(Tony Stark)
Tony Stark hadn't thought to check if the walls of a nuclear facility could withstand a metal man being shoved into them. He bounded through more than two walls, then more than three… at the forth one he wondered how they managed to shield the building so well but cut cost by having substandard walls.
Finally, his helmet met asphalt, the material too tough to be damaged but the paint on the suit was a different story. As was his body inside the suit as the trip outside the center was tough and left the man slightly dazed.
The Ock Bot made its way towards him slowly, having managed to catch itself on a wall after launching Stark out. The claws scraped against the ground like a rabbit, fast steps that weren't touching the surface for more than a second before moving on.
He rolled out of the way when it finally sent out a beam toward him, countering a quick repulsor blast from his right hand at the same time.
"Jarvis," Tony yelped, boosting into the air to escape the reach of the bot's claws as they came down to try and cut through his armor. The armored hero took a look at the robot, "This one is different from the rest, what's this thing made of?"
"It appear-" With his left arm out, Tony launched a tank buster missile right at the center of the eye of the bot. Smoke billowed out from the explosion, obscuring the machine from Stark's eyes but the red beams racing out were clear signs that the robot was still kicking about. "-s that the main body is made from a material that is titanium mixed with an element that is unfamiliar to my sensors. The only weak spot would be the transparent material used for the repulsor eye."
"A new element?" Stark groaned. "What is up with this woman?"
First, it was the odd change of specialty, from cybernetics to practical applications of theoretical physics and robots. Now it was discovering new elements that mix with titanium that can take tank busters like they were nothing.
Doctor Octavius was starting to give him a run for his money with this level.
It was suspicious to Stark that there was this one special Ock Bot, the rest of them seemed to be made from lesser materials, given Cap could take one out with a single love tap of his Shield.
"Maybe she didn't have enough material for more than one?" he pondered before ultimately deciding that taking it out was more important than thinking about the mad woman's reasons.
Two of the bot's tentacles suddenly shot forward, the reach far longer, and the speed much greater than anything Stark had thought was possible from it. The man blasted his leg repulsors, using them as designed to rocket his body out of the way but found that a red blast had accompanied those tentacles, smacking him back into the reach of the pair of claws.
Within a second they entrapped Stark's arms.
"Ok, I've got this," The genius kicked out with a single foot, using the other to stay afloat, the repulsors on his boot set to maximum output. The eye-blaster combo of the Ock Bot started to bubble from the raw force being constantly pushed against the surface, but it appeared that the machine was able to balance on a single tentacle since another claw came up and pushed the foot away. "Nope… this is bad," Automatically the suit changed frequencies for him, calling the others. "Guys, a little bit of help?"
"..."
"Jarvis, is the connection not clear?"
"No, it appears to be blocked in some manner."
"They're not five minutes walking distance from me! What is this woman?"
Without any real means of fending the bot off, the machine was free to attempt to break through Stark's armor. A single claw tried to pry at the metal, tried to dig into the crevices of the armor, and peel it back but found nothing.
It was then that the bot showcased decent intelligence by targeting the area of the armor where the protection would end up being lesser… in this case, the joints. the claws that had been restraining him moved up slightly, though still holding on to him tightly, and applied greater pressure till the metal joints groaned.
Even some sparks lit out.
Not very good for the superhero known as Iron Man.
"Well… in for a penny," Stark sighed, charging his most powerful weapon on this armor. "In for a pound!"
His vision lit up blue as the Arc Reactor sent out a powerful beam, throwing the Ock Bot back and causing the machine to release the man from its grip. It hit into the ground with enough force to crack… the ground.
A tentacle erupted into a shower of sparks, seeming to short circuit while the main body of the Ock Bot jittered across the ground and eventually laying still. But Tony did let up with the barrage just yet.
Over half a minute of this barrage was all the suit could support in one continuous burst without risking overheating. Given that the Arc Reactor was currently keeping his heart from being torn by shrapnel, Tony didn't want to risk overheating the thing.
"I'll need to get that one back in the lab," Stark grumbled. "That's not just good hardware, the software is no slouch either."
He landed on the ground and started to make his way back into the facility, there was no time to stand around when the place was about to go into a Nuclear meltdown. The armored hero needed to act quickly, given the lack of response from the water control, which meant it was likely locked on a hardware level.
The facility was literally being fed water constantly by the nearby river, so it would've been impossible for it to be empty. Breaking a lock would be enough, for now, that should cool the reactors down.
Easy job.
Without warning, Stark found himself struck from behind, his body shoved deep into the asphalt. The dents and scratches were starting to add to the Billionaire's suit, what was once a pristine piece of advanced technology that appeared as if straight from the factory… now it looked as if Iron Man had walked through three different world wars.
With two claws, the Ock Bot held the man down, this time leaving no way for any of the man's weapons to target him. It took advantage of this bad spot that the hero was in as it sent out another attack, this time letting one of its claws spin rapidly till it was practically a saw as it started to cut through the protective material to get to the meaty bits that were beneath.
Then a screech echoed in the air, the machine falling back to the ground, the tentacle's claw still spinning but no longer held up, instead, it was grinding its way into the ground. Two more screeches rang out, electronic bits falling out as the machine erupted in flames.
"Dramatic entrance, Romanoff?" Stark asked, faintly inspecting his body while the SHIELD agent dropped down from the Quinjet with a new type of Anti-material rifle, something that Stark would've designed back when his company did that stuff.
Dark, non-reflective, with a barrel that appeared too short for the role but the rounds, they spoke for themselves. There were 20mm, for comparison a regular round for a standard rifle would be 12mm, and rounds that big were typically for autocannons.
It wasn't a normal piece of kit, especially if a normal person of her size could wield it, while standing, without tearing her arms off from the knockback. SHIELD didn't just have energy weapons in the back pocket, it seemed.
"You looked like you had it for a while," she shrugged. "Didn't seem right if I killed stole from you."
"Well, next time don't be so sporting," Stark replied, his eyes roaming over the small tears in his armor. It was a close call, he'd need to upgrade a few things on his next model. Less concussive force and more cutting force weapons. "I'm not paid by the kill here."
"I've lost contact with the Helicarrier," Romanoff revealed. "Complete communications blackout. Can't contact any of the other SHIELD bases either, so while it is obvious that this trap is a distraction, I can't say if we're being jammed here or if the entire organization went down."
"I doubt that Dock Ock coul-"
Tony cut himself as a thought rammed itself into the forefront of the armored hero's mind. A horrible realization, if there was a complete communications blackout…
"... how am I talking to Jarvis?"
(Bruce Banner)
"Don't like this… don't like this at all," The gamma scientist muttered under his breath, an act that caught Betty's attention from the other side of the lab. While she had been studying the data that their scans of the Scepter revealed to them, he had continued to monitor the location that the Tesseract had been triangulated at. "It's gone."
"... it's gone?" Betty responded, as shocked as she was intrigued. "Where did it go?"
"I don't know? From what I'm seeing it just disappeared. One second, here… and now it doesn't exist."
"Could've finally noticed the signal and put in a container to block it, that would lead to these readings."
"Or just a room shielded enough to block the signal," Bruce rebutted. "We've got to bring this to Fury. We've been tricked. This is just a distraction. They want us focused over there while they set up elsewhere. We'll have an army on us before you could say gamma-related accident."
They bolted out of the room, but before they were near the elevator Agent Barton stepped out of it, with him, a trio of other agents and a deadly god. None of them were wearing the standard SHIELD jumpsuit worn by the men and women on the Helicarrier, they were instead wearing a darker jumpsuit, almost black with black masks.
Except for Agent Barton, who was wearing his standard grab except with silver quivers.
And the smirking Norse God, Loki, who wore the same outfit as he had been for the last day or so.
Bruce shoved Betty into a nearby supply closet, the woman yelping in shock. Despite that noise, the brainwashed agents and Loki just walked onward. There was a vent in the closet door, letting the doctor see Loki smirk at him when he passed them.
"He's letting us go?" Banner's mind raced. "Why? There's something I'm missing."
There was a loud pop, and the duo of scientists could hear two bodies fall to the floor with a thud. A new set of footsteps were added to replace the two that fell, and from the voice alone both Banner and Ross recognized the man.
"Barton, it's good to see you," Phil Coulson's calm timbre oozed through the air. "The eyes don't suit you as well as the cameras made it look."
"That weapon he's holding-" Barton spoke up, leaning towards Loki as he did. "-it's made from the remains of the Destroyer. We're not sure how effective it will be, but it should at least have a third of the destructive power."
A single shot was fired, a massive beam of what looked like concentrated plasma flew across the hall, missing both Loki and Barton while tearing down the closet door. Next Barton bounced off a wall, hooked the Destroyer gun with his bow, and threw it towards the closet.
Coulson reacted to this with a quickness that seemed slightly outrageous to Banner, three straight jabs to Barton's jaw, and a sweep of a leg to try and take him out of the air. The jabs landed, while the bowman was able to hop over the sweep.
Barton threw his weight into a lunge, his bow catching Coulson by the neck as he trapped him into the wall.
"Mortals, always so messy," Loki gloated, his voice reminding Banner of the screeching eels of the Princess Bride at that moment. Something horrible that evoked rage in him. "Just look at the damage done to your own Helicarrier, back on Asgard that same beam would never miss a target, would also never overextend. You mortals really do like messing with things that you don't understand."
Somehow for an award-winning, gamma infected, super genius, Bruce Banner was known for not thinking things through. Case in point, at this moment he leaped out of the closet, rolling along the ground till his hand grabbed at the Destroyer Gun and shot out a blast right for Loki's head.
But with a flash of light, it went right through him and broke through the wall into the lab.
"Bruce!" Betty screamed as the man felt a cold dribble start to flow from his chest. Looking down, Bruce noticed that Loki's Scepter slowly revealed itself tapping against his chest, the alien himself appearing from thin air.
"I have no time to test myself against your beast," Loki gloated. "So I think I'll send you to my brother, he'll enjoy a good fight before he's crushed completely."
At first, Bruce's vision darkened till there was nothing around him but a void, Then he felt at peace as if he was suddenly floating on in a pond. There were birds peacefully chirping around him. The day had a nice temperature, not too hot, not too cold. No rain, no strong winds.
It was a paradise for him.
He could even hear Betty nearby, something that brought him deeper into a state of zen… till he heard what she was saying.
"Help, Bruce… help me."
Barely audible, but it still brought with it a sense of panic. So much so that Bruce shifted forward to stand, but found that he was restrained by some unseen force, it hurt to move and his body screamed at him to stop. After what felt like an hour of fighting against the power holding him down, his body went back to rest. His energy drained.
But then he heard her shriek.
"Stop!"
"Betty!" He roared back, strength filling his body as he stood his ground, the world didn't get any brighter, but it did get smaller.
The final words that Bruce heard today where;
"Oh… shit!"
These were also the first words that the Hulk had heard in some time.
(Pat Doyle)
None of us were worried about Stark, mostly due to the sheer fragility of the Ock Bots that had attacked. When a light smack from Roger's shield in the right area was all that was needed to take one out, the one attacking Iron Man wouldn't be able to do much harm.
So while we waited for him to come back, I tried to think of how to stop a Meltdown with the controls.
"Okay… okay… don't panic," I paced between the two blondes. I was doing this at speeds that Cap couldn't follow along, but Thor seemed to at least tell where I was at most moments. It only took me a few nanoseconds to come to an epiphany. "We don't need the water tank!"
My sudden yell marked a return to a speed that Roger's could follow.
"You got a plan?" he asked me, his shield on his back and his helm on his head, the Captain appeared as the picture of composure.
"Yeah, Cap I'm going to need to run, get Widow, and the Quinjet ready. This is obviously a distraction, so you need to check in with Fury, see what we can find elsewhere, something is happening," Rogers nodded, in that tense way that implied that while he was going to do so, he didn't like not working directly to solve a big problem.
But there wasn't much Cap could do to stop a nuclear meltdown.
"Thor," I turned to the man, he leaped to attention at his name, the blonde god grinned at me. Ready for some action. "Stand there and look pretty, I'm going to blow on the reactors to cool them down."
"…"
"..."
"It may take a while but my species has freeze breath."
"..."
"..."
"I owe Fury another fifty bucks," Rogers eventually replied.
With that I burst out of the room and down to the first reactor, stopping on a dime. I could feel the heat, it wasn't too hot yet. Something that I hoped was a good thing. If this meltdown was too far along, it wouldn't matter how much I could freeze.
It would enter a state called quantum tunneling, at that point, it wouldn't be the heat that caused the issue. But instead, it would be occurring naturally… I think?
Need to have a talk with Stark after this. It was one thing memorizing notes in a brief and doing some further reading, it was another retaining years worth of learning in a day's worth of cramming.
I didn't want to get put into this situation again but fuck it up because I'd screwed up the science.
Taking in a large breath, the biggest that I'd ever taken… and I blew into the room hard. Instantly the room was blanketed in white, frozen solid. I gave it a single second, waiting for a sign that the ice was melting.
But found none, even the heat the reactor was giving off was dead. So I made way to the next one, repeated the action, but when I came to the last unit. I got… a bit wet.
I practically tripped into a lake's worth of water. The place was flooded with freezing river water, nothing that would bother my advanced biology and it did do the job of stopping this unit from melting down.
A win if there ever was one, but it did leave me with wet socks.
I hated wet socks.
(Loki)
"Oh… shit," Agent Barton cried from his position holding Coulson against a wall. Loki didn't see much of a problem, while he had wanted the Doctor to stay in his human form till his brother Thor arrived, letting the beast run wild around the Helicarrier wasn't going to be much of a problem.
With practiced ease, Barton threw Coulson to the ground, his hands smoothly reaching back and pulling out a glowing silver arrow. It didn't take a second for it to be shot at the green beast, wherein mid-air it exploded out in the form of foam.
Loki instantly reached out, grabbing Dr. Ross with a free hand while pointing the Scepter out towards the Hulk as the foam filled and hardened around the creature till there was nothing but his green head poking out of the white mass.
"Quick Hardening foam," Barton explained as if Loki needed to be told what this foam was. "Its made for use if the Helicarrier receives major damage, keeps the air pressure stable. It's about-"
There was a growl and it rushed forward, tearing out of the foam as if it was a cream, with a roar of;
"BETTY!"
With the seasoned experience that came with over a thousand years of fighting by Thor's side, Loki threw the woman away, sliding under a wild swing of the Hulk that nearly crushed a wall when it impacted. From his new position behind the green beast, Loki did his own swinging, only his included the blade of his Scepter slicing into the thick flesh.
If the creature bled, Loki wasn't going to see it as it turned around and punched the Norse god so fast, so hard that when he finished blinking, Loki found himself in the lower levels of the Helicarrier.
He didn't pay attention to the human agents that were scurrying out of the room, one tried to take a shoot at him with a handgun but found, like many others, that such small caliber weapons had no chance against the durability of an Asgardian body. So that Agent left.
Loki decided not to bother with them, not when the Hulk could come down here at any moment.
For some reason despite the pain that the shapeshifter could feel running through his body, it was as if Loki had taken a cold shower, the world suddenly cleared. A single thought launched itself out of his mind and from his lips;
"This… has been a horrible plan, what was I thinking?"
The Norse God didn't have long to ponder that before the Hulk came crashing down into the room, his frame being showered in metal fragments while the good doctor's monstrous form huffed. The glare he was sending towards Loki was the stuff of legends.
"Out glares even Odin," Loki mentally sighed before climbing back to his feet, kicking the scepter back to his hand as he did so. "This was going to end up like this time I challenged a dwarf to a fight after a weekend drinking with Thor."
But it was then that Loki considered the history of the man before him. It was much like many other powerful new beings in the universe, mistreated, mistrusted… but not without some innocence that could be exploited. "Perhaps this didn't need to be a violent affair between us? Dr. Banner's intellect must be somewhere in that form."
"Now, I don't see why we can't-" Loki took a single step forward before the Hulk tackled him through a wall. That with a single straight punch… showed the young god that it wasn't just the glare that matched Odin.
(Louise O'Reilly: Stark Tower)
The two were at a back alley entrance to the building, the sort of entrance that they would use to bring in supplies rather than people. It was easy to bring Murdock in, which made a certain amount of sense since all the important stuff was either on the upper or basement floors of the building. Otherwise, it was just offices or apartments/penthouses.
"What… are you wearing?" There was a brief period of time where Louise hadn't believed Pat when he had told her that Murdock was blind. The man was just too good at moving and fighting for that to be believable to her… then she saw this.
And she could totally believe that this man was blind.
"What?" The blind lawyer gestured at his body, a cheap suit was fine enough in the tower but the really odd bit of fashion was the… the bright red scarf with yellow butterflies that covered the top half of his head. Louise was pretty sure that the man had stolen it from a store or something "It's a disguise."
"Aren't disguises meant to keep attention away from you?" She muttered, but while Murdock was sure to have heard her, he seemed to have let it slide. "You look like you just stole the first scarf that you could get your hands on."
"..."
"... You didn't?"
"I was in a rush, let's see you do better?"
"Certainly could see the colors better."
"So what are we looking at?" Murdock asked, quickly changing the subject to the matter at hand.
"Besides that, they're all holed up in Stark's penthouse, no idea," Louise shrugged, taking off her suit jacket, as it would be hard to move wearing it, and made her way towards the building stairwell. It would take longer but unlike the elevator, they couldn't be stuck in a box. "Not dumb enough to go nosing around by myself without a weapon while Miss Tentacle-Date-Rape is up there."
While they made their way up the stairs, Louise started to change into a pair of tracksuit pants that she was keeping in her bag. Usually, she wouldn't be so open in the company of a relative stranger like Murdock, but the man's blindness was making that feeling a non-factor.
"How good is your hearing?" The redhead found herself asking. "Can you hear how many people there on a floor from below?"
"Depends on how thick the floors are or how loud the people above are." he started to explain. "I'd also have an issue if there's music or heavy machines but usually I can get a general reading of what's going on. But buildings like this will make it real tough, they didn't cheap out."
Louise hummed, hopping over a couple of steps to keep pace with the vigilante.
"Did you at least bring something better than a pipe?"
"Yeah," The Lawyer reached into a backpack he had carried with him, taking out two long rods with metal prongs on the top. "Here."
"Where did you get a really long taser?"
"I didn't," Murdock replied smoothly. "I know a guy that's good enough with electronics to wire up a Stun Baton. Twist it to the left for a normal person, twist it to the right if you want to give more of a jolt. I wouldn't recommend it though, could burn through police armor, what it would do to skin I can't imagine."
"Why these and not a gun or something?"
Murdock paused mid-step and waved a hand in front of his face.
"Right… blind."
They reached the place where the stairwell ended, there were more floors but those were only accessible by the penthouse itself or by the elevator in a laboratory underneath. Murdock held a palm up toward Louise, stopping her from opening the door to the penthouse.
"Stay here," he warned her. "I'm not going to be held responsible if you get-"
"Cut the crap." Louise couldn't help roll her eyes. "You already gave me the taser, I'm going with you. I doubt that you're good enough to take on a half-a-dozen armed men and whatever bots the doctor has with her."
"And you are?"
"Maybe."
Murdock took in an audible breath before his hand transitioned into holding three fingers up. Louise took this as the beginning of a count down, so she went back first towards a wall.
One finger down.
Two fingers down.
Three fingers down.
They burst open the door with a mutual kick, Murdock leaping into fry and rolled onto the ground to duck beneath the initial sights of the two armed mind-controlled agents. He kicked out their legs while he rolled, using the momentum from his leap to move forward all the same time.
Before they could recover Louise was next in the room, a jab to the upper chest with the stun rod left the two agents knocked unconscious.
"That was disappointing," Louise couldn't help but comment while taking away the sidearms from the down agents. "You would expect tha-"
"Hello!" Octavius's distinctive voice echoed out of a comms unit on one of the agents' chests. "Where's that latte? I swear you mind-controlled agents are so slow, it's like being stuck in Windows Vista again! I'm sticking with bots from here on out."
Louise glanced over to Murdock with a wide grin on her face.
(Hulk Vs Loki)
It was the first time in what felt like forever, the Hulk was free. But this freedom was always with a price, fighting Puny Banner's enemies. The man had more than a few encounters over the years, but if it wasn't the angry Military Man forcing Banner to free him, then it was some random punk that was wailing into the weakling.
These were times that Hulk was forced to act, but this was one of the few times that the Hulk acted with Banner.
Betty was endangered and wherever Betty was put in danger.
Hulk would be there to save her.
The first thing that the Hulk did was break through the weak foam and punt the little green-wearing man into the floor. The man escaped through it somehow, so Hulk ripped apart the floor and went after the bad man.
The bad man said some words, speaking to himself before trying to say something to Hulk. But Hulk didn't stay alive by being passive, he'd learned from other fights that puny people liked to talk a lot to distract Hulk from whatever they were trying to do. So Hulk knew what he needed to do.
He tackled the little man through a wall… or more... maybe three of them.
It could've been six… the Hulk lost count after two.
They ended up in a room with many metal birds that the humans liked to ride to get to places. They always caused Hulk to wonder about the laziness of the puny humans.
The little green man somehow got free from Hulk's hold, appearing in front of one of the birds with a flash of light. He snapped the bottom of his scepter against the ground and glowed bright blue. More little men popped out of nowhere, surrounding hulk in a mass of bodies that would cause concern in a weaker being.
For Hulk… it just confused him.
"Come closer at your own risk," the little man furthest from Hulk warned. "I've humored your attempts at combat so far, but if you continue-"
Hulk didn't find the words to be persuasive, so he ran through the other little men and kicked the speaking one in the chin hard enough to send him bouncing off the ceiling and crashing back down into one of the metal birds.
The other men disappeared suddenly as if they were balloons that had popped from the sudden change in pressure.
"Why… does that never work?" The little green man groaned as he slowly stood up. "Death by a thousand cuts it is."
But Hulk was never known to wait around for his enemies to attack him, not in the middle of a fight anyway. So he barreled forward in an attempt to level a barrage of punches at the man. But the man still had some swiftness to him.
He rolled out of the way so that Hulk's fist finished off the remains of the bird in a fiery explosion rather than crush him. The flames didn't seem to affect the little man, who twirled into a stance, a fiery blue blast launching from the tip of the man's scepter.
It splashed against Hulk's chest with enough force that the green giant was knocked back several steps. There was a smell of burnt flesh that filled Hulk's nostrils while being accompanied by a poof of smoke.
"That… hurt?" Hulk loudly proclaimed, his large green fingers poking at a wound. "Little man hurt Hulk?" His confusion erupted into a searing hot rage. "HULK BREAK LITTLE MAN!"
In a green blur of movement, Hulk picked up an intact metal bird and threw it at the little man with all the force he could muster. It bounced through the hangar, Loki ducking under it when it came towards him. It crashed into the hangar doors with enough force that they buckled under the weight and came loose.
Loki bolted towards Hulk, hitting speeds that the green giant had only seen from some vehicles. Quick reaction speed let the green giant grab for the man, but the man moved faster, sliding between Hulk's legs and leaving shallow cuts at the back of his ankles.
Hulk roared, swinging wildly behind him as he turned on a dime, only to find that Scepter was pointing right at him and already sending a long stream of blue energy into his eyes. The pain was greater than anything else that the Hulk had ever felt before.
Which meant that it was the equivalent of being punched to a normal person.
Hulk responded the same way that one would hide their eyes from the sun on a bright day, his free hand gesturing out in powerful motions. They were such powerful swings that Loki needed to leap back several paces to keep himself from being bounced off a wall.
"Littleman annoys Hulk!" The giant gave up on swinging at the man, instead, he rolled up his shoulders while shutting his eyes and slamming his hands together in a massive bang. Loki found himself on his back, his head hitting against the floor with a wet and meaty whump. "Hulk smash littleman!"
Loki's eyes caught a glint of steel shining off the lights of the hangar, his hand just about reaching a large chain before the Hulk wrapped his large hand around the Norse god's leg. A single thought ran through Loki's head at this.
"Oh… no."
With a display that would impress the greatest weightlifters of the world, Hulk picked up Loki and slammed him back into the ground, swinging the littleman from the left to the right while moving towards the open hanger doors.
Hulk ignored the jingles that came with the motion, figuring that it came from the metal on the armor hitting the floor. When he finally got to the doors, he slammed the man once more against the reinforced metal, letting blood leak out from him before flinging him off the Hellicarrier with enough force that he was bound to meet the horizon.
"HULK STRONGER THAN PUNY GOD!" The Gamma-powered superhuman roared in victory, the darkened patches on his skin showcasing to the world that this was a tougher fight than he usually found himself in. "HULK STRONGE-"
It was then that Loki's plan finally came into play, the chain that he had only just barely managed to grab now wrapped around Hulk's neck. Pulling the Hulk out of the hangar with all the force that was used in throwing the Norse god out of there.
With a final roar, Hulk flew off in the same direction that he had thrown Loki, tapering off much sooner, due to his greater mass, and starting towards the ground below the Helicarrier. It was then that he caught the glint of blue flying past him in the sky.
It was the scepter, trapped in the talons of the largest bird that Hulk had ever seen. It was black and white, its wingspan a full eight feet wide. The part of him that was still Bruce Banner supplied that it was a Harpy Eagle, but to Hulk, it was just Big Meat Bird.
Hulk screamed in rage as he recognized the flash of light that came with the Littleman shapeshift. But he was too far away to notice the man hunch over and cough up enough blood to worry a human doctor.
He was too far away to notice the gleam in Loki's eyes when Agent Barton caught up with him, the gleam of panic as if he had only just realized where he was and what he was doing. But then all that panic was replaced with a stern smile.
One that promised that the Norse god was going to have fun.
(Doctor Octavius)
"There you are," She didn't even bother to turn, instead using the sensors that her new armor had to tell that the mook had finally come back into the room."Did you remember that I wanted no sugars, just milk right?"
"Yes, Ma'am," The familiar voice gave the Doctor enough concern that she turned around to face the man. It didn't sound like one of the agents that Barton had left behind, but it was still recognizable. He was scruffy, but less in an unshaven manner and more in a hurriedly dressed way someone would be when they slept in their clothes. "No sugar, just milk."
His voice had a lovely timbre, another marker of concern. It was far too emotive to be one of the agents that she'd been working with for the past day. The mind control appeared to have sucked any wit and personality from most people infected.
Except for Barton and Selvig, those two had become devout believers of some "Truth". It was like a cult for those two, constant talk about the "Truth" and what the Tesseract would show the world soon. It was more than annoying and Octavius hoped that this agent wasn't like those two.
"Better to focus him on a task," Doc Ock thought quickly. "Good, good, check Morse's restraints," she ordered, pointing a tentacle. "I don't want any incidents going on when I start to open the portal-" The woman paused suddenly. "-But loosen her gag again, I want to gloat some more."
"Yes, ma'am."
Looking at the man closely, Octavius couldn't help but notice the way that his eyes blankly searched around the room. It was as if the man was mimicking looking at things, but couldn't actually see them.
To test, she slowly sent out a tentacle towards him, once it reached his eye line, then she'd know what she'd know if her theory was true. But as it came, the man reacted as one normally would when they caught something moving from the corner of their eyes.
"Ma'am?" he questioned.
"Nothing, nothing, " Octavius waved her previous concern. It wouldn't matter much if the man had been blind after all, as long as he didn't fuck up. "Just get back to securing her bonds."
(Stark Tower: Matt Murdock)
Matt Murdock loosened the restraints around Agent Morse's arms just enough that the woman could break out of them at a moment's notice. All the while, he quickly tapped along her arm, using the morse code for what amounted to a 'wait for it'.
"Now… let me think what should I gloat about now?" Octavius pondered, Matt's powerful ears took in the ruffle of the material covering her right arm as it scratched at her head. He wasn't too familiar with the fabrics and the like used to protect people from high caliber weapons but from what he could tell, this stuff was thick, it was insulated against electricity, and it could probably take a knife no issue. "Oh, I know. Did you know that the Helicarrier has a massive weakness against computer viruses?"
"No it doesn't," Morse replied with some confusion. "We've got the best cybersecurity on the planet, even if a virus was somehow able to get through, it wouldn't last ten minutes before being isolated, shut down, and removed from our systems."
"Ah… but that's still ten minutes that a virus could be active," A claw from the tentacle waved in front of the SHIELD Agent's face, dangerously close to removing the nose from her entirely. "And that whole thing up there is connected like a spider's web; remove the sides and the center falls."
(SHIELD Helicarrier)
The Helicarrier was falling
The Brainwashed agents under Loki's control, led by Clint Barton, Hawkeye himself, had assaulted the Helicarrier using stealth and with such force that the other non-mind controlled agents couldn't deal with them.
Barton was using special arrows, newly created by a keen mind given knowledge from beyond this world, to shut things down, to block halls out with quick cement foam, to seal doors shut with high heat explosions that had a low area of effect but were hot enough to melt the joint shut against the walls.
Originally the invaders had planned on shooting an explosive into one of the Hellicarrier's lift fans. But the good Doctor Octavius had given them a little gift, a virus, it would turn off the power for the carrier's fans.
They couldn't even contact anyone for help, the entire craft's broadcasting capabilities had been temporarily taken offline. This along with how the doctors, both Banner and Ross, were missing along with Loki, left many in a worried state.
But it only got worse as it continued to fall into the body of water below, a body that was more than large enough to consume the weight of the mighty craft, the Atlantic Ocean. So things weren't looking good for the SHIELD Agents inside, even as they fruitlessly attempted to bring the power back online.
The sudden drop had caused lift to occur to any being or object inside the Helicarrier. Agents that hadn't grabbed hold of railings were brought up the ceiling. The ones that had tied themselves down to their seats in front of their computers, struggled with moving their hands to their controls, desperate to save themselves from a watery demise.
Fury himself could not help but glare at the world around him as he held on tight to a nearby handlebar. Silent otherwise.
A single agent, a man that was still going through orientation, couldn't help but glance about the control center, his nerves causing him to miss the click of the straps each time he attempted to fasten himself down.
"What can we do, sir?" he turned his attention to Maria Hill, her own attention set to trying to break through the jamming blocking their communications. As many would in this situation the woman was quick to reassure her subordinate.
"What we're not going to do is pay any attention to the sectioned off parts of the carrier, nor are we going to bother with sealing the holes, we're rapidly regaining power to the fans, so we may not crash into the ocean at all," Hill revealed. "The best thing we can do is fasten ourselves down and minimize our whiplash if we hit the water. The Carrier is buoyant enough that we're going to have several hours before the water filling causes us to sink. There's nothing to worry about."
Of course, Hill knew that this was probably wrong, at the speed they were currently falling the Carrier would hit the water hard enough that then resulting damage alone would sink them. But that didn't mean she was going to terrorize someone while there was still a chance that they could survive if the engines came back online.
"So… we're going to be fine?" he asked, confusion replacing the naked terror the young man had been feeling over the weeks.
"... Yes, agent," She glanced over at him, all the while her fingers continued to type furiously at the controls. "If we keep calm-"
"The engines are failing to stabilize us, sir," One of the many technicians attempting to fix the situation interrupted. "The Helicarrier is going to flip, we're attempting to adjust power but they're not responding quick enough."
The woman was suddenly interrupted by a loud screech of noise coming from her headset. Hill flinched even as it suddenly became clear, something that surprised even her years of experience in this job.
"Quinjet 1-" Black Widow's voice piped in. "-to HQ, returning from the mission, the target was not there. I repeat, the target wasn't there. We're returning to base now.."
It was the years of experience that allowed Hill to take their badly timed return in her stride.
"Negative, HQ has taken damage, we are going down. it will not be a suitable location to regroup. Head to the Alpha location instead, find the Tesseract..."
For a second there wasn't a response, then Romanoff's voice came out with a sentence that startled Hill.
"Doyle, what are you doing?!" It sounded more confused than angry, as the microphone on board of the Quinjet was overcome with the sound of the wind. The door had been opened, Hill could tell that much. "... and he's gone. Doyle's heading your way, Hill. He's got a comm unit on him."
As if an oracle, another agent yelled out.
"We've got an unknown heading towards us, it's breaking Mach 5-" The man paused as if not believing his eyes. "No, it's Mach 7… Mach 8, 9."
Fury gave out an audible sigh, that along with a grin told Hill just what the Director was thinking. Maria couldn't help but sweat at the thought.
"He couldn't."
"I think he's going to try."
"It's impossible."
"Should probably tell him that," Fury dryly spoke, pointing his finger at the blip on the radar, coming at them as if they hadn't been a few thousand miles apart from each other. The unreal speed that the man was flying towards them sent a chill up Maria's spine. "The man will put jets out of business."
"Mr. Doyle," Hill contacted the man. "There's nothing that you can do, just-"
"Sorry, I'm a bit busy, I need to concentrate on this next part," he yelled, his voice struggling against the loud screech of the wind rushing by him. "Where would be the best place to grab?"
"Nowhere, don't grab-" It was then, much to everyone's shock, suddenly gravity returned, it had been barely noticeable at first, but soon they shared that sensation an elevator slowly reaching its floor. Hill couldn't help but glance over to Fury, the man himself barely raising an eyebrow compared to everyone else in the room. "Did… did you just stop us?"
"... Yes, yes I did," Doyle spoke, his voice lacking even the slightest note of stain. "And honestly, I didn't think the carrier would be so light. Almost want to see if I can push it up now."
"I'd rather you not go through my Helicarrier, Mr. Doyle," Fury intruded, he was talking in a 'so and so' manner, something that let him fish for information with his next few lines. "Why aren't you doing that? Holding up that entire craft from a single point should just snap it into three, or the pressure should shove you right through it?"
Of course, SHIELD already had several theories on how the man's invulnerability worked. Some of the theories involved something like a telekinetic field inches from his body, something that could be broken or needed the man to mentally prepare himself to use. It would make it appear as if his skin hardened in response to threats.
This would explain how Doyle would suddenly get injured by minor things, like the blade of Loki's scepter, or off the shrapnel of a Doc Ock's bot exploding
Without bringing the man himself to a SHIELD lab to test it would be for the SHIELD eggheads to check these theories. Given their role in society, it could end up being as hard to get that man in for tests as it would be to get an Iron Man suit from Stark. This was probably why Fury was originally fishing around the topic by getting Stark interested in the first place.
It just seemed that now the Director wanted to try the direct method.
"Not sure about how this works myself," The man holding the carrier replied, with an earnest nonchalance that caused Hill to sigh, it would've been too easy for the man to know how his powers worked, wouldn't it. "Should really look into that."
"Maybe I should schedule some vacation time," Fury mumbled.
(Stark Tower)
"I wish that I could see their faces as their computers fail to respond in time," Octavius sighed in melancholy. "If only they had a few more seconds they would've been saved from hitting the Atlantic ocean… but those are the dreams of foolish SHIELD Agents. My dreams end with it hitting the water and tipping over."
Neither Murdock nor Morse responded to the melodramatic rantings of the doctor. Instead, they stared at her with a piercing glare… well, Morse did, Murdock's stare was blank.
"I'd call Selvig down," Doc Ock lamented. "Even brainwashed he appreciates my genius, but I do want to leave some of the boring busywork to him, and distracting him would only cut the time we've left to finish this project before Loki arrives back."
Murdock walked towards the window, his hands reaching into his pockets, he had noticed that Morse had tilted her head towards a nearby table, one that was full of gizmos and a few sidearms. He didn't give any heed that she had just told him to grab one of the tools that had been taken from her.
The vigilante didn't want to play his hand just yet. The deadly doctor was far too focused on her surroundings, any move towards there would negatively draw her eye.
"Agent… agent… what's your name again?" Doc Ock struggled to recall, which was probably more due with not knowing his name than actually forgetting. "You all look the same to me, you… Johnson?"
"Jackson," Murdock corrected, but perhaps it was too fast a correction as the woman turned her head to the side in confusion. Matt moved his own head to face away from the women now, hoping that she wouldn't pay too much attention to his eyes. "It's Jackson, Sir."
The woman hemmed and hawed, the sound of her tentacles scraping against the ground soon was apparent. Using only those famous limbs she made her way towards the disguised lawyer, the man himself keeping his face as blank as possible, even as he heard Morse free herself from restraints.
"Let me get a look at you," Octavius ordered, a claw tapped him on the shoulder and he turned to face the woman. He tried his best to meet where he thought her eyes were, but the giggle from her mouth told him all he needed. The words were just icing; "Now… did you think that I wouldn't realize that you're blind?"
"..." He blinked, making sure to glance towards her mouth. "I'm sorry, but I'm not sure what you're talking-"
"-I'm shining a light into your face right now."
Matt flipped back, dodging the pair of claws that tried to skewer him fromboth sides. Instantly Morse broke free from her restraints, leaping over to the table with the woman's gear laid out in a neat display. Her 9mn pistol was firing off a series of rounds towards the Doctor, who had taken off her helmet so that Morse could see her face as she gloated.
A pair of tentacles sprung up towards her face, blocking the shots with a speed that nearly took Morse off guard. But she wasn't a highly trained SHIELD Agent for her good looks, the woman flipped over to the other side of the table, creating more distance between her and the mad scientist.
Morse took the moment to glance probably at the table, noticing the EMP Equipment used to disable the doctor wasn't there at all.
"Going to have to deal with her the old school way."
Ock's helm snapped back over her head with a hiss while Murdock threw a pistol at the woman's head. It bounced off and hit the floor with a dull clang, firing off a single round along the way as well. It hit against a wall, harmlessly but not without a comment from the SHIELD Agent.
The duo noticed that the helm was missing a visor, this was what clued Morse in on the fact that the woman hadn't the time yet to properly fix the damage from earlier.
"There's a reason why they're meant to be used to shoot with," Bobbi griped, keeping her head low now that a crazed doctor could strike at any moment. She picked up a long taser that had been left on the table, throwing it to her rescuer with a keen aim only outmatched by the likes of Barton. "Not throw at people while still loaded."
"Sorry," Matt exclaimed, hopping over a swiping tentacle while catching the taser. "I'm not used to them being loaded when I throw them, typically they're heavy so I know to throw out the clip first."
"Ah," Morse grabbed a few more bits and bobs from the table. "SHIELD rounds are a bit lighter, they're custom rounds and all."
The casualness the two were displaying was an obvious ruse to the doctor. One meant to in enrage, like the Phrenology remark from earlier. Something that someone of her station wouldn't fall for… at least not a second time.
Instead, Octavius lifted herself up into the air, two tentacles acting as legs while the other two swiped and stabbed at the two fighting with deadly intent. They moved with practiced grace as if they had training for this sort of combat for years.
Suddenly, Murdock sprinted forward; an action that Morse took to mean that the man had a plan so she laid down covering fire, taking the attention of at least a single tentacle. The remaining free tentacle's claw spun around like a saw blade while swiping in the blind man's direction.
In a dazzling display of flexibility, Murdock slid underneath the deadly limb. Ending right inside the woman's reach, Matt rocketed forwards with the taser held out, aiming right for the exposed eyes of the woman that had nearly ended all life on Earth.
Only to be kicked in the head.
"You fool!" Octavius grinned, freeing the two tentacles holding her up by jumping back on the ground. Letting the pair take hold of the man by his arms, trapping him to her mercy. "They call me Doctor Octopus. Of course, since you're blind, you missed my other four limbs!"
"He didn't miss, he was just the distraction," At the new voice Octavius flung Murdock at Morse, the woman barely ducking the body of the man as he slammed against the wall as if he was a sack of meat. "This is the actual attack."
But before she could turn to face this new person, Doc Ock found her mechanical limbs dead, her rage only grew as she turned around slowly. The person that had arrived was that red-head from before, another person that had been involved with her incredible last attempt at crossing the barriers of the universe.
Octavius glared at the red-head holding the familiar shape of the SHIELD EMP Rifle in her hands.
"Who can't count now," Louise grinned. "Should've put locks on the weapons that make you a useless fighter."
"I'll show you, don't think it was just my mind that I've trained, even my own body is a deadly weapon," The Doctor ran forward, her fist clocked back while Louise simply rolled her eyes.
When the magic moment came, Louise was much faster, her fist slamming into the stomach of the Doctor, taking the other woman off guard enough that when the red-head kicked her in her helmeted head, she didn't have enough awareness to dodge.
The kick sent Octavius sliding back and allowed Morse to level her pistol right between the good Doctor's eyes.
"I surrender," The Super-villain sheepishly shrugged, not at all hurt from Louise's assault.
There was a slow clap and a metallic clang that sent a chill down Morse's spine. They all turned to face Loki as the trickster god simply took in the room and smiled, Barton at his side.
"Well, I'm certainly impressed with the quality of Midgard's warriors," Loki spoke with the kind of smugness that came with being completely assured of the situation and where they stood in it. "Three Midgardian warriors to take down an untrained woman. My, at this rate you might be able to defend a bakery from some foxes."
Morse glanced to the still form of Murdock who had been knocked unconscious. Then the Agent exchanged glances with Louise, who nodded.
"It's over, no doubt SHIELD Agents have tracked you-"
"-Tell me, Doctor," Loki interrupted Morse without a care, walking forward as if the woman was nothing. "Is the portal ready to open?"
"Selvig's just waiting for the word."
There wasn't a moment's hesitation, just a single moment of pity that went off in Morse's head before she let loose a single round through the doctor's eyes, dropping the woman to the floor before firing off a few towards Loki.
The Norse God simply tanked them all, a smile growing on his face as he walked closer to the Agent, his scepter held out as Loki crept ever closer. Aiming right for the center of Morse's chest.
(Pat Doyle: Helicarrier-Twenty Minutes Ago)
Keeping the Helicarrier in the air hadn't been a problem, even holding it for around an hour wasn't much of a problem. The problem came afterward.
I stumbled onto the deck of the Helicarrier, letting the winds from the altitude cool my body. It felt like I was burning alive, after having been put into one of those medieval torture machines that stretched a person by their arms and legs for a few minutes. Not so much pain, as just exhaustion.
It was like suddenly something had shifted in the air, something about the world had changed and I was grasping at straws to figure what it was. I started to recall things… things that I had never experienced before.
That lie about learning about the Chitauri and Asgard in school?
I could remember that now, the images of the futuristic classrooms filled with children that should've been far too young to learn more than basic shapes and colors.
Was I daydreaming? Was I so exhausted that I was mixing up fantasy with reality?
Maybe it was simply a sudden sense of clarity? Reminding me of a time that I was reading comics on these things while I should've been working on classwork back in school? That makes a bit more sense.
It didn't take me long to arrive… somewhere? I wasn't really able to take note of where I had gone into the Helicarrier. I was a bit too confused about reality at the moment. It reminded me of that time period I suffered from insomnia, the world was given this muddy, floaty quality to it.
Fury's arm steadied me so that I could stand straight, his lone eye showcasing a mild case of concern for me.
"You alright?"
I slapped my cheeks lightly. Which meant lightly for me, for Fury it would've been a loud bang ringing in his ear. Then I swallowed whatever was in my mouth, the mild metallic taste was only minorly worrying to my sensibilities.
Of course, the jumbled mess of my mind was something that worried me, but there was no time for concern for mental well-being.
I had to save the world, then fix my head.
That was my list of priorities and I was sticking to it.
"Of course, just woozy," Replying to his question finally, while putting my hand on one of the railings the carrier had along the walls. "I'm going to need some materials.'' After giving him a list of things that I needed to get, much to the man's chagrin, My mind started to race about the possibilities that Ock teaming up with Loki meant I needed to narrow down now. "This is going to be tough."
Given the Asgardian's advance knowledge of how space/time works, at least Loki did according to Thor, it was unlikely that he'd let the woman tear the universe in two, at least this time I knew I wouldn't need to worry about that. So the Rogue Norse God was probably was using the Doctor to speed up the creation of a portal to bring his army of Chitauri to Earth while he kept our attention on him by being caught earlier.
Then to make sure that we wouldn't be able to stop Loki from leaving the Helicarrier, Doc set up a new distraction for us at the Point Center. That should mean the portal, or rather the device to stabilize it, was nearing completion.
We needed to figure out where he was going to land his army.
Banner, Stark, and Ross had said that it requires a lot of power to stabilize the portal, the Tesseract's own ability to create power were out of the question, not sure why, but I guess it's something to do with being used to create the portal that something else needed to stabilize it.
And we'd already ruled out a few dozen Nuclear plants in the world that left alternate sources of power. My muddy mind didn't give me any direct answer, there were a few places that I could think of off the top of my head that could work.
Given that the portal would have a limited size even at the largest conceivable size, that meant he wouldn't be able to bring his army. He'd want it on Earth with as little notice as possible, so far away from large population centers, and it would need large plains, open fields. Little way of advanced infrastructure to allow rapid deployment of their own, the Chaturi's advanced tech should allow them to set up a home base within a few short hours.
Once they arrived, nothing but a bunch of people like me or Thor would be able to get through those sorts of defenses.
My thoughts were interrupted by the rather starling number of black spots that started to obscure my vision. It reminded me of that sensation when you stand up too quickly after spending more than an hour laying down or suffering from low blood pressure.
The world was a swimming mess of colors and even smells while I decided to finally sit down at the table in the back of the command room. Not sure when I got there, but that was immaterial at the moment, instead I focused on the folders that the SHIELD Agents had started to hand over to me.
My eyes regained focus in a burst of concentration that I didn't know I had left in me.
"Let's get to work."
(Avengers: Helicarrier-Ten Minutes ago)
It took an hour for the remaining Avengers to walk into the command room with a mix of rather stunned expressions on their faces. Steve, most of all, was in a slight daze as they crowded around the table set up in the back of the room. Not before Rogers handed Fury a twenty dollar note as they passed the man.
Doyle was simply there waiting for them while rifling through papers and swiping a small tablet, trying to sort through as much information as possible. There was an odd amount of disheveled-ness to the man that hadn't been there before, his hair was an unruly mess as if someone had tried to create an anime hairstyle in real life while the SHIELD jumpsuit appeared stretched, hanging loosely off his frame.
Otherwise, he appeared to be in perfect health.
"Guys," He mumbled, a sandwich half-eaten as he covered his mouth to block the sight from the other Avengers. "What took you all so long?"
"My friend, I've underestimated the power of your race," Thor spoke, his red cape billowing as he sat down. "Never before have I heard of such a feat outside of father's tales."
"Neat, I'll be sure to be smug later," Doyle replied, his eyes only briefly listing up to glance at the blond before returning to the task at hand. He suddenly stopped, rubbing at his eyes with his knuckles. "Hey, get me a jug of coffee, black, and yes a Jug of coffee!"
"What's all this about?" Rodgers asked, walking around as his eyes searched the papers, and glanced at the tablet. "Maps? Einstein-Rosen Bridge Theory? Thought you had already read the notes?"
"That's the entire paper," The Reporter responded, taking a jug of coffee from the SHIELD agent that had hurried back with it. The young man drank it straight down, the heat of the steaming beverage seemed to have little effect on him. Once done, his hands pointed towards other papers littered around. "And they're papers explaining the theories and scientific facts that went into the theory. Ross was taken, and Banner is missing in action, kind of Hulk'd to fight Loki got-"
"We know all that," Romanoff interrupted the man's rapid explanation with a tone that was neither cold nor warm. "We were briefed on the way here."
Patrick Doyle brightened up as if this was the best news that he had all day. It was an oddly expressive motion for the man, who while having the most expressive face that Romanoff had seen in the last few years, lacked the same sort of body.
Typically, it was hard to find any unconscious responses from Doyle. It was like someone had trained him for years to control any errant motions. It was odd, but not completely unusual for a non-powered person.
Something that hyper-kids were usually taught.
"Good," The reporter replied, his hand tapping against the table. A measure to keep moving, Romanoff noted. "And I've got better news, we won't need that program because I've found where they've set up shop."
Stark rolled his eyes, grinning as he walked forward and picked a folder, almost looking at random if it hadn't been for everyone seeing the man's eyes stare at for a lingering second as he got close to the table.
"Yeah, it's gotta be Stark Tower," he replied slyly grinning at the younger man, causing Doyle to freeze.
He glanced down to the arrangement of papers held out before him, his eyes seemingly still but there was jitter to his body that told anyone with the sense to realize that he was just looking around really fast.
"...Not… the Arctic?" he asked slowly.
"Nope, Jarvis just broke through the firewalls that Ock trapped in him, so I only just found this out myself," he explained, holding up his hands in front of him as if that would ward off any questions. "They're held up in the tower, even Morse's tied up."
At this… Doyle collapsed onto the table, much to the shock of everyone in the room. Stark was the first to get to the man, his fingers held up against the man's neck.
"He's got a pulse, it's beating a bit fast," As the man spoke, he leaned the unconscious reporter back in his chair, lifting the lids of his eyes up so that he could peek at them, a penlight being handed to him by a SHIELD Agent. "Seems to have some brain activity-"
"Stark, he's an alien," Romanoff took over, grabbing the pen. "Shining a light into his eyes to see if the pupils contract isn't indicative of brain activity in some animals like dogs and cats, never mind a man with the ability to see through walls."
She snapped her fingers against his ears, watching for minute twitches in Doyle's face. Four snaps produced a nose twitch and a flitter of the reporter's eyes, telling them that there appeared to be some level of reactive body functions.
"Okay, I want some agents to transport him to the med-"
"Medbay was one of the places hit," Fury interrupted the redhead while shaking his head. "And most of the backup space that could've been used for emergencies are taken up by injured bodies already."
"Well," She glanced at the way that the man on the hair jittered a bit, but it appeared to be from attempting to move while processing little to no energy. "It seems he's just too exhausted, needs to rest. Should be fine just laying here… I guess, maybe put him on the table?"
"Great, our strongest member is napping while the world's about to get invaded by an alien army," Stark moaned, glancing through the many notes on the task. "And we don't even have the Hulk to help out."
It was then Stark's eye caught some notes that Doyle had written by hand.
The first few things that were written down were about the Chitauri, detailing what kind of weapons they used, and showcasing some kind of large space-whale thing. Tony really hoped that this was a joke.
Why would a race develop space-whales? It just wasn't logical.
Something that was clearly not a joke was the notes on the Scepter and the Tesseract.
It was scrawled in what Stark could only call chicken scratch, meaning most of it wasn't legible. But he could make out the drawing in the center of it all. It was a large ring that had arrows around it, dictating movement. Large letters were underneath; OCK's work.
The Billionaire turned the page around, finding more handwritten notes. This time it was simply summations of Foster's notes, with neat analogs being made to simpler concepts. It was obvious from the clean handwriting that Doyle had written this side first.
Underneath that was a drawing of the portal that Loki used to get here, wIth red text beneath; LOKI-NO-RING.
"He's trying to make sense of the technology that goes into making and stabilizing the portal," Stark spoke, peering at Rodgers while nodding his head towards the sleeping Doyle. "There's a lot of dumbing down here, even some learning rhymes to recall."
"I thought he said that he understood Selvig's notes? Why all this?" Rodgers asked, his eyes catching notes on the Chitauri.
"It's one thing to understand the theory in a limited way,"
His handpicked up a paper of the maximum weight that certain parts of Earth's various Ice Sheets had. Looking for the perfect spot for Loki to drop his army down in. Even had reasons behind why Loki would choose such a spot. "Looking at this, it makes less and less sense that New York would be the spot."
"Regardless, you all need to get a move on," Fury interceded with a glare. "Freeing himself means that Loki is ready to make his move. I can't send anyone with you, Doyle's out of it, Coulson's certainly not capable given the injuries that Barton gave him during the assault. It's up to you."
"If we can strike now before the army arrives in full force," Thor started, striding forward with a swish of his cape. "We can take out Loki, this Doc Ock person, and close the portal before it's too late."
"That's good," Stark supplied, his face lit up in a grin as he placed the folders back down. "Because I've got a plan."
Fury's single eye glanced down to another handwritten note, one that said;
"Sunlight, I need solar power for emergencies."
It seemed that Stark wasn't the only one with a plan, the Director noted.
(Stark Tower; Now)
Loki was only half a meter from Morse when a sudden rush of movement caught his attention, Murdock leaping across the room in a dazzling display of acrobatics and attempting to jam the taser into the side of the Norse God's neck.
With practiced ease, Loki's scepter twirled around, diverting the blow before it could land. The blind vigilante attempted to get around the God's guard, only to find his next blow to be equally blocked when his opponent simply turned his wrist, catching the tongs of the taser in the blade of the scepter and shattering it as if it was a wooden bat put against a diamond wall.
Leaving the man open wasn't enough, Morse came running in to save her rescuer with a pair of escrima sticks that had been taken from her equipment earlier. Loki was taken briefly off guard as the woman started to pick holes in his defenses, he'd underestimated just how skilled humans could get within the short time they had to live, allowing a moment's opening to appear in his guard.
Even the toughest blow though from an Ant meant little to one of Loki's durability.
Seeing his boss's attention divided by two in a fight, Barton snapped back an arrow against his bow, only to find the third assailant against their occupation of the Stark Tower had thrown a chair at him.
Not one to be taken off guard by a civilian, Hawkeye quickly rolled under the object, while turning his position to fire off the trick arrow at her. Instantly the redhead was wrapped up in a bundle of ropes and dropped onto her back by the force of the blow.
"Sorry kid," Barton grinned. "You've got a few years before you can tangle with the big boys yet."
The mind-controlled SHIELD Agent turned back to the fight between the god and mortals, drawing back another arrow when the Boss yelled out, stopping him from joining the fight.
"Have Selvig open the portal!" Loki barely raised his voice as he near-effortlessly handled the two fighting him as if they were children. "I'll handle these two."
The scepter twirled around in the air, slapping both Morse's sticks and the broken taser of the Murdock with an elegance that came from years of dedicated training. It was like watching a dancer run circles around two highly skilled children. Amusing in a sad way.
As the two soon found out, it wasn't just an uphill fight, it was an up mountain fight. After all, Loki wasn't just faster and stronger than the two, he had centuries more experience in fighting in general than they could ever have. Every move was countered, deflected, or just 'no sold' as if they were wrestlers playing as the jobbers for the heel.
The longer the fight went on, the more apparent it became that they hadn't a chance of defeating the Norse God. Loki was only playing around with the duo, he could've killed them at any moment. It meant the would-be world conqueror was stalling for time.
The losing battle was broken by the rather sudden shift in the air.
"Is… that Highway to Hell?" Matt asked flipping back from a swipe of Loki's Scepter, his clothes only just ripping as the blade nearly cut through. "Why is that playing?"
The battle completely stopped at the sounds of a loud kabang rang out as the infamous Iron Man landed out on the balcony, machines rising out of the ground to remove his battered armor as he started to walk towards them.
In a single maneuver, the Norse God snapped the blunt end of his Scepter against the two's heads in a display that caused them to drop to the ground with a dull thud.
"Stark," Loki smugly said as he started to walk over to the man, walking over the still struggling against her restraints Louise. "You've arrived on time, I was starting to think that none of you 'Avengers' would get here on time."
"Reindeer Games! You've certainly redecorated the place," Stark responded, his eyes glancing to the dead body of Doctor Octavius. "I don't like it."
"Cute," The Norse God replied, the two walked towards the bar that Stark had stocked up at all times. The man even poured a drink for himself. "But I hardly think that you've come all this way just to comment on my decorating skills. Not when my plan is so close to coming through."
"You don't appear to be too concerned that we're about to come down on you."
"A pack of uncoordinated mortals and my berserker brother," Loki scoffed. "Barton's and Octavius's efforts were more than enough for me to know all about the problems that Kryptonian is currently facing. Must be younger than I thought, overstained himself."
For a single moment, Stark stalled, realizing Loki might know a lot more about Doyle's species than the man himself. But he didn't let the realization distract him, he continued to keep out of direct reach of the Scepter.
"Well, Doyle's never needed more than a minute to anywhere, he'll be around to punt you to the sun soon," The Billionaire shrugged, not feeling the pressure that other man had wanted, instead taking a small sip of his drink. "I don't think you've thought about what you're about to do, who you're about to piss off."
"Please, my army will be here within seconds, who do I have to fear?"
"The Avengers, that's what we call ourselves; we're sort of like a team," Stark walked forward with a passion in his us that hadn't been there before it turned back into a more coy expression. "You know, 'Earth's Mightiest Heroes'."
"Oh, please, I've met them."
"Yeah, you've run circles around us for a while," Stark admitted walking around the bar as he continued to stall for time. Soon the rest of the team would be in position. "I'll give you that, But let's do a headcount here: your brother the demi-god; a super soldier, a living legend who kind of lives up to the legend; a man with breath-taking anger management issues whose girlfriend you've kidnapped, great plan there; a master assassin; a man with so many powers that people that make Chuck Norris lists aren't willing to start one for him… and YOU, big fella, you've managed to piss off every single one of them."
"I have an army," Loki grinned for a single moment when a loud screech suddenly rang out in the air. As he suddenly gained a paler skin color as face transformed into something akin to fear. Loki rapidly turned but before he could even speak out, the Norse God suddenly found himself defenestrated, smashing through one of Stark's windows with all the force of a rocket.
The Scepter was instantly grabbed in mid-air, not even touching the floor before the ironclad grip of a claw managed to grab hold of it.
Stark couldn't help flinching as Doctor Octavius's bloody face greeted his vision. It seemed that while the bullet had hit her, it had gotten stuck only slightly between the opening of the visor and the actual protective part of the helmet.
The resulting blood from that had an effect similar to what a wrestler would call blading, where they would cut a small wound into their forehead. This would cause a lot more bleeding than the wound was actually worth.
"No, Loki you've not," Octavius gloated, as Stark started to run out to the balcony. "And where do you think you're going, Mr. Stark."
Stark glanced up to the sky, noting the green discoloration that overtook the regular bright blue sky, while he continued to run towards the end of the balcony. He was really annoyed that he hadn't worked on that self-deploying suit as much as he wanted to, it was still very slow in calculating his position.
"Holy shit," he stopped dead at the sight above him, the portal revealing the massive structure that was about to move through it. It didn't match what little information that Doyle had given them.
Instead, it was a large head that was slowly pushing through the portal at a pace close to that of a snail. On its forehead, three circles arranged in a triangle formation and connected through a series of lines from one to another.
"And people say that I've got an ego."
Author's Note: Hello good people I am here once more with a update. As usual with this version of the story. There's been a few fix ups, a little bit of formating change.
But still the same story. Also, it's actually several chapters at once shoved together. So that may affect the pacing more than a tiny bit. But hey that's fine.
Also big change here from Canon. No Chitauri invasion of New York... instead it's a rather famous Superman villain. Lol. Now, this is something that I had planned on from the beginning, for those with keen eyes for references.
You might spot the points of the story where I laid the groundwork for this. I'll leave you all with a kind ask for a review and maybe if you have time check out my previously mentioned accounts. Thank you and there should be another update the next day.
Correction: I accidently left out a piece in the middle there. Surprised no one noticed that for Some reason Pat had been holding up the Helicarrier.