Engine No. 3.
"Captain, pull the lever!"
"Give me a second!"
Tony and Captain Rogers were each stuck in an awkward situation.
Colonel Rogers had just narrowly avoided enemy fire and almost fallen from a great height. Right now, he was clinging to a cable, swinging back and forth in midair.
Tony, meanwhile, was temporarily trapped in the gaps between the propeller blades of Engine No. 3, spinning rapidly along with them.
If Colonel Rogers' life was hanging by a thread at this moment, Tony wasn't doing any better.
The Mark armor's flight speed was gradually failing to keep up with the rotation speed of the propeller blades. The turbine, which originally only moved because Tony pushed it, was now spinning faster and faster on its own.
Tony was slowly going from pushing the propeller along to being pushed by it instead.
"The lever! Hurry—"
Tony's eyes flicked rapidly through the data Jarvis was feeding him. Every indicator showed that he was currently in an extremely dangerous state.
Right now, he desperately needed Captain Rogers to pull down that lever that could temporarily slow the engine's rotation speed, so he could seize the chance to get out.
But Captain Rogers, who had just climbed back onto the Helicarrier, was once again met with enemy fire.
When Captain Rogers finally pulled the lever amid the hail of bullets—
Clang! Clang!
Tony had already been bounced back and forth several times inside the gaps of the turbine.
Luckily, the new Mark armor was tough enough. Otherwise, in just a few seconds, Tony would have been turned into evenly ground mince inside a meat grinder.
Finally escaping from the turbine blades, Tony's Iron Man armor was now covered in scratches.
After the violent shaking and impacts, the armor's jet propulsion system was on the verge of failure. It took him quite a while in midair to stabilize himself.
Gunfire continued to ring out by his ears. Colonel Rogers could only lie flat under the railing, letting bullets fly overhead, with no other choice.
Tony knew the armor had already reached the brink of collapse. Jarvis' voice alerts kept reminding him of that.
The roar of jet flames swept past. After a loud explosion, the gunfire stopped.
Using the final moments before the armor shut down, Tony helped Colonel Rogers deal with the enemies who had been suppressing him with firepower for so long, then collapsed on the ground, too exhausted to move.
The Mark armor seemed to sense the end of the battle, and its operating lights went dark right on cue.
At this moment, a S.H.I.E.L.D.-exclusive aircraft lifted off from the deck.
"Gotta say, this trip was pretty thrilling."
Loki's gaze shifted from the closing hatch to the space ahead. The tension on his face gradually eased as he began planning his next move in his mind.
———
[Helicarrier, Level Three]
The fight between Clint and Romanoff was coming to an end.
Boing!
Black Widow, full of resentment, kicked Barton hard when he failed to dodge in time. Clint's head slammed straight into the railing with a dull thud.
The eerie blue glow in Barton's eyes, a result of the Mind Stone's control, slowly faded. He shook his head, dispelling the fog in his mind.
Lying on the ground, he felt dazed, like he had just woken up in his bedroom at dawn.
"Natasha?"
He stared blankly at Romanoff in front of him, completely unable to remember what had just happened.
Smack!
What answered him was Romanoff's merciless kick. Agent Barton was instantly sent into dreamland.
Finally dealing with Hawkeye, Romanoff sat down on the spot, exhausted in both body and mind, steadying her breathing after the fight.
["Agent Coulson is down."]
Nick Fury's low voice came through the earpiece, casting a shadow over the hearts of Natasha and the other Avengers.
The Helicarrier's engines had been restored. Released from maintaining the magnetic control, Corin sat down at the conference table, looking a bit tired.
He had just handed Agent Coulson over to the medical staff.
The grave expressions on the doctors' faces made Corin unsure whether Coulson could pull through this ordeal.
Aside from the escaped Loki, all the intruders on the Helicarrier had been eliminated.
Seated at the table with Corin were Colonel Rogers and Tony.
Agent Hill leaned against a nearby railing, her mood low.
———
Thor had been thrown off the ship along with the prison cell by Loki. The weightlessness of free fall gave the God of Thunder a firsthand taste of what it meant to be completely disoriented.
Inside the can-shaped cage, he was like tapioca pearls in milk tea, thoroughly shaken around, until the very last moment before hitting the ground, when he finally flung out Mjolnir and burst free of the cage.
The God of Thunder landed like a meteor on soft ground, kicking up clouds of dust, the hammer flying from his hand.
His golden hair was full of dirt and sand. Though he wasn't injured, his filthy appearance was the very definition of miserable.
Not far away, the prison cage crashed down near a shoreline, smashing out a huge crater as sand and soil splashed high into the air like water.
Dr. Banner, bare-chested, gradually regained consciousness amid a pile of ruins.
Clearly, the Hulk's massive body had once again borne a weight Banner himself could not withstand.
The already wrecked ruins were rendered even more shapeless by his landing.
———
"This was found in Agent Coulson's pocket."
Nick Fury tossed a stack of cards onto the table. They were treasures Coulson had cherished for many years.
"He may never get another chance to have you sign them."
Although Nick Fury didn't know whether Agent Coulson would survive the critical period, he strongly agreed with Coulson's view.
They needed a reason to unite the Avengers, and Agent Coulson had handed that reason to him.
So while ordering the medical team to do everything they could to save Coulson, Nick Fury also ordered that the fact he was still alive be kept secret.
At present, aside from Corin and Nick Fury, everyone believed that Agent Coulson was dead.
The cards lay scattered in front of Colonel Rogers.
He picked up one bloodstained card. It was already a bit yellowed but had no creases at all, clearly very well preserved.
On it was a photo of Captain America giving a sharp salute, still wearing the uniform from seventy years ago.
The other cards were also all Captain America, Steve Rogers memorabilia.
They were the precious collection of an agent who had idolized Captain America since childhood.
Looking at the image of himself, Colonel Rogers' emotions grew more and more complicated.
"The comms are down, we can't find the Tesseract… Banner and Thor are both missing…"
"I've lost my most capable subordinate. Maybe this is my own fault…"
The usually confident Tony now looked as if he'd been dealt a heavy blow as well. The pride was gone. He stared straight at the corner of the conference table, lost in thought.
"Yes, we originally planned to use the Tesseract to make weapons, but I didn't place my bet on that."
"I put it on something more risky instead."
"That was my dream. Stark should know that…"
Just as Nick Fury was using Coulson's "death" and the failure of this battle to thoroughly hammer his point into them, Corin quietly yawned beside them.
Maintaining the magnetic field to keep such a massive warship in the air for so long was a first for him. Saying he wasn't tired would be a lie.
Watching Nick Fury put on his performance, Corin couldn't help thinking that, 'As expected of the director of S.H.I.E.L.D., this acting alone deserved a little gold statuette.'
Just as Corin was hesitating over whether to go back to his room and sleep for a while, the scene in front of him suddenly changed.
The conference table in the bridge command room and the people around it suddenly froze in place.
Then, like a movie scene, everything was pulled far away. The sudden silence made Corin instinctively look around.
Quiet. Dark.
Just as Corin was wondering what was going on, golden light surged, and an old man appeared before him.
Silver-white long hair and beard, a golden eyepatch over his left eye, his face weathered and imposing.
Clad in magnificent golden armor and a dark cloak, he radiated the oppressive presence of a supreme ruler.
'This is… Odin? How did he find me?'
Corin recognized the old man before him, but he was very curious why Odin would appear in front of him at this moment.
"Corin, I've heard Heimdall mention you."
Odin's gaze as he looked at Corin was deep and kind, that all-seeing expression making Corin feel uneasy.
Corin could only quietly watch, waiting to see what the All-Father had come for.
"I am Odin, Father of the Gods."
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