THE 16TH FINALS

On the platform, there was a change of setting, meaning that there was a large, circular plastic tent surrounding the teleportation pads, with two men inside wearing what appeared to be radiation suits and carrying large, technologically advanced guns with tubes connected to large metal backpacks. It wasn't long before Iron Man finally arrives on the pads, where he was somewhat surprised to find himself inside the tent and two suited men waiting for him as opposed to his fellow Avengers.

Iron Man soon turned his attention suited men with their pack powered guns, not appearing to be the least surprised as to why they were there. "Let me guess, here to give me the hydroxyl treatment after my little trip in Pripyat?" he asked them, receiving no answer from them, not that he needed one anyway. As such, he only opened his arms up to allow them to spray his armor. "All right, get on with it."

Both suited men wasted no time in spraying the contaminated Armored Avenger with their gas guns, with one of them saying this in a friendly tone. "This will only take a few minutes, Mr. Stark."

"Yeah, thanks for telling me what I already know, sport," Iron Man replied in a grumpy tone, wanting them to get this over with so the tournament can proceed, and he can help defeat more of the Thunderbolts...and make his way to the Iron Patriot himself.

As for the Avengers, they looked through the plastic and watched Iron Man being sprayed, with Spidey himself looking somewhat bewildered. "Man, I know this tourney has been sending us to some crazy places, but sending Mr. Stark to Pripyat?"

A less than enthusiastic Hawkeye is the one to answer the Web-Head. "Yeah, well, Stark's wearing armor that can withstand damn near anything, kid, so don't lose sleep over him," he told his young teammate with pessimism in his voice. "Besides, we've got bigger problems of our own! We're not even halfway through this tournament, and we just lost seven of our teammates! Including Cap!"

The team looked at Ms. Marvel with surprised expressions on how she took charge. All except for the Wasp, who always knew that her old friend was the strong-willed type and couldn't be more proud of her.

Also sharing in Ms. Marvel's resolve to beat the Thunderbolts was that of Spidey, who smiled big behind his mask. "You get no argument from me."

With the rest of the Avengers silently agreeing with the young Wall-Crawler, Wolverine just shook his head and groaned. "You're just easy to please, ain't ya, Web-Head?"

Hawkeye, overhearing the feral X-Man's words, answered this with a skeptic look on his face. "Yeah, well, he's twelve, what do you expect?"

Naturally, Spidey did not take too kindly to these words and thus confronted the headstrong archer. "First off, I'm seventeen! And secondly, Ms. Marvel's got a point! I mean, it sucks that the Thunderbolts aren't making things easy, but neither moping is going to help us either!"

It was here that Ms. Marvel stepped in between Spidey and Hawkeye to prevent the two from fighting. "Cool it, boys!" she commanded, then briefly turned to Spidey. "Thanks for the support, kid, and you're right, moping won't help us stop Osborn and his gang of super-powered goons," she then turned her attention to Hawkeye, with an even more stern expression. "But neither is fighting among ourselves!"

"I'm not saying I disagree, Danvers!" Hawkeye replied sharply, then narrowed his eyes at the Web-Head. "I'm just saying that it wouldn't hurt for Bug Boy here to realize how much deep water we're in and start taking this mess seriously!"

Spidey's calm and happy go lucky demeanor disappeared as he scowled Hawkeye. "Trust me, Cupid, I take this more seriously than you know," he told the archer coldly, then turned his attention back to the Iron Patriot, knowing full well the true monster he was behind that armor. "A lot more!"

Seeing the Web-Head's change in mood worried Wasp, thus causing her to grow back to human size and place both of her hands on Spidey's shoulders. "Easy there, Web-Head," she told the young hero, as if to try and comfort a little bother, then turned to the rest of the Avengers. "Look, guys, Carol's right! We need to focus on fighting the Thunderbolts, not each other."

Soon, the next Avenger to speak up is Thor, as he tried his hand at boosting team morale. "Wasp speaks the truth, Avengers!" he shouted with his usual battle-ready enthusiasm. "We must stay united and strong if we are to defeat these curs, and save our imprisoned comrades, as well as the rest of...!"

Suddenly, an embarrassed Ms. Marvel placed her hand on Thor's chest to make him stop talking. "I think we get the point, big guy!"

Though the arguing seemed to stop finally, Wolverine just shook his head at the antics of his 'part-time' teammates. "Can't believe I'm sayin' this, but I'm starting to miss Magneto right about now."

Back in the center of the platform, the announcer stepped in front of the plastic tent and back into the limelight to address the crowd. "All right folks, while we wait for Iron Man to...well, get cleaned up, let's go ahead and take a look at the next, spine-tingling matches we have in store as we enter the sixteenth finals!" With the crowd now roaring in approval, the announcer soon pointed at the screen, which now showed the sixteenth final match brackets. "And we have:

MATCH 1: SPIDER-MAN VS. WOLVERINE

MATCH 2: IRON FIST VS. SURGE

MATCH 3: HAWKEYE VS. SCARLET SPIDER

MATCH 4: WASP VS. ATLAS

MATCH 5: LUKE CAGE VS. SWORDSMAN

MATCH 6: MS. MARVEL VS. YELENA BELOVA

and finally...

MATCH 7: THOR VS. THE IRON PATRIOT

As he continued, the announcer's happy demeanor soon turned into a sad one. "And unfortunately, as we all know, Captain America has been eliminated from the competition due to his sudden illness. As a result, Iron Man had now..." Suddenly a mysterious man in a suit came running to the stage and stopped the announcer by whispering something into his ear, making his eyes grow wide with excitement. "I see..." he told them mysterious man, who gave himself a nod tan ran off the stage. "Uh, ladies and gentlemen, I've just been informed that S.H.I.E.L.D. has indeed found a replacement to take Captain America's place in the final match of the sixteenth finals, but I've also was told that he shall be revealed once said match-up begins. Henceforth, for the final match, we shall see Iron Man vs., um...' anonymous'"

The crowd cheered in approval on hearing that news, and sure enough, the names 'IRON MAN VS. ANONYMOUS' soon appeared at the bottom of the brackets.

Iron Man heard this announcement from the tent, and thus let out a scoff. "Mystery opponent, huh?" he thought to himself. "Okay Norman, I'll see who it is you've got in mind for me. Still doesn't change the fact that I'm coming for you!"

Meanwhile, the rest of the Avengers looked up at the brackets and seemed to take note on who they were facing next. But out of all of them, Spidey seemed to be more disturbed as he saw that Wolverine was his next opponent. "Great," the thought discouraged Web-Head. "New York's not so favorite Web-Slinger versus the X-Men's clawed killing machine...suddenly, fighting the Sinister Six again sounds really good about know. Still, aside from Cap getting sick, I can't imagine anyone else having worse luck than mine."

Meanwhile, inside a massive hovership in the sky, the Hulk is being thrown into a wall by the Leader, who controlled his robotic suit and smiled with evil glee in hurting his longtime nemesis. "Tell me something, monster," said the Leader with his usual, superior demeanor. "How does it feel to be on the receiving end of the might of my latest exo-suit?"

After shaking his head to regain focus, Hulk looked straight at the Leader to give him this reply. "it's strong, but just like the rest of your toys...it's nowhere near as strong enough to take me down!" After letting out an angry snort, almost like that of a raging bull, the Hulk then held both of his fists up over his head, then pounded them into the floor, causing the entire ship to shake, and as a result, cause the Leader's exo-suit to lose balance and fall on to one knee. Now seeing his chance to attack, the Hulk ran, then leaped towards the fallen Leader and tackled him to the floor. After pinning the suit down, the Hulk wound his right fist back and went to punch his large-headed enemy's stunned face.

Not wanting the Jade Giant to bash his enlarged skull into the steel floor, the Leader desperately moved his right joystick, which made the suit's large right arm to move and grab Hulk's fist. Now with a firm grip on the green-skinned powerhouse's hand, the Leader fiercely moved his joystick to the right side, which in turn, caused the suit's arm to toss and smash the Hulk into the floor like a rag doll. After legging go of the now disoriented Hulk's fist, the Leader piloted the suit into getting back up on its feet, then made it turn around and face the reeling Jade Giant himself, to which he raised the suit's left arm and threw a downward hook, intending to hit the Hulk's left temple and knock him out.

However, the Hulk recovered just in time to spot this, and thus responded by simply held up his left arm to block the punch, and with his other hand, threw a hard uppercut, so hard that when it made contact with the suit's left fist, it literally popped right out of the socket.

Even with the suits left arm gone, the Leader still refused to give up on his assault and thus used his right hand to try once again and give the Green Goliath another hook.

Fortunately for Hulk though, he saw this and used both of his large hands to catch the punch, and with his superior strength, pull that arm out of its socket, literally 'disarming' the Leader's suit. Still holding on to the mechanical arm, Hulk swung it like a baseball bat, which ended up hitting the base of the Leader's suit and caused it to stagger backward and fall to the floor.

While down, the Leader shook his head to recover from the impact, and as he looked up, he saw the Hulk had jumped into the air and was now coming down towards him. As such, he desperately brought the exo-suit's right leg up and used it to kick the Hulk before he could crush him, and sent him flying backward and spine first into an adamantium steel wall, with an impact so powerful, it made a dent. Much to his dismay, the Leader could get the suit to stand up, seeing is how it now had no arms to help him in doing so, thus leaving him no choice but to disengage the legs from the sockets and turn it into a pod once more. Afterward, the large-headed scientist decided to end this by pressing the buttons on the joysticks, which caused the base of the suit to glow green and fire an energy beam at the Hulk, who by this time was now on his feet.

The Hulk, on the other hand, saw this quickly and dashed to the left side, which caused the blast to burst through the wall into the cockpit, where the blast ended up hitting and destroying the auto-pilot control panel for the entire ship.

All which did not sit well with the shocked Leader. "NO!" he exclaimed, hating himself on how he, the most brilliant mind on the planet, could make such a foolish error. One in which was now causing his ship to fall from the sky fast, and had no choice but to try and escape from he was to save his own life. And knowing full well that the Hulk would probably survive this blast, the large-headed villain said this to his old enemy. "This isn't over, Monster!" he barked, then pressed a sequence of keys, which caused two side-mounted cannons to pop out from the suit's side, fired two blasts and ended up blowing a hole through the ceiling. With his escape route made, the Leader powered a large jet underneath his pod, causing it to rocket through the hole in the roof and out of the ship.

As for Hulk, as much as he wanted to chase after the Leader and smash him, he knew that Osborn was more important and couldn't afford to let anything slow him down. With this in mind, the Hulk turned to the left, ran towards the wall, leaped and plowed through it like it was cardboard, resulting in him leaving the now exploding hovercraft and fell towards an unknown destination.

Meanwhile, back in Nick Fury's safe house in New York, the rescued Gwen Stacy stood in complete silence as she saw Nick Fury himself, as well as Misty and Sharon standing over the still unconscious Captain America. Luckily though, Gwen had just entered the password she remembered from watching Harry and was able to help Nick and the others get inside Osborn's computer system and successfully find the chemical formula for the cure that they were looking for. Though Gwen was happy in helping save Cap's life, she was left utterly speechless when seeing the X-Men's bulky, blue-furred Dr. Hank McCoy, otherwise known as the Beast, wearing a lab coat and working hard on the quickly set up lab station, carefully mixing chemicals together as instructed from the formula Gwen uncovered. "Okay, I have officially seen everything," Gwen thought to herself in disbelief as she watched Hank pour a test tube of blue liquid and mixing it with red liquid inside a beaker, which when mixed together, changed it's color to purple and was left shocked and amazed by how a brilliant mind can be stored inside a brutish, animalistic type body.

As for Nick, he stood there with his arms crossed and looking stonefaced as always. "How soon before that antidote is ready, Dr. McCoy?"

"Just two more minutes, Director Fury," Hank replied calmly as he gently poured half of the purple liquid into one test tube, one he reserved for Cap and placed it inside a specially placed table centrifuge. He then picked up another small test tube and poured in last of the batch to make ready for 'another' patient that Nick has in his company.

Nick, at the same time, raised an impressed eyebrow with Beast's progress."Well, I gotta say, Logan was right about you being the most dependable when it comes to science.

This statement made Hank sigh in annoyance as he poured the second test tube into the awaiting centrifuge. "Yes, well, I often think that it's a feat that Logan abuses sometimes," said Hank as he put the lid on the centrifuge and before turning it on, took a moment to look at the ill Cap. "But I'm quite happy to help."

Gwen continued to stand there silent smile to appear on her face. Mainly because for too long she's been hanging around the suppose heroes that were the Thunderbolts, who from whenever she saw them, mostly talked about money and how they loved the spotlight and the special treatment that came with it, all and all caring more about the fame rather than helping people. Nowhere near what a team of heroes should be. But while secretly admiring the heroes that were standing before her, Gwen noticed something strange through the corner of her left eye, as she seemed to catch a glimpse the bottom of a stretcher just behind a curtain, as well as hearing the beeping sounds of a heart monitor. And though the image was faint, she saw what appeared to be an older woman lying on the bed and breathing shallowly. Gwen had a feeling that maybe she should look behind the curtain, but her curiosity was too much for her to resist. And as, after making sure that Nick and the others weren't looking at her, Gwen quietly walked over and passed through the curtain and what she saw made her gasp in pure shock.

It was that of Aunt May, still unconscious and hooked to a life support system.

"Oh my god, Aunt May!" Gwen exclaimed as she placed her hands over her mouth, but then heard what appeared to be people cheering, which prompted her to turn, walk over and look through the small opening of the curtain.

Sure enough, Gwen saw that the cheering was coming from that of the screen of the computer, which in turn showed a picture of Tony Stark as he communicated through the intercom system in his armor. "Fury, you're going to have to speak up," said Tony. "I can barely hear you over the people and the two guys in jumpsuits spraying me."

With an aggravated sigh, Nick nonetheless responded by raising his voice just a tad. "I said that McCoy is almost finished with the antidote which will save Cap and the Web-Head's aunt. Unfortunately, as far as getting evidence that would incriminate Norman, or on how to deactivate the nanites, it looks like Osborn's kid doesn't have that kind of clearance. Because when we tried to unlock that, we were denied access."

Though Tony was happy that Cap and Aunt May were about to be saved, he couldn't help but be just as annoyed as Nick upon not retrieving evidence that would help expose the armored leader of the Thunderbolts as the mad man he truly was. "Great, which only further proves that Norman is in the 'crazy but not stupid' category. But at least Cap and Parker's aunt will make it through this...for the time being, anyway."

From behind the curtain, a wide-eyed Gwen there in total disbelief from what she just heard. From hearing the 'Web-Head' nickname that was often associated with Spider-Man, with May Parker being here, and remembering all those times in which Peter would disappear whenever Spider-Man showed up, it didn't take her long to put all the pieces together. "No way..." thought the completely stunned girl. "Peter is...Spider-Man?!"