Author's Note: Continues from Chapter 88, "Revenge Shall Be Ours!"
Even with the recent Chitauri incursion which New York City was still recovering from, the Avengers had a very hard time taking seriously the news reports of the latest alien invasion coming over CNN to be watched by them in their skyscraper conference room. The reasons for these superheroes' skepticism were many, among them being the fact that an effusive pair of outer space visitors currently speaking to a bemused WPHY-CD reporter were doing it at the unincorporated community of Grover's Mill, New Jersey.
To be more precise, right next to the tongue-in-cheek historical marker commemorating the "Martian landing site" of the Halloween 1938 The War of the Worlds radio broadcast.
It didn't help either that the meter-tall aliens and their saucer-shaped spaceship about the size of a classic Volkswagen came straight from a million clichéd New Yorker cartoons: bug eyes, antennae, purple skin, et cetera. Not that they appeared all that menacing; rather under the right conditions, these otherworldly guests might be considered kind of cute.
You could bet your bottom dollar some toy company executives also part of the growing nationwide television audience were already planning to market 'ET Dolls' for the next Christmas rush. Though, it was unclear if this money-grubbing management team would go far enough to include as part of these dolls' construction a voice box imitating the implausibly purest possible male British Received Pronunciation accents which both of the aliens were using.
However, what really had the Avengers think this was nothing but some sort of fantastic practical joke were the fawning announcements made by the aliens that they'd come to Earth as a pilgrimage of veneration to respect and honor none other than: "…the bravest, most stupendous, brilliant, astonishing Iron Man, whose magnificent heroics are widely known throughout this galaxy!"
From his chair, Steve Rogers then put a cupped hand to his ear and asked, "Is it me, or did anyone else hear that now?"
Captain America's teammates in their own seats around the table regarded him with various expressions of puzzlement. Bruce Banner beat out everyone else in replying, "Hear what?"
"Oh, something like a low creaking sound, as if the whole building just expanded a little to make room for Tony's already inflated ego tripling in size."
Bruce wanted to know, "What makes you think Tony's watching that right now?"
He finished off that question by vaguely waving a hand towards the big-screen conference tv where the aliens were now appallingly singing in unison, "Iron Man, Iron Man, if he can't do it, no one can!"
The rest of the Avengers thankfully took away their attention from that dreadful scene to stare in mutual incredulity at a suddenly-embarrassed Bruce for asking such a dumb question. Even deep within the scientist's mind, the Big Guy was giving his detested alter-ego a look of sheer disgust, indicating the Hulk agreed that Puny Banner was a total idiot to think otherwise regarding a specific goateed industrialist.
Making matters much worse for Bruce, Jarvis the AI dryly announced over the room's intercom, "Indeed, Sir is now not only singing along in his laboratory, he's also dancing with the musical accompaniment Sir has just chosen. Would you like to watch him? I can bring it up—"
"NO!" the entire room immediately chorused in their frantic eagerness to avoid this surely horrific sight from Tony's lab.
Well, one person there didn't join in that hasty expression of disapproval.
Clint Barton was instead sprawled back in his chair, as he'd been doing the last few minutes. Even more strangely, he kept on aiming an odd little crystal sphere the size of a golf ball towards the room's television, where the aliens had just interlinked their own arm with the other and were now waltzing in concert atop their spaceship to the much-altered lyrics of Irving Berlin's Cheek to Cheek they were crooning:
"Heaven, I'm in heaven,
Because Iron Man is here, so that I can hardly speak
And our happiness is at its glorious peak
When we're out together dancing, cheek to cheek"
Natasha Romanoff ordered crisply, "Jarvis, cut the sound!"
The television's volume promptly ceased when Jarvis obeyed the Black Widow, leaving the aliens continuing to dance on the screen there but now mercifully in peace and quiet. This meant Steve and Bruce weren't distracted from watching Natasha lean over from her chair and give Clint a firm poke on his shoulder with an extended finger.
"All right, you zhopa, talk! I know you're somehow to blame for this!"
Clint didn't stop with whatever he was doing with the small crystal in his hands or even glance towards Natasha, but a slow, evil smirk now developed upon the archer's face.
"You remember a couple months ago, when I got snatched by mistake by some weird bunch living in another magical dimension? I told you about the guy I shared a cell with there, Xander Harris, how we passed the time trading stories. Yesterday, two of these stones popped into my room, sent by him and his friend Willow the witch from their own reality."
"Wait, hold on!" an alarmed Steve interjected at the distressing news that someone managed to bypass all the Avenger Tower's safeguards to deposit in there a potentially dangerous object. "How'd you know those things were from them?"
"Don't worry," Clint reassured their leader, "Like we agreed back then, a magical hologram just like the one now at Grover's Mill, came along with the stones to prove nobody else but Xander was responsible for them showing up."
"That's a hologram?" a fascinated Bruce nodded towards the silent television still presenting to its world-wide audience the two aliens there now performing a remarkably familiar dance from a certain 1965 animated television special.
"Yeah, he did the Snoopy Dance too, right then and there. He also explained that for his birthday, Willow let herself be talked by him into joining on pulling another really great prank on Tony, if I was willing to go along with the gag."
Clint grinned at the others. "Hey, there was no possible way I was gonna pass that up! I went to that town yesterday, buried the second stone by the monument like I was asked, and waited until today to invite you to watch with me."
"Of course," Natasha said. "That helped tip me off."
She glanced at the television screen. "How much longer is that going to last?"
"Oh, the big finish is coming right up," Clint informed her and the rest. He raised his voice then, "Jarvis, split the screen to show both the aliens and Tony in his lab, and bring the sound back."
Once again, the AI did as commanded. On the left side of the conference room television, Tony appeared in his lab with this man's attention now fixed upon that room's own displaying of what was also being presented on the right side of the Avengers conference room television.
The aliens at Grover's Mill then announced to their vast audience, "Thank you all for watching us, you very lucky humans! Sadly, we have to depart now, but before we go, we'd like to leave here one last mark of the utmost admiration we feel for none other than the perfect hero of our age, Iron Man, by how the entire cosmos knows him!"
In the blink of an eye, the aliens and their spacecraft vanished from view, replaced by another image beamed throughout the globe. It took only several moments for the Avengers to see the punchline there and react by breaking out in uproarious laughter among their conference chairs.
Except down in his lab as presented on the conference room television, an incandescent Tony who'd also seen the same thing was sprinting towards the largest room window. Suiting up in his red and gold armor along the way while the window slid fully open, Tony bellowed just before his faceplate closed over his furious countenance, "BARTON, I'M GONNA WRAP THAT BOW AROUND YOUR NECK AND SQUEEZE UNTIL YOUR HEAD POPS LIKE A ZIT!"
Boot jets blasting him outside of the Avengers Tower, Iron Man headed through the sky towards New Jersey, repulsors already powering up to reduce a statue now there into its component particles.
In the conference room, Clint had the magical globe he'd been holding in his hands disappear from there, on its way back to two former Scooby Gang members eagerly awaiting this charmed item that'd just recorded everything.
Nonchalantly arising from his chair, Clint headed towards the room door, pausing there to announce to the rest of the still-giggling Avengers, "I'll be out of town for a few days…"
This bowman trailed off to eye the scene on the television screen of the new full-size Iron Man statue set upon its pedestal at the unincorporated township still being broadcasted by CNN. It showed Tony in a presumably intrepid pose standing at attention, head bare with his helmet tucked under an elbow, and a rather remarkable expression of imminent constipation upon this man's face.
Starting again, Clint Barton finished with, "…no, on second thought, make it a week or so. Don't wait up."
That made Steve, Bruce, and Natasha start laughing even harder. Clint beamed at them all and left through the door during the beginning of his escape from Howard Stark's son devoting his last breath into hunting him down, casting one last fond look over his shoulder at the statue and its name carved at the front of the pedestal:
TONY STORK