Chapter 15: Tony

Tony had known there was something off as soon as he saw the Frost Giant army on the lake shore. His infrared said there was nothing there – not even humanoid patches colder than the surrounding landscape. Loki was playing tricks again.

But before Tony could investigate further, the illusion broke. The army vanished, and suddenly there were Frost Giants scattered throughout the city, joining the battle.

And they were fighting the Chitauri.

What on Earth? Tony swooped down low over the streets, searching for any of his team. "Guys, are you seeing this?"

"Yeah." That was Danvers. "But aren't these the bad guys too?"

"They're the good guys as long as they're only fighting Chitauri," Tony replied. "Otherwise, yeah, they're bad guys."

"Got it," Danvers said.

Tony wasn't entirely sure if he got it, but then he didn't get much that was going on in these days of space travel, magic, and aliens. He just worked with it.

Only a couple of minutes after the Frost Giants joined the fight, JARVIS called Tony's attention to the spaceship with a calm, "Sir, the alien ship is moving again."

Tony spun in midair to face the ship. Sure enough, it was rising away from Asgard once more. Not only that, but the Chitauri chariots were returning to it from all over the city.

"Looks like they're calling it a day," Tony mused. He intercepted several of the small crafts and blasted them out of the sky, but it only took a few seconds of that before he realized flying into the aliens' midst hadn't been such a good idea. He was being fired at from every direction, knocked around so much he couldn't get his bearings.

And then the inevitable happened. A stray shot glanced off his arc and it shattered.

Tony's HUD flickered and died. He felt a jolt of fear, and then he was falling without control, plummeting towards the ground.

"Tony!"

His earpiece wasn't powered by the suit, so Tony heard Natasha's panicked shout clearly. He went to answer, but a sharp jolt cut off anything he had been about to say. He looked up and saw that his leg had been caught by the passenger of one of the chariots. They were flying him towards the ship.

"Guys?" Tony could hear the fear mounting in his own words. "Help. I've lost all power."

"Tony!" Natasha yelled over the comm. "No! I can't–"

Her voice dissolved into static as Tony was flown into the ship. The doors closed after the last of the Chitauri crafts and everything was plunged into darkness.