By the time the sun rose the next day, New York looked like a world trying to remember how to breathe again.
The fires were still dying out. Smoke still drifted between skeletal remains of buildings. Streets were cracked open, cars flattened, storefronts gutted. But the city—New York, stubborn and loud and impossibly resilient—was already moving.
FEMA trucks rolled in. Firefighters, exhausted but relentless, put out the last of the burning Leviathans. NYPD officers roped off unstable zones. Medics tended to survivors in makeshift tents. News helicopters circled overhead, broadcasting the damage to the world.
And among the broken towers and shattered glass… people worked together.
Thor used lightning to weld broken steel girders back into place. Tony and Bruce supervised large-scale scans of unstable structures. Steve spent hours helping lift rubble off trapped civilians. Natasha and Clint coordinated with first responders, guiding them through still-dangerous areas. Even Fury, the perpetual storm cloud, was out in the open directing S.H.I.E.L.D units.
New York wasn't standing still.
It was rebuilding.
Alex stood on the rooftop of a half-destroyed building and watched all of it. The Abyss Carrier hovered above the skyline like a silent sentinel—dark, majestic, and completely cloaked from civilian technology. Its crimson glow pulsed quietly, hidden behind a stealth field only he could deactivate.
He kept his arms crossed as the morning breeze brushed past him. Below, the Avengers were captured on thousands of cell phones, praised, questioned, interviewed, and celebrated. Their names echoed through the streets.
But Alex?
Nobody saw him.
Nobody suspected him.
He reached inside himself—not physically, but through the energy space only he could access—and felt the weight of the Tesseract pulsing faintly in his inventory.
"Pretty littel thing" ALex mumbled crumbling the Tesseract Cube, and taking out the Space stone from it.
"Hmm, now I wonder, if the scenario of the Loki using it to get under TVA will come to pass with it now being with me"
Suddenlt he heard some one coming and focused bakc on wokr, removing the rubble from this area.
"Find anything else?" Tony asked as he landed beside him, armor scratched but operational.
Alex shook his head. "Just damage. A lot of it."
Tony sighed, scanning the city with his HUD. "Yeah… we'll fix it. We always do."
Alex glanced at him sideways. "I don't remember, You fixing anything"
"hahha, was that a koke?" Tony laughed and asked but looking at Alex neutral expression he sighed. "Okay, I only once made wepaon of Mass destruction, but atleast now I am helping to fix mess."
Tony smirked adding. "It's New York. We've rebuilt her from worse. And… we got help this time."
Alex lifted a brow. "Help?"
Tony pointed down at the crowds, the soldiers, the civilians handing out water and clearing debris. "That," he said quietly. "Them. The city doesn't wait for heroes. It becomes one."
Alex looked down again—really looked—at strangers helping strangers. People crying, hugging, laughing. People alive.
For a flicker of a moment, even he felt something like warmth.
Then Fury's voice echoed through the comms: "Avengers—report to the Helicarrier. We need a full debrief."
Tony rolled his eyes. "Joy. Story time with Daddy Fury."
Alex chuckled softly. "You coming?"
Tony smirked. "Only if you promise not to nuke anything on the way."
"No promises," Alex said with a grin.
Together, they lifted into the air—Tony with engines roaring, Alex rising silently on dark energy—and headed toward the Helicarrier that cast a long shadow across the recovering city.
Soon, Tony and Alex were aboard the Helicarrier. The Abyss Carrier hovered alongside the deck, secured by reinforced magnetic clamps. Dozens of SHIELD scientists were already circling it, staring at it from every angle. If not for their fear of Alex, he was certain they would have already tried to dismantle it piece by piece.
"Leave it alone," Alex said sharply, his eyes glowing faintly. "That's not some toy or experimental aircraft—that is a living Demon."
The scientists froze, wide-eyed.
None of them dared to argue.
But the moment Alex turned his back, they pretended as if they had heard nothing and resumed studying the ship from a "safe" distance.
Alex shook his head. Great… definitely Hydra spies in the crowd.
Didn't matter. Even if they studied it, scanned it, or tried to dismantle it—they wouldn't get anything useful. The Abyss Carrier wasn't powered by circuits or engines. It depended entirely on Alex: his energy, his commands, his will.
Without him?
It could barely fly. At most it would act like a silent, scary hunk of obsidian metal floating like a very confused airplane.
Tony walked beside him, smirking. "You know you're scaring half of SHIELD, right?"
Alex shrugged. "Good. Maybe they'll stop poking things."
Tony snorted. "Oh, you don't know SHIELD."
Alex sighed. "Yeah… unfortunately, I do."
The two stepped into the main briefing room—where Fury, Hill, Steve, Natasha, Clint, Bruce, and Thor were already waiting.
And the debrief was about to begin.
Fury didn't waste a second.
"Sit," he ordered, pacing in front of the table. His coat was still scorched from the battle, and dust clung to his boots. "You two just turned Manhattan into a fireworks display. We're going to talk about it."
Alex took a seat without reacting. Tony sat beside him, rubbing his shoulder from crashing into a building.
Steve leaned forward, hands on the table. "Fury… the priority is simple—the portal's closed, the invasion is over. That's what matters."
"Right now," Fury shot back, "what matters is making sure we don't invite a round two."
Thor nodded somberly. "The Chitauri will not forget this defeat. Nor will the one who sent them."
"Loki," Natasha said quietly, her gaze flicking to the unconscious god displayed on the nearby screen in his containment cell.
"I didn't mean him by 'second round,'" Fury cut in, tone flat. "I meant—the Tesseract is missing."
Silence hit the briefing room like a physical blow.
"What?" Steve shot up from his seat. "What do you mean missing? I thought we had eyes on it ever since Loki touched the damn thing."
"We did," Fury said, jaw tight. "Or… we thought we did."
Everyone turned toward the table where Loki's gear had been laid out earlier.
Tony's eyes narrowed. "Hold up. You're telling me that when you guys search that portal creation machine, there was no Tesseract?"
*******
if you like my fanfic, and want to support me and read advance chaps, checkout my fanfic on Patreon :- patreon.com/FantasyLi
There are regular updates too.
I have written Twenty chaps and will write more soo
***