this to justify its necessity even more, despite Tony handling it perfectly well on his own.
Politics and intelligence simply did not mix well.
"How's the parasite problem?" Tony asked casually.
Fury's whole body hardened. "Slow-going. The last thing I need is an all-out civil war."
Tony hid a flinch at that particular word choice. "I'll send you an updated list."
"Now what exactly did you do to get me an update, Stark?" Fury looked torn between amusement and outrage.
Tony shrugged. "If you didn't want me to break into the Triskelion, you should have had better security. You're talking to the guy who cracked the Pentagon's firewall on a dare."
"That was back in the 80's. It's much more… troubling these days," Fury bit out.
"I'll sell you a nanolattice for your air vents if you want."
"Just… go, Stark."
"I'll give you a discount! I'll even toss in some Extremis to fix your eye if you ask nicely!"
Tony jetted off, clutching the Scepter close.
Stark Tower had gotten some upgrades to the design. For one thing, it was a mile high. If Tony was going to get into the perpetual dick-measuring contest of the world of architecture, he was going to do it right. Structural design from JARVIS, some carbon nanotubes here and there, and the Stark logo loomed over the city at a height that made the Empire State Building seem quaint.
Tony actually ran into a few issues about 'ruining' the skyline with the city. Fortunately, there were very few problems that a 12-digit bank account could not solve.
Tony landed at the penthouse, a solid 528 stories in the air. The nanoparticles of the suit retreated into the casing in his chest. Tony walked into the landing area, before taking an elevator down to his personal lab. Once there, he put the Scepter in a prepared cradle. A laser came out and began drilling into the blue gem. Within seconds, it shattered. A yellow jewel floated within, casually defying gravity.
Tony really wondered at Thanos' logic. Why give up a Stone to get a Stone? Unless the Scepter was the key to activating the Tesseract from a distance. Also, there was at least one more Stone on the planet that Tony knew of. What was so special about Earth, anyway? Only six of these things in the wide universe and a good four of them had popped up on the same planet at one point or another in Tony's original time. The Tesseract (Space), the Aether (Reality), the Eye of Agamotto (Time), and of course the Mind Stone.
Maybe the Dark Ages had been right and this world was the center of the universe.
Tony shook himself out of his thoughts. He cautiously picked up the Stone with a pincer grip. It was warm in his touch, and Tony could almost feel the presence of it, just waiting for him to call for power and it would answer. With speed, Tony walked over to the vacuum tubes in the wall. "JARVIS, I want this stored securely in the Vault."
Stark Tower wasn't just above ground. The builders had tunneled deeper into the schist of Manhattan island than anyone had before. Right at the bottom, not part of the blueprints, was a bunker capable of withstanding a nuclear blast. That was where Tony would be keeping the Mind Stone and any other Stones he could get his hands on for the foreseeable future.
Tony wiped his brow. "Well, JARVIS, I might just have averted the Chitauri Invasion."
"Congratulations, Sir. Should I provide you with applause? Perhaps an orchestral fanfare?"
Tony chuckled. "Nah, just takeout from that one Chinese place I like. Ask Bruce and Steve if they want any too."
Tony would of course always love his Malibu mansion, but he had made the executive decision to move Headquarters for SI to the Tower. New York just had more opportunities for growth and networking, plus it was a drive to the nation's capital instead of a flight. Most of the company had been thrilled to get the bragging rights of working and living in the new tallest building in the world. Pepper, just to be Pepper, had gotten an apartment on Central Park West instead. She said she couldn't bear to live in a building that didn't have her name on the lease. Tony had invited his fellow 'not-exactly-normal' buddies to join him in his new phallic bachelor pad. Banner, who'd gotten over a majority of his issues between meditation and the safety of the Hulk Switch, had made a playful warning about breaking Harlem again but agreed to be moved from the Hyde-away. Steve was a New Yorker at heart, of course, and after a couple years out of the ice he was ready to see how different the city of his birth had become.
The good Captain had nearly cried when he saw the Tower. And not in a good way.
"You've got a giant toothpick with your name on it sticking out of the Big Apple. You should be arrested, Tony."
Tony enjoyed a dinner with genuine Chinese food with Bruce and Steven in his personal quarters, the two scientists getting a kick out of conversing in Mandarin and leaving the good Captain high and dry. Afterwards, Tony bid them goodnight, each of them taking the elevator to their personal floor. He had half a thousand of them, he could afford to be generous. He'd rented out the first hundred to various retail, hotel, and office businesses already. With a very reasonable charge, too, considering they were set up in the world's first arcology. Stark Tower truly was a city unto itself. It had its own power, produced its own food and water, could house up to 4,000 residents, and was fully automated with an army of JARVIS-bots and other Iron Legionnaires in the event of an emergency.
Tony might have actually upstaged the Rockefellers for leaving his mark on the city.
Tony was awoken at 4 am by JARVIS. "Sir, there is a priority call from Director Fury."
Tony rolled out of his silk sheets like he'd been doused with water. "What?! What could have possibly happened? Oh God, don't tell me that cyclops managed to fuck this up!" Recovering from his mini-panic attack, Tony shook himself. "Put him on."
When Fury's voice popped up in a hologram, Tony spoke first. "How bad is it?"
Fury looked like he'd sucked a lemon. "Bad."
"Elaborate, Black Santa."
"Thor broke into the Helicarrier where we were holding Loki. He caused quite a lot of damage. He claims that he was simply trying to recover his brother so he could face Asgardian justice for his crimes, but it was a hell of a violent extradition. Loki escaped in the chaos when our agents confronted Thor, vanished into thin air and ten minutes later a Quinnjet took off." Fury paused as if the next words physically pained him. "He took the Tesseract with him."
Tony felt like he'd been punched in the gut. And since taking the Serum, it took a frigging battering ram to make him feel even an 'oof'. "What? Why the fuck did you even have the two of them close together? It's like keeping the fox in the henhouse!"
"The Council decided that Project PEGASUS had to go mobile. The Cube was on the Helicarrier along with the team while Loki was kept in the brig." Fury sighed. "You don't have to tell me this is fucked up, Stark. Believe me, I already know. Thor says Loki has his own army, some force called the Chitauri. You might have taken his fancy spear, but now that he has the Tesseract it's only a matter of time before another portal opens. And you can bet that he'll open it smack dab in the middle of a metropolitan area."
Tony used every stress control exercise he could think of for a solid ten seconds. "Okay. I'm flying over to your castle in the sky. While I'm in transit, I want you to call every lab you know and tell them to get their spectrometers on the roof. I'll feed you the tracking algorithm, we should have a bead on Loki by the time I get there. I'm bringing Cap and my Canadian pen-pal I'm sure you know about." The Stark CEO gave a wry scoff. "Looks like you're getting your super-secret boy band together after all."
Fury smiled with no mirth. "Here's hoping we don't have anything to avenge by the end of this cluster."
Tony sighed. "Me, too. But it's long odds." With that, Tony cut the call.
"JARVIS, wake them up. Time for the Avengers to assemble."
Iron Man soared through the air, trailed by two clunkier looking versions. Bruce and Steve had been reluctant to step into the travel suits but had acquiesced given the nature of the situation. They headed for airspace over Nevada, heading towards seemingly empty air. Once Tony beamed the appropriate clearance he got from Nick, the retro-reflection panels deactivated and the Helicarrier was revealed in all its glory.
"A flying boat. Now I've seen everything," Steve muttered.
"They sure they want me around all that delicate machinery?" Bruce quipped.
"Save it, guys. World saving time." Tony guided them to land on the deck. The suits around his buddies opened and coughed out their contents like nesting dolls, while his own suit retracted like water into a drain. They walked through a door and followed the layout Tony had already memorized to the main deck.
Fury was waiting, standing at the helm with his hands on his hips. Black Widow and Hawkeye leaned on the wall like particularly deadly shadows. An appropriately contrite looking Thor was seated at the conference table, Selvig next to him and laying a hand on his shoulder. The Asgardian looked up and stood. "Man of Iron, I have heard of you. Friend Selvig speaks highly of your genius."
"Yeah. I'm also the guy funding your girlfriend's research for the next five years, so no more stupid mistakes, okay Odinson?" Tony reached out a hand with a shark's grin on his face. "How about next time you knock on the door instead of busting it down, huh?"
Thor's expression closed off. "I have already apologized for my… less than perfect behavior. I will not be taken to task by you as well."
Steve stepped forward, already in his Captain America uniform. "What's done is done. Instead of playing the blame game, we should be focusing on tracking down the enemy."
"Yeah, how are we on that?" Banner asked. "I tweaked the algorithm. No offense, Tony, but gamma radiation is kind of my thing."
Fury spoke up. "Should take another 15 minutes. Then we'll know Loki's location to the half-mile. Or at least the Tesseract, but I'm willing to bet the two won't be far apart."
Tony sighed. "There's two possibilities. Either he'll go hunting down iridium and an energy source to stabilize the Tesseract and open a portal indefinitely. Or he'll just brute force the cube with magic and will and start the invasion with whatever manages to come through."
Thor tilted his head. "You know well the workings of the Tesseract, Son of Stark."
"I helped Selvig work on it a while ago, and I kept up with the research."
"By hacking our servers," Fury added helpfully.
Tony shrugged. "Is it peeping if you're looking through an open door? Anyway, my money is on the second option. Granted I only met the guy for one ass-kicking, but Loki seems to have a real hard-on for taking over the planet soon as possible."
Thor looked down. "Indeed. He may be of Asgard and my brother, but Loki is beyond reason. His hatred is only matched by his disregard for those he deems beneath him. Declaring himself King by conquering one of the Nine Realms would be the grandest insult to our family he could imagine."
"Where'd he get this army, anyway? What did he call it, the Chitauri?" Bruce asked.
"They are not of Asgard nor any world known. As to their providence, I cannot say. Loki was cast out into deep space with the destruction of the Bifrost. I dread to know what horrors he found out there."
Tony saw an opportunity. "Maybe he has them on loan. Can you think of any intergalactic dictators that might sponsor an angry deposed alien prince?"
Thor's face went pale. "One comes to mind. I can only pray to the ancestors that Loki knew better than to bargain with him, though."
"Who?" barked Natasha.
Before Thanos could be revealed, the screens beeped.
"We got him!" Fury shouted.
"Where is he, sir?" questioned Clint, his eyes piercing the screen from a distance.
Fury hesitated. "… Los Angeles."
Tony grit his teeth. "My own backyard. I think he took me stealing his toy personally."
"Aliens invading Hollywood. There's a joke in there, somewhere," Steve said flatly.
Fury turned. "You boys feel up to stopping an alien invasion."
Tony sighed and activated the Mark LI. "Cap, Hulk, Thunder God, Femme Fatale, and Katniss. Suit up and get your asses on a jet if you can't fly yourself. Time to work for a living."
As the others got moving, Tony stopped Thor. "Sorry about the snark. We're about to go to battle, so I want you to know I got your back. I hope you got mine,"
"All is well, Man of Iron. We shall feast together heartily once this bout is finished." The prince gave a charming grin.
"While we've got a sec, can I ask for a tiny favor?"
"What is that?"
Tony eyed Mjolnir. "Can I try to lift the hammer?"
Thor blinked, then an indulgent grin came across his lips. "Aye, I see no harm in a simple test." So saying, he placed the hammer head-down on the table.
Tony reached out to grip the handle and closed his eyes.
The need to protect those that could not protect themselves. The lack of selfish desire or pride. The willingness to sacrifice, to lose everything so that those that mattered could win.
Tony pulled.
"Blood of Bor," Thor breathed.
Tony opened his eyes. The Asgardian weapon was upright in his red-suited hand.
Well. There was that question answered.
"Thanks, pal," Tony said, handing it over. Thor accepted the hammer, his eyes shining as he reevaluated the man before him.
They flew off the deck of the Helicarrier, a Quinnjet piloted by Clint following behind them.
"JARVIS, I want an alert the moment anything strange happens in L.A."
"Sir… I'm afraid it's already started."
Tony's blood froze in his veins.
"How long ago?"
"4 minutes, 17 seconds."
"How long for us to get there?"
"ETA is 11 minutes at this current rate of speed."
Right. Fuck that. Boosters formed on his back. "Invasion's already started, guys. You can catch up with me later." With that, Tony went hypersonic.
Less than a minute later, Los Angeles was in sight, sky-beam from the center of town shooting up into the air. To Tony's horror, a Leviathan managed to come through before the beam began to flicker and stop.
"Right. Priority one, kill the bad guys J. With any luck, we'll deal with that before Loki can recover and open the portal again."
"Weapons hot, Sir," JARVIS responded. "Iron Legion inbound. Emergency services being coordinated." The bot paused. "Kick some ass, Sir."
Tony gave the grin that in the past had gotten him the moniker 'Merchant of Death'. "Gladly."
Tony soared through the city, gunning down every Chitauri he could find. Screams turned into hushed silence and fullhearted cheers as Iron Man arrived on the scene. By the time the Quinnjet reached city airspace, Tony had just finished goring the Leviathan with a well-timed repulsor through the eye.
"You leave any for the rest of us, Tin Man?" Natasha asked him over the commlink.
Before he could answer, the beam opened up again. Chitauri all but poured from the portal. Guess they'd realized that the door would be opening in fits and starts.
"You were saying, Romanoff?" Tony snarked. "You and Clint track down Loki, the rest of us will deal with this mess. Banner, time for the other guy!"
His response was a man jumping out of the jet flying overhead. As he fell, he swelled up to giant proportions and turned an acid shade of green. The Hulk landed in a crater. "Hulk… Smash… Tar-ee!" the beast roared, before jumping two hundred feet in the air to rip one cruiser in half.
Captain landed and started mowing through the ground forces, his Vibranium shield blocking all alien fire and acting like the frisbee from hell in cracking bones with each throw. Thor lived up to his name as the God of Thunder and summoned lightning from the clear sky, downing a Leviathan. Iron Man and the Hulk tore through any aliens in their way like tissue paper. Civilians that weren't under immediate attack starting pulling out their phones and recording. By the end of the day, the Battle of Los Angeles and the debut of the Avengers would be the most watched event in human history.
"Clint, Natasha! I notice the portal is still open. What's taking so long?" Tony called.
"There's some kind of energy shield around Loki. As long as the beam's going, we can't get through. Don't worry, it looks like he's weakening," Clint replied.
Tony altered course. He knew personally how slippery the damn adoptee could be. "No offense, but I'm coming to help."
The beam sputtered out before he was halfway there. However, when he got there, it wasn't to find Clint and Natasha victorious over Loki's corpse. Clint was nursing a knife wound in his side, his bow broken next to him, while Nat was standing confused in the middle of the street.
"Got me with a lucky shot," Hawkeye bit out. "Then he turned invisible before Nat could get her hands on him."
Tony barely held back from snarling. "JARVIS, scan the area! If you see a blip of a blip anywhere in the area, turn the whole square yard to ash."
"Sir, seven-o'-clock!" the A.I. shouted.
Flying blind, Tony charged in the direction his buddy indicated. He hit something that was a softer than a brick wall, but not by much. Damn, Asgardians were sturdy. Or Frost Giants… gah, which one was he? He seemed to have powers of both half the time!
"Damn mortal!" spat out Loki when they came to a stop, still clutching the Tesseract to his chest.
"For the moment," Tony quipped. "So, exactly which daddy you have issues with to do all this? Laufey or Odin?"
At that, Loki seemed to lose it. Holding the Tesseract over his head, he roared "I AM A GOD!" Another beam shot up into the sky, letting even more Chitauri come through. Even as his veins glowed blue and what were unmistakably burn marks formed on his hands and face, Loki maintained the connection.
Tony's mind raced. Think, think, THINK! The shield was impenetrable to anything except one of the Infinity Stones. The Mind Stone was back in New York, and Tony wasn't going to get his hands on any others any time soon. Wait… Starkium was based off the Tesseract. Maybe it was similar enough that…
"JARVIS! Nearest Arc Reactor, now!"
"Car down the street," came the instant reply. Tony turned, finding the Starkmobile (so sue him, he'd won that case already) and flew over. He punched through the hood, ripping out the idle reactor. Turning, Tony rushed over to Loki. Bracing himself, really wishing he'd added radiation shielding to the suit, Tony forced the reactor up against the orb surrounding Loki.
The reactor was ground like dust until it reached the triangular core. Then the energy overload led to its inevitable conclusion.
A (relatively) small thermonuclear explosion erupted in the heart of L.A.
…
"Tony? Tony! TONY!" came a distant, echoing voice.
"… damn suit, can't get to his vitals…"
"ROAR!"
Tony jerked awake. "What the hell?"
Tony looked around. The Avengers were gathered around him. The corpses of a whole battalion of Chitauri were littered on the ground nearby. "What happened?"
Steve sat down on the ground. He looked exhausted. "After the blast, the Chitauri all centered on your location. Guess they sensed that you'd neutralized Loki. Don't worry, we fended them off. According to JARVIS, all enemies are down for the count."
Tony breathed shakily. Damn, he felt like he got hit by a truck. Or the Hulk with a fly swatter. "And Loki?"
"My brother has been apprehended," Thor spoke up. He gestured behind him, to the unconscious form of Loki, bound in Asgardian handcuffs and muzzle.
"Tesseract?" Tony groaned.
Natasha held up a briefcase. A blue glow came from the sides.
Tony sighed and relaxed. "So… we officially won?"
"Looks like it," Bruce said, looking very out of place half-naked in nanofiber shorts surrounded by the others in their costumes.
Tony sighed. "Great. Hey, there's supposed to be a place in town with lobster Pop-tarts. Sure they're open for the saviors of the city. Anyone want to try? It sounds disgusting, but I want to try it."
The chuckles of his team surrounded him.
Hope I did justice to the movie! Things are going to get real exciting as we get into Phase 2. I wasn't kidding in the summary when I said Tony's basically going to be a god. The title should be a real hint. Anyway, that's me done for the day. My weekends are when I get things done so don't expect an update during a week. I just might manage it, but I doubt it. Hope the four chapters so far manage to tide everyone over.