A/N: And here we go with what happens next. Hope you enjoy this tip of the iceberg for the drama that is to come... :D

Chapter Three

Nick Fury stood with his hands behind his back on the boardwalk of the command centre of his floating SHIELD base. He pursed his lips and eyed each of the slightly bedraggled heroes standing and sitting in front of him in turn. Fury then turned his attention to all of the carnage on show through the vast windows of the control deck. New York City was a sea of smoke and flames and even from the height they were at, sirens could be heard as every emergency service in the entire city was mobilised to clean up after the destruction of all the mantis attack. Fury tapped his finger against the back of his hand and then looked back at the Avengers, finally speaking. "So," he said calmly, "would someone care to explain just what the hell happened down there after the bomb was dismantled?"

"I almost had the guy-"

"I was left on my own to try and collect the evidence-"

"I was trying to stop a national monument from being completely destroyed-"

"The beast needed to be handled-"

"I was waiting on orders-"

Fury held up a hand to silence them as they all spoke at once, everyone except for the Hulk that is, who was down in the cargo bay being watched by very nervous SHIELD agents. Everyone stopped talking abruptly as Fury glared them down.

Tony couldn't help himself, of course. "It's amazing just how much disapproval you can get into that one eye, Fury," Tony marvelled. "It's impressive, truly it is."

"I'm waiting to hear what went wrong," said Fury dourly, ignoring the other man's attempt at humour.

Tony waved a casual hand at him. "Technically speaking, nothing went wrong. We dismantled the bomb and stopped the mantises. Yay for us, we're all heroes."

Fury folded his arms in front of himself and arched a silent eyebrow at Tony.

Because Tony's face mask was retracted, Fury could see the billionaire pull a face. "There may have been one or two hiccups," Tony conceded. He sent an unimpressed look the rest of the team's way. "A little back up would have been nice though."

"Funny," said Steve flatly, "that was what I was thinking."

Fury jabbed a finger at Tony. "Okay, Stark, you give me your version of events and we'll take it from there."

"Gladly," said Tony happily. "Like I said, I'd just cleverly disarmed the bomb-"

"On a hunch," Hawkeye inserted in annoyance. "And it was Natasha who did the actual disarming."

"A hunch that paid off," said Tony smoothly, "and then all we had to do was destroy the radio signal device."

Fury just regarded him steadily. "That sounds like the easy part."

Tony pulled a face. "It kind of was and it wasn't."

Fury jerked a thumb over his shoulder to indicate the Statue of Liberty below them. "Is the wasn't part why our Lady Liberty is missing a limb now?" asked Fury flatly.

Tony held up a hand. "Hey, I don't know what happened there, all I know is what happened when I was left trying to pick up the pieces, literally."

Fury inclined his head. "Do tell, Mr. Stark, we're all waiting."

oooOOOOooo

"Hulk, we need you!"

Tony heard Steve call out to the Hulk and the answering roar and gave it his best shot even as he fought against the weight of the mantises piling in on top of him. The Hulk was the only one left who was strong enough to pull the radio signaller out of the Carousel. "Hulk, listen to me, it's the talky man," said Tony urgently. "Grab the glowy blue thing. It's bad, get rid of it!"

"Hulk smash bitie things!" he raged.

"Get rid of the glowy blue thing and you won't have to," Tony tried to reason with him. "Go on, get the ring, go on, there's a good boy."

"He's not a dog," came Steve's complaint from where he was buried under his own pile of mantises.

"The Hulk is house trained," Tony argued, "teaching him to fetch isn't that big of a step up from that."

"NO!" yelled Hawkeye. "NO HULK NOT THAT!"

Tony couldn't see what was happening but suddenly Natasha voices came through his receiver. "What's happening, what are you lot doing up there?" she exclaimed with the first sounds of anxiety in her voice.

"The Hulk just tore the top off the Carousel," said Hawkeye around the sounds of his continuing fight with the mantises. "He's going to kill her! Natasha!"

"I'm alright," came her muffled reply, "but I'm trapped, the roof just came down on me."

"That's because the Hulk is standing on the Carousel now," said Hawkeye in frustration. "Get off, you're crushing her!"

"Grab the blue thing first, Hulk!" Tony yelled at him, knowing it was the only way they could really help Natasha and themselves.

There was the sound of snapping wood and renting metal and then suddenly the writhing of the mantises stopped. Tony pushed against the weight of the metal of the abruptly lifeless mantises and surfaced from the pile of now lifeless machines at the same time the rest of the Avengers did. Tony turned around and saw the Hulk holding the large, round, radio signaller above his head. The device was now grey and no longer glowing. "Get rid of it!" Tony commanded him, more thinking about getting the large beast off the Carousel then any real worry about the now defunct device.

Amazingly, the Hulk did as he was told, swinging it into the air with all of his might and then leaping off the Carousel.

Hawkeye was instantly on his knees, trying to get to Natasha. "Are you alright?" he called out to her.

"Yes," she replied impatiently, "stop asking me that. I'm just trapped now."

Jarvis' voice suddenly came to Tony. "Sir, the radio signalling device has just been activated."

Tony looked around at the still unmoving praying mantises. "No, it hasn't."

"Sorry, sir," said Jarvis apologetically, "I misspoke, what I meant to say is that it's been activated for its secondary function."

"Which is what?" asked Tony, already pretty sure of the answer.

"An incendiary device."

"Another bomb?" asked Steve in frustration. "You're kidding me, right?"

"It's not a nuclear device," Jarvis informed them all, "but it does have a sizeable destructive load on board."

"Go after the bomb," Natasha ordered them, "leave me, I'm fine!"

Hawkeye hesitated but Thor was taking her at her word. "You are with me, Archer. I may have need of your deadly aim." Tony saw Hawkeye grimace, obviously reluctant to leave Natasha but he then took Thor's offered hand and they shot up into the air after the ring which the Hulk had just dispatched with such power.

The Hulk grunted to see them going after his new toy and leapt into the air, seemingly determined to get to the explosive ring before they did. Tony would have gone after them but just then all of the mantises started to come apart. He watched in renewed amazement as the creatures dismantled themselves into a sea of metal pieces. "What the hell?" he asked of no one in particular. The pieces started to move of their own accord now and Tony very quickly worked out what they were doing, particularly as the hundreds of the little pieces simply seemed to be dissolving into his armour. Tony immediately jetted up into the air to get away from them. "Jarvis!" he barked. "Diagnostics, my suits been compromised."

There was a brief pause. "Suit integrity is intact, sir," replied Jarvis.

"It can't be," argued Tony as he looked down to see the bits of metal now seeking out any other kind of metal they could find to absorb into. The pile of mantis bits became a writhing sea of metal as all the pieces instinctively sort out the nearest metal sources to be absorbed by. "I saw the mantis pieces integrate with my suit, check again."

"The metal has become inert on combining with your suit alloy, sir," said Jarvis.

Tony shook his head in amazement. "I need to get some of this metal back to the lab," he muttered. The trouble was he couldn't actually touch the stuff without it combining with his suit. "Cap," he called out, "help me grab some of this metal before it all goes." Tony looked around as he hovered above the quickly disappearing metal to discover the other man was no longer there. "Hey, Frosty, where are you?" he tried again.

"Captain America's comms seem to be damaged, sir," Jarvis informed him.

"Great," said Tony in exasperation, "just when I actually had a use for the guy." He grimaced. "What now, I've got to get some of these things back to the lab."

"You can take these."

Tony swung round in the air to see a dirt-covered Natasha standing over a glass case which used to be the top part of the ticket box to get into the little carnival. She'd obviously disconnected it and then simply dropped it on a stack of the metal parts which were even now clawing up the sides of their glass prison with no way to escape. Tony looked her up and down. "Oh yeah, I was coming to rescue you."

She gave him a cool look. "Do I look like I need rescuing?"

"I guess not." Enough of the metal pieces had disappeared that Tony was able to land on the ground now. He walked over and squatted down beside the tumbling metal parts in their glass container. Tony tapped the jar. "You and I have a date back at the lab, fellas." The sound of tearing metal came to them from a distance and Tony straightened up. "That didn't sound like the noise of happy," he noted and gave a quick nod to Natasha. "You guard the evidence, I'll check it out." Before she could reply, Tony shot up into the air and looked around for what might have caused that noise. It didn't take him long to notice that the Statue of Liberty's right arm was on a strange lean, looking as though it was about to break off. "Well, that's not good," he noted before jetting off to see what could be done about the situation.

oooOOOOooo

"But when I got there it was already too late," Tony finished his story. "The arm had come off and there wasn't much to be done about it."

"I see," said Fury steadily. "Before we get onto what happened to the statue," he looked over at Steve, "where were you, Captain?"

"I was hunting down the guy who caused all of this," said Steve in frustration.

Tony made a show of looking around. "Is the guy really short, because I can't see him?"

Steve glared at him. "He got away."

"I thought you were meant to be a super soldier," Tony noted. "Super can out run crazy any day, everyone knows that."

Steve's lips tightened. "It got complicated."

"We're listening, Captain," said Fury. "How about you tell us about these... complications?"

"Well," said Steve slowly, "I saw this man, this white black man at the Carousel."

Hawkeye looked at him sideways. "Excuse me?"

Steve shrugged. "I think he was an albino, he was a totally white, black man, like I said."

Tony gave him a suspicious look. "This is sounding hinky already."

"Are you going to let me tell you what happened or what?" asked Steve flatly.

"Okay," said Tony and waggled a finger at him, "but after that start, if there isn't a unicorn in this story then I'm going to be really disappointed. Just sayin'."

Steve sent Fury a dark look. "Just ignore him," said Fury, "and tell your story, Steve."

Steve nodded. "Like I said, I saw this albino black man by the Carousel..."