Mason Vance glanced at the furious God of Thunder, then back down at the two legs twitching in the floor like overgrown weeds.
"Sorry," Mason said, shrugging with a look of wide-eyed, boyish innocence. "He started it. He yelled at me."
"You—!" Thor's face turned a shade of crimson that rivaled his cape. He raised Mjolnir, the air beginning to hum with the scent of ozone.
"Thor, stand down!" Captain America stepped between them, his shield raised just enough to be a barrier, but not a threat.
"Rogers," Thor snarled, lightning dancing across the silver discs of his armor, "this creature attacked a Prince of Asgard! He has humiliated my blood!"
"Maybe take a look out that window and count how many people your 'blood' has slaughtered today, Thor," Steve said, his voice dropping to a glacial chill.
Thor's bravado faltered. He looked at the smoking ruins of the city below, then back at his brother's pathetic, protruding legs. "Well... he's adopted," he muttered, lowering the hammer and shuffling aside in a rare moment of divine embarrassment.
Steve turned to Mason. The wariness in his eyes hadn't vanished, but it was tempered by a profound sense of gratitude. "Friend, we owe you for what you did out there. But we need to know—who are you? Are you one of Nick Fury's deep-cover assets?"
Mason turned fully toward the Captain, flashing a warm, humble smile that he'd practiced in front of a mirror for a decade. "It was nothing, Captain Rogers. Just doing what's right."
"You know who I am?" Steve blinked, caught off guard.
"Of course," Mason said, walking forward and offering a firm, steady hand. "Steve Rogers. Captain America. The man who taught this country what it means to have a backbone. Your history is an inspiration to us all."
Steve took the hand. It was warm, solid, and radiated a terrifying level of power that Mason expertly masked with a gentle grip.
"I'm—" Mason began, prepared to give himself a name that would look good on a headline.
But Nick Fury's voice cut through the moment, screaming through every Avenger's earpiece: "Stark! Do you copy? Come in!"
"Loud and clear, patch-eye," Tony's voice crackled. "We're a little busy with the clean-up."
"Forget the clean-up! Those idiots at the Council just bypassed me. They've launched a localized nuclear strike—it's headed straight for the heart of Manhattan!"
The air in the room went cold.
"How long?" Stark's voice lost all its snark.
"Three minutes. If that warhead hits, Midtown becomes a crater."
"I've got it!" Tony didn't hesitate. He spun on his heels and rocketed out of the shattered window, his thrusters screaming at max output. "Jarvis, reroute every scrap of power to the flight systems. I don't care about the life support, just give me speed!"
"Tony, are you insane? That's a one-way trip!" Steve shouted into the comms.
"No choice, Cap! Better one of us than eight million of them!" Stark was a red-and-gold streak, angling toward the missile as it arched over the city. He grabbed the cold steel of the warhead, straining to change its trajectory toward the blue swirl of the portal.
"Jarvis... tell Pepper I—"
"Such a touching sacrifice, Tony," a voice murmured.
Stark's heart nearly stopped. He whipped his head to the side. Mason Vance was flying backward beside him, keeping pace with the supersonic missile with the casual ease of a man taking a morning jog.
"Tony Stark," Mason said gently, his voice perfectly audible over the roar of the wind. "You're a hero. The world needs a man like you to build the future. You don't deserve to die in the dark."
"You...? What are you doing? Get out of here!"
"The people need their Iron Man, Tony." Mason gave him a look of tragic, saintly resolve—the kind of look that wins an Oscar in the third act. "But I... I was born for a moment like this."
"You'll vaporize!" Stark roared. "The explosion will catch you in the vacuum!"
"Then at least I'll go out with a view," Mason replied.
Before Tony could protest, he felt the crushing weight of the missile vanish from his grip. In a blur of red and blue, Mason shouldered the multi-ton warhead and ignited his own flight speed, doubling, then tripling the missile's velocity.
"He stole my nuke?!" Stark gaped, hovering in mid-air as he watched the star-spangled cloak vanish into the center of the blue wormhole.
On the ground, the world went silent.
Steve Rogers pulled off his cowl, his face etched with a mixture of horror and awe. "...We owe him everything."
Inside the portal, the universe changed. The sky of Earth was replaced by the cold, oppressive blackness of deep space. The Chitauri mothership loomed ahead—a gargantuan, bio-mechanical nightmare.
Okay, Mason, he thought, his internal voice cold and calculating. Toss the firecracker and get back to the party.
He was about to release the missile when his X-ray vision flickered on, sweeping across the hull of the alien vessel. He saw the engines, the bridges, the endless rows of soldiers.
Then, he saw the cargo bay.
In a reinforced sector, protected by a secondary energy shield, were hundreds of bio-stasis pods. And inside them... children. Human children.
"Holy crap," Mason whispered. "They weren't just invading. They were harvesting."
His mind raced. A hero who dies is a legend. But a hero who "dies," miraculously returns, and brings back a ship full of kidnapped orphans? That wasn't just fame. That was apotheosis.
An expression of profound, "holy" determination spread across his face. This was a better script than anything he'd ever been offered in Hollywood.
The timer on the nuke was screaming. Seconds left.
He adjusted his trajectory and shoved the missile with a grunt of effort, sending it hurtling toward the mothership's command center. Then, instead of turning back, he dove straight into the cargo hull.
CRASH.
He smashed through the armored plating like a cannonball. Alarms shrieked in discordant alien frequencies. Chitauri soldiers scrambled toward him, weapons raised.
Mason didn't play. He unleashed a frenzied, wide-angle blast of Heat Vision, turning the deck into a lake of molten slag. He flew to the central pod, a massive container holding the life-support systems for the kids.
"Open. Up!"
He slammed his fist into the energy shield.
WUMM!
Blinding white sparks erupted as his knuckles met the barrier. Still not strong enough! "Aaaargh!" Mason's eyes blazed a terrifying crimson. He poured every ounce of his Heat Vision into the same spot his fist hit, the sheer force of his power beginning to tear at the fabric of his suit.
CRACK!
The shield shattered. He reached in, gripped the massive life-support pod, and ripped the entire chamber—ten tons of tech and glass—right out of the floor.
"Hold on, kids! We're going home!"
He spun the container around and rocketed back toward the hole he'd punched in the hull. Behind him, the nuke detonated.
A sun was born in the middle of the Chitauri fleet.
In New York, the Avengers stood in the rubble, staring at the portal.
"He's been in there too long," Natasha said, her voice unusually small.
"The portal's closing," Stark whispered, his sensors showing the energy collapsing. "He's not coming back."
Steve Rogers clenched his fists, his eyes fixed on the blue light as it began to shrink into a needle point.
"Wait! Look!" an agent on the ground shouted, pointing a trembling finger.
A streak of fire erupted from the closing rift. It was him.
He was falling, his cape scorched and tattered, but he was pushing something massive—a glowing, silver pod.
Mason burst through just as the portal snapped shut with a thunderous clap of displaced air. Behind him, every Chitauri soldier in the city suddenly collapsed, their link to the mothership severed.
The war was over.
"He did it..." Stark breathed. "The crazy bastard actually did it."
"Look—he's losing altitude!" Cap signaled.
Mason, still clutching the pod, seemed to go limp. He began to plummet toward the city below.
"Go! Tony! Catch him!"
But as he fell, Mason's eyes snapped open. Play the part to the end, Mason. Give 'em the shot.
He "struggled" back to consciousness, his body shaking as if under immense strain. He stabilized himself mid-air, his boots scraping the air as he slowed his descent. He drifted down into the center of Grand Central Station Plaza, cradling the massive life-support pod with a look of extreme, heroic exhaustion.
BOOM.
He touched down, the concrete cracking under his boots.
Immediately, they were there. Survivors, soldiers, and a literal wall of news cameras. Every lens on the planet was locked onto him.
Under the gaze of billions, Mason Vance slowly dropped to one knee. He set the massive container down with a gentle, trembling touch.
The hatch of the pod hissed open, revealing the first few children waking up, confused but safe.
Mason "struggled" to stand, his breath coming in ragged gasps, his golden hair perfectly tousled to show the "effort" of his trial.
A reporter approached, her voice shaking as she held out a microphone. "W-who are you? Who saved us?"
Mason looked directly into the camera. He didn't smile this time. He just looked tired, righteous, and incredibly, dangerously human.
"My name doesn't matter," he said, his voice carried by the silence of the plaza. "What matters is that they're safe."
[Ding! Popularity Value: +5,000... +10,000... +50,000!]
[Current Popularity: 420,124]
[Fame Level Rising: "The People's Savior"]
How's that for an entrance? Mason is officially the most famous person on Marvel's Earth.
If you like it, please give power stones.