The city was burning.
From above, New York looked like a dying constellation — every explosion another star collapsing in on itself. The air was thick with smoke and ash, the cries of the wounded mingling with the unending roar of alien engines.
The Chitauri descended like a swarm of locusts — their numbers endless, their ships darkening the sky. Each new wave poured through the rift above Stark Tower, the wound in the heavens widening by the minute.
Tony Stark banked hard to the right as a Leviathan's jaw snapped shut where his armor had been a moment before.
"Okay, yeah," he hissed through his comms, "definitely not a friendly sky. Cap, I could use some backup down here before I end up as space sushi."
"Hold your ground!" Steve's voice came through the static, clear and commanding. "Banner's inbound, and I've got teams clearing civilians east of Madison. Keep them off the bridge!"
"Yeah, about that bridge—" Tony cut himself off as a beam of plasma blew through the road, sending cars tumbling into the river below. "Never mind, there was a bridge."
The Avengers were holding — barely. But even with their combined strength, it was a losing battle. For every alien that fell, ten more followed. The Chitauri fought without fear, without hesitation, without mercy.
Worse yet, they weren't fighting fair at all. Sure, they fought back, but they kept targeting the fleeing civilians, destroying buildings filled with innocent people and shooting them down as they ran in a panic.
Tony was flying around, constantly dogfighting dozens of them. They kept him away from the tower, but at least JARVIS had been able to start the shutdown… he could only hope that by the time it happened, it wasn't too late.
Never before had a few minutes felt so long.
Smoke trailed across Tony's visor as he spiraled around another collapsing skyscraper, plasma bolts streaking past like comets.
"JARVIS, status on that shutdown?" he barked.
"Still working, sir," the AI replied, far too calmly. "Might I suggest not getting hit before it completes?"
"Oh, thanks, J. I hadn't thought of that," Tony muttered, rolling hard to avoid a Chitauri flier. He let loose a barrage of micro-missiles that chased the alien craft through the smog until both vanished in a white-hot bloom.
Below, the streets were chaos — a battlefield of smoke and glass. He could see flashes of movement between collapsed cars and overturned buses. Steve's shield gleamed like a beacon as he rallied police and soldiers, directing evacuation lines through crumbling intersections.
And beyond that—
A green shape tore through a Chitauri troop transport, the explosion sending flaming debris across two blocks.
"Banner's in play," Tony said under his breath, equal parts relief and pity for the aliens.
The Hulk landed amid a cluster of Chitauri, the shockwave flattening the nearest ranks. One of the wormlike Leviathans roared as it swooped low, but Hulk simply grabbed the creature's armor plating and ripped it off, dragging it down into a building with him. The crash sent tremors through the ground.
"Cap," Tony said over the comms, "I'm guessing property insurance doesn't cover giant space worms."
"Just keep them off the civilians," came Steve's reply, breathless but steady. He was moving fast — ducking under plasma fire, striking back with the kind of precision that came only from decades of war. "We hold the line until we close that portal!"
"Right. Easy. Just another Tuesday," Tony said, launching upward again.
But as he climbed, something else caught his sensors — not one of theirs. New energy signatures, unfamiliar but powerful, closing in from the north.
He almost fired before he realized who they were.
A streak of flame burst through the smoke, colliding with a Chitauri fighter and melting straight through its hull. Johnny Storm spun out of the wreckage laughing. "Who's ready for roasted space bugs!?"
Tony blinked. "Oh, great. The Human Blowtorch's here."
Tony blinked behind his visor. "Oh great, the fire hazard's here."
"Flame on!" Johnny whooped and dove headlong into a squadron of Chitauri fliers. They exploded one after another in a trail of fire.
Moments later, a hulking orange shape smashed through the side of a building. Ben Grimm — the Thing — swung a wrecked taxi like a club, scattering Chitauri across the street.
"It's clobberin' time!" he roared, his gravelly voice echoing across the battlefield.
"Susan!" he called out. "You holding that line?"
"Trying!" came Sue's voice from down the block. She stood amid a group of pinned civilians, her translucent force field straining under a barrage of plasma bolts. Each impact rippled across its surface like raindrops on glass.
Tony flew lower to cover her flank, blasting an alien that tried to outflank her position. "Someone help out Susan down here, she can't focus on keeping the civilians safe if she is under that heavy fire — she needs someone to take them down while she shields you," he called over the radio.
"On it!" came the gravelly reply from Ben Grimm. He vaulted over a wrecked car, pieces of concrete scattering as he landed like a meteor. With one swing of his massive fist, the nearest Chitauri skimmer exploded in a shower of molten metal. "Sue, you just keep that bubble up! I'll handle the bugs!"
"I can't not keep it up!" she shouted back, gritting her teeth. "There are kids in here, Ben!"
"Then they're in the safest place in New York!"
Tony smirked behind his visor, even as he fired another repulsor blast to cover them. "Remind me to buy you both a drink if we live through this."
"Make it two," Sue muttered, deflecting a Chitauri plasma bolt that ricocheted across her field like lightning.
Another explosion rocked the skyline, and Tony's sensors flared red again — high-mass object incoming. He looked up just in time to see another Leviathan burst through a nearby tower, scattering glass and steel. "Okay, that's— that's new levels of property damage."
The monster swooped toward the streets below, where Cap was trying to pull back the last group of evacuees.
"Cap! Big ugly's headed your way!" Tony warned, diving after it.
"I see it!" Steve yelled, planting himself between the panicking civilians and the descending beast. He hurled his shield — it ricocheted off the creature's armor plating, deflecting a barrage of Chitauri fire back at them. "Stark, you'd better make that thing blink!"
"I'm working on it!"
Tony lined up his shot — targeting HUD flickering from interference — and unleashed a pair of high-velocity micro-missiles. They slammed into the Leviathan's flank, blowing open a section of armor. But it only roared and banked toward him instead.
"Oh, come on!" Tony shouted, boosting sideways as the creature's mouth opened, spitting energy bolts the size of trucks. "JARVIS, please tell me you've got a plan!"
"Running predictive maneuvers now, sir. I'd advise not dying."
"Yeah, still not helpful!"
A burst of blue light flashed nearby — the sound of compressed air cracking — and Tony saw a streak of motion dart across the Leviathan's neck. In the next instant, several Chitauri soldiers atop its back vanished with bamf! after bamf!
Nightcrawler reappeared on a fire escape, his tail lashing. "Zis thing is far too large!" he shouted. "Where is ze man with ze claws?!"
"Right behind ya, elf!"
Wolverine landed on the Leviathan's head with a snarl, claws flashing as he drove them deep into its armor. Sparks and alien ichor sprayed across the street as he ripped through plating and flesh alike.
"Tony!" Logan growled over the comms. "Get this thing's attention off the civvies!"
"I'm trying!"
"Try harder!"
Tony dove low and opened every weapon port in the suit. Missiles, repulsors, miniguns — everything fired at once. The sky turned white with flame. The Leviathan screamed, twisting in midair, just as Logan tore open its skull. It slammed into a building and collapsed into the street in a shower of debris.
For a moment, silence. Only the sound of flames crackling and glass falling.
Then another explosion. Then another.
Tony groaned. "Why do I even celebrate small victories anymore?"
The city trembled as two more Leviathans pushed through the portal. The Chitauri swarm renewed its assault with fresh fury.
"Tony," Cap's voice came again, strained now, "how long until we close that portal?"
"I'm still working on it!" Tony snapped. "Just three more minutes!" he said, once more confirming the timer… he could almost have sworn it showed that last time as well… damn, time sure moved slowly in an alien battle.
The timer blinked mockingly on Tony's HUD. 2:59.
Right. Three minutes. Eternity.
Another burst of plasma seared past his shoulder, and he dove through the smoke, the city's jagged skyline spinning below him. "JARVIS, remind me to delete every clock function in this suit once we survive this!"
"Of course, sir. Shall I also disable the pain receptors?"
"I have pain receptors!?"
Before JARVIS could answer, a voice cut through the comms — steady, efficient, and very human.
"Stark, you've got incoming east of the tower. You're about to get flanked."
Tony's targeting overlay flickered just as three Chitauri fliers came screaming out of the clouds.
"Natasha, please tell me that's your voice and not some cosmic prank."
"Confirmed," she said, calm even as her own transmission crackled with gunfire. "You're welcome."
A Chitauri rider suddenly jerked midair, a clean arrow buried through its throat. It crashed into its wingmate and the two spiraled into the side of a skyscraper, blowing apart in a shower of blue fire.
"Nice shot, Legolas!" Tony quipped.
"Not Legolas," Clint's voice came back dryly. "I actually hit what I'm aiming at."
"Barton, next time you can fly the tin can and I'll shoot things from a rooftop!"
"Too much work," Clint said, already loosing another arrow. One split mid-flight, fragmenting into half a dozen micro-charges that detonated around another Leviathan's head. "See? Teamwork."
Tony banked close to the building where Natasha and Clint had taken position. The pair worked like clockwork — she firing in short, surgical bursts, he picking targets with frightening precision. Together, they held the high ground against swarms that should've overwhelmed them a hundred times over.
Below them, Cap's voice came again, still commanding, still unyielding. "Everyone, focus your fire on the big ones! We buy Stark the time he needs!"
That was all anyone could do now — buy time.
Another Leviathan swooped between the towers, knocking glass and steel loose in a cascade. Tony shot past it, weaving between falling debris. "Okay, big guy, how about we don't redecorate Manhattan today?"
"Sir," JARVIS warned, "you are depleting reserves faster than expected. Power at thirty-one percent."
"Then I'd better make these count."
He fired a pair of heavy repulsors into the Leviathan's jaw, breaking through its armor before unleashing a single missile into the gap. The explosion lit up the night. The creature's head detonated in a shower of molten fragments, its body crashing into the Hudson with a thunderous splash.
But even as he turned away, another came through the portal. The swarm simply didn't end.
"Cap," Natasha's voice came through, tight with strain, "they're regenerating squads faster than we can thin them out."
"I know," Steve answered, his tone steady but grim. "Just hold."
"Yeah," Tony muttered, glancing at his timer again. 1:47. "Holding."
The feed on one corner of his HUD flickered, showing Sue Storm's force field still intact but shrinking under the relentless barrage. Johnny burned a path through the sky to take pressure off her, and the Hulk was hurling what was left of a Leviathan carcass into a squad of gunships.
The radio was chaos — crossed signals, shouts, explosions — but somehow, through it all, the Avengers and their strange allies held the line.
Another warning tone. 1:03.
The last minute felt the longest; it was beyond difficult to hold back the waves of aliens, with the portal constantly growing larger. The number passing through with every moment was only continuing to grow.
A new voice cracked across the citywide emergency band, cutting through the clutter of civilian phones and panicked police channels.
"Skyguard Actual to all friendlies, be advised — ANG Falcons entering Manhattan airspace. We have visual on hostile portal and multiple bogeys."
Tony's HUD tagged four fast-movers slicing out of the haze, contrails torn ragged by heat and smoke. F-16s — clean, purposeful, angry. He couldn't help the breath that slipped out of him.
"Welcome to the party," he said, boosting alongside them. "Mind the décor."
"Copy, Iron Man. Two-ship on the tower, two-ship on the river. Fox Three — Fox Three."
Sparrows streaked up, contrails stitching white scars toward the rift. They bloomed inside a swarm, peeling Chitauri off Cap's corridor and buying thirty heartbeats of space for civilians to sprint through a hail of ash.
"Nice," Tony murmured, rolling to cover their exit. "JARVIS, clock."
"Forty-two seconds, sir."
Below, Sue's shield trembled but held; Johnny scythed heat across a Leviathan's eye; Ben Grimm put his shoulder into a collapsing façade to hold it upright long enough for a stroller to clear the corner. Nightcrawler bamfed a bleeding cop from an alley to a rooftop, then back again with a child clinging to his neck. Wolverine left a silver-latticed wake through chitin and steel, more butcher than brawler now, because there was no other way.
"Barton, Stark — elevated," Natasha snapped. "Top deck, southeast corner — snipers."
"I see 'em." Three shafts flashed — thunk, thunk, thunk — and the Chitauri toppled off the signage in ugly angles. "Clean."
"Twenty-two seconds," JARVIS intoned.
Another Leviathan shouldered through the portal, shedding molten slag. The ANG pair on the river bracketed it, one diving low to bait its turn while his wingman slid a missile up under the jaw. The detonation corkscrewed the beast into a bank of offices; the shockwave shoved Tony sideways.
"Cap," Tony gritted, "I'm going for the switch. Buy me—"
"Whatever it takes," Steve answered, no hesitation. "We've got you."
Tony flattened himself to the tower, streaking along cracked glass toward the arc conduits. His gauntlet locked, panels hissed, and he jammed the override spike home.
"JARVIS — NOW."
"Executing Stark Tower hard cut. Three — two — one…"
The world blinked.
For a heartbeat, everything softened: the rift's roar dipped, the deck lights along the conduit guttered, the air lost that ozone tang like a held breath.
Tony dared to exhale. "That's it — that's—"
The portal steadied.
The wound in the sky didn't close.
"Sir," JARVIS said softly, "grid output is at zero. But the bridge is sustaining on internal field harmonics. It… no longer requires an external feed."
Tony's mouth went dry. "You're telling me it learned to float."
"In effect."
A fresh wave of Chitauri spilled through, unbothered by the dead conduits below. Another Leviathan dragged itself out of the blue like a whale breaching into a burning sea.
Natasha's breath caught on the open channel. Clint swore once, quiet and colorless. On the street, Steve's "MOVE!" shredded into static under the portal's unending thunder. Johnny's flame stuttered in the downdraft; Sue tightened her trembling wall to a hard, shrinking dome around a dozen huddled strangers. Ben looked up and — just for a second — looked small.
The F-16 lead came back on, voice thinner now. "Skyguard Actual — ammo state Winchester in thirty. We can't stem this tide."
Tony looked at his timer — no timer now, just a clean, indifferent infinity — and felt his own power bars bleeding down the suit. Thirty percent. Twenty-nine.
He tried to make a joke and found there wasn't one. Not for this.
"Cap," he said, and his voice sounded far away, "we didn't close it."
There was a hitch — one human beat where a soldier swallowed his fear.
"Then we've got to push forward. If we can't shut it down by cutting power, we've got to hit the off button," Steve said.
(End of chapter)
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