####
"Sir, the Iron Guardians have failed to breach the protective shield around the Tesseract."
Tony hovered above the Stark Tower and watched the machine already moving its wheels. "Did you try using Kree tech? We made our own energy shield, didn't we?"
"This shield is powered by the Tesseract itself, Sir. It's impossible to match the same energy to penetrate it," Jarvis explained.
Tony churned his brain to come up with a solution. The idea of just chipping away a part of the roof with the machine and carrying it away came to his mind. But he canceled it since the beam would still not stop.
There's got to be something.
Bzzzzz~
Right before his eyes, the machine shot a beam right into the sky, creating an expanding dark hole.
Chitauri. Tony felt helplessly desperate. If the portal can't be destroyed…
Woosh!
He flew up to fight the creatures directly. "Jarvis, give the SOS to the entire city! Command the emergency services, we need to clean up the area as soon as possible. Use the God's Eye to detonate these things, and make half of the Iron Guardians help the people—Keep broadcasting and buy the damn dip."
Boom!
Boom!
At a moment's notice, the sky was covered in fiery blasts. Tony's suit wasn't something to joke about either. With the Arc Reactor created from the Tesseract itself, and his suit inspired from Asgardian armor, he was far more lethal than ever before.
He raised his palms towards the portal's opening and created two, unending lines of energy beams. He waved his arms like a laser and blasted everything that touched it. The explosions covered the sky and made some Chitauri reconsider before entering the portal from the other side.
But that was not enough to completely stop them. Many Chitauri flew past Tony and tried to attack the buildings, people running for their lives, or anything in their way.
Boom!
But, most of them exploded randomly, not even realizing when the tiny, gold ball-sized drone hit them.
Woosh!
"Sir, all two-hundred and forty Iron Guardians have arrived. They are protecting the people and aiding evacuation."
Grrrr~
Just then, a demonic roar resounded from the portal. Tony stopped and looked up, feeling highly ominous.
Grrraaaa~
"Fuck!" Tony cursed at the sight of the behemoth whale-like thing that entered. Was it a machine or a creature? How the hell was it flying? Thousands of questions came to his mind. But the biggest was, "That's gonna be a challenge. Jarvis, speed up!"
Tony flew closer to the massive whale and tried to use his energy weapons on it. He looked for a weak spot since the rest of it was covered in armor.
"Not there." He struck the thing everywhere. "Ah, it's turning around."
Woosh!
"Now it's chasing me." Tony started flying away from it at that point. Jarvis controlled a few Iron Guardians to make it leave Tony's trail. But, the whale remained steady behind Tony. "Cap, got any ideas?"
"Banner's here."
"Great, tell him to wake up the big guy!"
Tony changed his direction right away, taking a quick turn around the building. And just like that, there was the big green guy he had kept hidden in his basement for so long.
Wraaaaa!
BOOM!
And just like that, Hulk smashed the alien whale with one punch. It seemed to rile up the entire Chitauri army, and Hulk's roar was like a declaration of challenge.
Tony landed and regrouped with them all, back to back, in a circle.
Grrrr~
"That's too much," Tony exclaimed when he looked up and saw so many more Chitauri and those whales entering. There appeared no end in sight. "We're outnumbered."
"Who's that?" Captain pointed his finger at the sky suddenly.
Tony looked too and took a sigh of relief. A man flying in the sky as if standing, arms wide, a weird metal helmet on his head.
I hope we weren't too late, Mr. Stark.
Tony heard a voice right inside his head. "You're on time, head-master."
Let's save the world then.
"Right about that," Tony said and announced to the Avengers. "Backup's here—Get ready, Cap."
Crack!
Crack!
Right before everyone's eyes, in the sky, the man in the helmet ripped apart one of the massive whales with just a gesture of his hand. Soon, beside him appeared a woman with red hair, and she crushed the whale with one clasp of her fist, and all the Chitauri around her exploded spontaneously.
Quickly after, a woman with white hair appeared in the sky. As if reacting to her raised arms, a storm formed in the sky, and right after that, thunder struck everywhere—the Chitauri all around burned and fell.
"Wait, that's my thing!" Thor exclaimed and leaped into the sky to meet the woman.
"Who are they, Tony?" Captain America asked.
Tony chose not to reveal their mutant status. "Consider them colleagues—Avengers."
"Fine with me." Steve shrugged and started giving orders with that.
Tony also flew up and hovered in the air, his suit gleaming as he glanced at Erik. "You should go down and help save the people. Your powers will be useful in evacuation. Make sure people learn your superhero name and remember you."
"Ordering me now, Stark?" Erik coldly asked back.
Tony shrugged. "Just advising."
Erik chuckled and stopped using his powers. "I was merely joking, Stark. It seems you're an oracle, predicting an alien invasion—I believe you."
Quickly, Erik left to do as Tony told him. The old man understood the power of positive PR.
With Storm busy combining her powers with Thor's to create a giant thunderstorm, it was Tony and Jean left in the sky. The redheaded woman gave him the side eye every now and then.
She's gorgeous. Too bad, she violates minds.
"No, I don't!"
"You just did." Tony stared at her dumbfounded face.
"I-I was just interested in what you were thinking. It wasn't me the last time, Mr. Stark. It was the Phoenix… It's an entity living in me." Jean tried to clear things up, a bit flustered. "I respect people's privacy."
"How many fingers are behind my back?"
"Four!"
"You did it again!" Tony caught her snooping yet again. "Reading minds may just be an instinct to you, but it's not the right instinct."
Jean shut her lips tight after that and focused back on destroying the aliens.
Cute. Tony chuckled and flew away, dealing with things his own way. A lot of help had arrived, as he could see Logan smashing through Chitauri, and Jean's boyfriend beaming lasers. Raven was also there, pairing up nicely with Natasha.
The entire world is watching you all.
Tony tried to help the Mutants as much as he could. But he still feared this wouldn't be enough. The number of Chitauri entering was only increasing by the second. It was like they were multiplying in real-time.
Even Thor and Ororo appeared tired in the distance. It was total chaos on the ground too. His Iron Guardians were falling apart after continuous battles, and the God's Eye drones were already expanded.
There's no end to this.
####
Helicarrier,
"Sir, we have a bird in motion!" Agent Hill alerted in a rush, tapping on the screen.
Fury heard her clearly and ran as fast as he could to the deck. He grabbed a rocket launcher midway.
No hesitation. No doubt about what he was doing. He knew that one wrong strike and the nukes could explode right then and there. But they were on the sea, at least. He was willing to make that sacrifice to save the city.
BOOM!
He destroyed one of the jets.
Whoosh!
But the second one got away.
Fury rushed back to the ship's main bridge. "Stark, do you hear me? You have a missile headed straight for the city!"
"How long?"
"Three minutes, max," Fury answered. "The payload will wipe out Midtown."
Fury stopped talking after that and rushed to Hill to see if they could disarm the plane in some way. But he found Hill unmoving, staring at the screen.
"Director…" Agent Hill muttered. "Look at the missile's trajectory… It's…"
####
"Jarvis! Everything into the thrusters!" Tony flew with a roar, heading away from the city with a speech unmatched. He watched the state of his colleagues on the ground, in the midst of being overwhelmed by the Chitauri who continued to arrive in swarms.
Woosh!
He headed straight towards the missile. He had to, since it wasn't just Manhattan that would be affected. There were people he cared about who lived nearby.
Beep! Beep!
But all of a sudden, Tony's warning systems started to beep.
"Sir, it appears the missile is locked on you."
"WHAT?!"
Tony quickly deployed the flares in his suit. But the missile didn't seem to be following his heat signature. It was locked directly onto his specific suit.
"Fuck!" Tony changed his direction and began flying towards the portal, the missile was right behind him. Thankfully, his suit was far stronger and faster. He maintained the gap between him and the missile. "Jarvis, you better not miss a single shot! Prepare the Iron Guardians—We're going in."
Woosh!
Who authorized this? The President? No, he's not this foolish.
The entire world reported everything in real-time thanks to Jarvis and Stark Industries' coordinated effort. But at that point, Tony felt a real threat to his life.
"Jarvis, you'd have only five seconds."
"Simulations have been completed, Sir. Preparing the maneuver."
Woosh!
Tony flew up in a direct curve, headed towards the portal.
This better win me the damn election… If I live.
Shhhh~
He dodged the Chitauri.
It was so fast that everything passed by him in a flash.
Bright blue sky around him one moment, darkness the next. The view changed in front of his eyes, a frightening scene that he knew was going to haunt him for a long long time.
"NOW!"
Clack!
Clack!
In deep dark space, Tony's armor shifted. It opened and left his body within a second.
Left bare, unprotected, he felt the effects instantly. But he had exhaled all his breath out already, so the sudden pressure change didn't blow his lungs. But he only had five seconds before his blood boiled and he died.
Clack!
Clack!
Right then, an Iron Guardian suit appeared right behind him and caught him in its grasp, surrounding him with metal all around. The suits were space flight capable, so they instantly fired up the life support mechanism.
Within five seconds, Tony changed his suit in the vacuum of space.
But, he was on the verge of losing his mind. In half-conscious, he stared at the distance where his previous suit flew and rammed into the massive alien mothership. The nuke exploded like a sun, without any sound but so much light.
His body fell back through the portal, pulled by gravity and his suit's aid too. In silence, he watched the single most haunting thing of his life. A small glimpse of what lay there in the stars. Enemies so advanced that defeating them felt impossible.
Beings so powerful that struggling was futile.
Much needed to change on Earth, and now he was glad he was running in that election.
Shwooo~
He felt the portal close around him. But thankfully, he crossed over just in time.
He didn't fall in a freefall, thankfully, and the Iron Guardian, despite being damaged, brought him safely to the ground and laid him flat on the rubble.
I-I'm alive.
Clank!
Bright light struck his eyes as his faceplate was forcibly removed by Thor. It was completely unnecessary as the suit was working.
Cough!
Tony coughed up. Breathing air never felt so nice in his life. He looked at the faces of Thor, Steve, Hulk, Magneto, Jean, and Storm. "I'm good, no need to kiss me—unless it's the ladies."
Steve chuckled and nodded. "We won."
"Yeah, and I'm craving some nice shawarma," Tony muttered, almost on the verge of falling asleep. But he pulled himself together and looked at Steve. "By the way, Cap, I think I want to use that 'I owe you' in a few days."
"For what, Tony?"
"Election is coming, what else?"
______________________
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