It wasn't that Tony hadn't thought about reaching the tower and shutting down the machine itself. But he knew that doing so wouldn't be easy. After all, the person behind all this would surely try to stop them.
He just hadn't expected such a large portal to be able to sustain itself without any external power. While it wasn't growing anymore, it was still large enough to allow a massive number of aliens to pour through it every moment — hardly much of an improvement.
But yes, now they clearly couldn't afford to stay back. They needed to get there and reach it… though that too was a problem.
Because they were in a constant retreat, slowly being forced back as they tried to defend the fleeing civilians. Not to mention that the ever-increasing number of enemies wasn't making reaching the tower any easier.
Even the military wasn't of much help. Sure, it was better than nothing, and better late than never, but the fighters weren't nearly mobile enough to handle the smaller ones, and the big ones caused plenty of devastation even when falling down into the city below.
Tony ducked behind the remains of a skyscraper, plasma bolts scorching the steel above him. His HUD flickered under the interference from the portal.
"Alright, team," he said through the comms, trying to keep his voice steady, "we're out of good ideas, so let's make some bad ones. We need a path to Stark Tower."
"Not happening," Clint shot back between shots. "We can barely hold our sector, let alone carve through three blocks of those things."
"Agreed," Steve added, his voice tight with exhaustion. "Every street is a choke point. The Chitauri are adapting — they've got units covering the rooftops now. Moving blind toward the tower's suicide."
Tony ducked out from cover and fired upward, blasting a Chitauri flier before it could dive. "Well, dying's still technically progress!"
"Not funny," Natasha snapped. "We need a corridor, something open enough for Stark to fly through without getting shredded. Maybe from the river?"
"The Hudson's clogged with wreckage," Sue Storm's voice cut in. "The Leviathan carcasses are blocking half the channel. You'd have to fly under or over them, and both are suicide routes."
"I can melt a way through!" Johnny offered, his voice crackling with the sound of rushing wind.
"Negative," Cap ordered immediately. "We need you keeping those civilians covered, Storm. No one moves until we're clear."
Tony hovered above a blown-out intersection, smoke rising beneath his boots. "Alright, let's think simpler. Ground route. If we split the forces—"
"Bad idea," Logan interrupted over the comms. "These things hunt in packs. You split, you die. We move together or not at all."
Nightcrawler's voice followed, calm but faint through static. "Ve are outnumbered twenty to one. I cannot even teleport zhat many of us at once. Perhaps if ve distract them—"
"That's it!" Johnny's voice came through. "Kurt can teleport Stark in and have a check, see if we can shut it down."
"Bad idea. They will be alone behind enemy lines, and Stark can't both work machines while fighting. We need enough firepower with him to take care of anything protecting the machine." Steve was quick to shoot the idea down.
"Then we fight our way through," Tony said. "I'll take point. Cap, you keep the ground clear, and someone tell Hulk to make a hole — literally."
"Already on it," Natasha muttered. The sound of something enormous roaring in the background answered her before she could finish.
A block away, one of the Leviathans slammed down through a building and met a green fist the size of a small car. The shockwave rolled through the street, flipping debris and alien bodies like paper. Hulk roared again, grabbed a Chitauri skimmer out of the air, and hurled it through another.
"Yeah," Clint said dryly. "That's one way to clear traffic."
Tony took to the sky again, cutting across the battlefield, marking the tower in his HUD. It wasn't far — maybe a dozen blocks — but it might as well have been a world away. The swarm between him and it looked endless.
"Alright, that's our gap," he said. "If we push while Hulk's making noise, we might actually reach—"
He stopped. His sensors were spiking. "Oh, great," he muttered. "They're adapting again."
The Chitauri formations shifted mid-air, folding like schools of fish. Their fire became coordinated, almost surgical. Either they were learning, or someone was giving them orders.
Whatever it was, it wasn't good.
"Cap," Tony warned, "they're not just attacking random targets anymore, they are starting to conduct sweeps."
"I see it," Steve grunted. "Everyone fall back to the intersection at 49th — tight formation!"
A barrage of alien plasma tore through the street, blowing chunks out of the pavement. Steve dove behind a wrecked bus, raising his shield just in time to block another blast. Natasha covered the left side, shooting clean and fast. Clint's arrows streaked overhead — some exploding mid-flight, others releasing electric nets that tangled up the fliers.
It was coordinated chaos — barely holding.
Sue's voice came through again, strained. "I can hold the civilians another few minutes, but I can't move them without cover!"
"Get them underground then, same with the rest. If you can't get them to a subway, use the sewers."
"Fine, but you better not collapse the street on top of us then!" she said, her voice cracking under the weight of the energy hitting her force field.
Tony boosted higher, firing down into the streets. "Jarvis, give me an updated power estimate."
"Twenty-four percent remaining, sir."
Tony knew his current reactor well. It wasn't really a limitless source of power, not the way he used it. It would, at one point, overheat and have to shut down to recover — at least when his output was high for too long.
So it wasn't like he would run out, just that he needed to take a break, which was difficult in this situation. Though if they could get through… he figured he wouldn't need to use much energy while working on the machine; hopefully that would give the reactor a chance to cool down, and for his "power" to "recover."
Static flooded the comms, followed by Fury's voice — rough, sharp, and low.
"Stark. Captain. Anyone reading me?"
"Reading you, Director," Cap answered. "We're still in the fight, but it's bad. We can't reach the tower. There's too many."
Fury's tone was colder than usual. "You'd better find a way. I'm running out of favors, and the big brass upstairs are out of patience."
Tony frowned. "Define 'out of patience.'"
"Out of options," Fury corrected grimly. "The Joint Chiefs just voted to authorize a tactical strike."
Silence. The entire comm line froze. Even the background gunfire seemed to fade for a heartbeat.
Steve was the first to speak. "You mean…?"
"A nuke," Fury said flatly. "They're prepping one right now, carrier group in the Atlantic. They think it's the only way to contain the spread."
Natasha's voice cracked through the static. "Contain it? They'll vaporize half the city!"
"They don't care," Fury said. "They think the alternative is worse. And they aren't wrong — despite how many remain in New York, plenty have spread out, moving south and west, smaller groups clearly splitting off towards major population centres. This could soon move from just New York to the whole country."
Tony clenched his jaw, flying higher to see the full extent of the chaos below — the burning skyline, the portal bleeding light into the world, the alien fleet still pouring through. For once, he didn't have a quip ready.
"Tell them to stand down," Steve ordered. "We're handling it."
"You're not handling it," Fury shot back. "You've been fighting for nearly an hour, and the portal's still open. You've got one last chance to fix this before someone makes a decision you can't walk back from."
"Then buy us time," Tony said through gritted teeth. "Just — give us five minutes. I can get there. I can stop it."
"I'll try," Fury said. "But that's all I can do."
The line went dead.
For a moment, there was only wind and the faint hum of Tony's thrusters. Then the world roared back — gunfire, plasma, screams, the endless shriek of engines overhead.
Tony's voice came back onto the team frequency, quieter now. "Alright. You heard him. We've got five minutes before this turns into a crater. Let's make them count."
"Five minutes?" Clint muttered. "I can't even make coffee in five minutes."
"Then shoot faster," Natasha replied, already moving.
Steve pushed off the bus, his shield gleaming under the glow of the portal. "Everyone — move! We take the tower or we die trying."
As one, they surged forward through the smoke and flame, toward Stark Tower — the heart of the storm.
The push forward was agony. Every step was paid for in sweat, smoke, and blood.
Cap led from the front, shield raised as he bulldozed through the Chitauri ranks, the sound of plasma deflecting off vibranium like hammer on steel. Natasha moved with him, a ghost in the chaos — her pistols emptying only for her to snatch alien weapons from the ground and fire back twice as fast. Clint covered their flanks, arrows singing through the air in rapid succession, explosions rolling down the avenue in tight rhythmic bursts.
Tony rained fire from above, his thrusters howling as he strafed the street. "Keep moving! Don't stop for anything! Jarvis, give me a line straight to the tower!"
"Calculating safest vector—"
"There's no safe vector!" Tony snapped. "Just find the one that kills me last!"
Below, the Fantastic Four fought like a storm. Ben Grimm charged through overturned cars, using them as battering rams. Every Chitauri he hit stayed down. Johnny scorched the skies above him, his trail of fire drawing the swarm away from the ground while Sue shielded what few civilians were still running. She was bleeding from her nose, her force fields shimmering weakly — but they held.
The Hulk was the spearhead. Every blow he threw sent shockwaves through the street, and every time a Leviathan dove, he leapt to meet it, tearing at its armor with bare hands. But even the Hulk bled now — plasma scoring his green skin black.
"Almost there!" Cap shouted, his voice raw. The tower was visible through the haze now, its cracked glass façade reflecting the pulsing blue of the portal above it. "Tony, that's your window!"
Tony dove, blasting through a squadron of Chitauri riders, vaporizing them in a flare of white light. "I see it! I can reach it—"
"On your right!" Clint yelled.
Tony twisted — too late. A blast caught him square in the side, sending him crashing into the remains of a billboard. His HUD scrambled.
"Ow… okay. I'm fine. Everything hurts, but I'm fine."
"Stay focused!" Natasha barked. "We're almost—"
Tony's sensors spiked red across the board.
"Oh no. No, no, no—"
"Stark?" Cap demanded.
He didn't answer. He couldn't. He was watching it happen.
The portal pulsed — once, twice — and then from that burning wound in the sky came shadows — colossal shapes writhing and twisting as they forced their way through.
One Leviathan. Then another. Then another. Then more — too many to count.
Dozens.
They poured through like serpents breaching the sea, each one big enough to flatten a city block, their armor glinting with alien metal and fire. The sky vanished under them, their wings blotting out the sun.
"Oh my God…" Sue whispered. Her force field flickered. "There's… there's too many…"
"Everyone fall back!" Steve yelled, voice breaking with the strain. "Fall back now!"
But there was nowhere left to go.
The streets were rubble, the air thick with dust and flame. The roar of the Leviathans drowned out the screams, the gunfire, even the thunder of the Hulk's fists.
(End of chapter)
Support me at patreon.com/unknownfate - for the opportunity to read up to 30 chapters ahead.
Or on boosty.to/unknownfate