by Alex Irvine
In another part of the city, another Iron Legionnaire broadcast its recorded speech. “This quadrant is unsafe. Please back away. We wish to avoid collateral damage and will inform you when the current conflict is resolved. We are here to help.”
Not all the Sokovians loved the Avengers. One of them threw a bottle of acid at the Iron Legionnaire. It smashed on the legionnaire’s mask, melting partway through it.
Tony got a damage report from the legionnaire. What ingrates, he thought. Then he had to dodge incoming fire and decided the legionnaires were on their own.
Strucker rallied his troops, knowing the Avengers would eventually breach the fortress’s defenses. “Once again, the West bring violence to your country! Your homes! But they will learn the price of their arrogance! We will not yield. The American send their circus freaks to test us, and we will send them back in bags! No surrender!”
The men cheered as Strucker turned and spoke quietly to Dr. List. “I’m going to surrender. Delete everything. If we give the Avengers the scepter, they may not look too far into what we’ve been doing with it.”
“But the twins,” Dr. List protested.
“They’re not ready to take on—”
Dr. List pointed. “No, I mean… the twins.”
Strucker turned to see where Dr. List was pointing. A moment ago, the twins had been waiting, together as always, near the scepter in a shadowed corner of the room.
Now they were gone.
Hawkeye dodged the crackling blue beams of the Chitauri weapons, finding cover behind a tree. He rolled out and fired at one of the defending gunners.
The arrow disappeared. What the—?
He drew his bow again and was about to let fly when something hit him hard enough to knock him sprawling back into the trees. He got up ready to fight, and for a split second a man appeared in front of him, wearing a close-fitting blue suit, with a shock of white hair. The man held up Clint’s arrow.
“You didn’t see that coming?” he said mockingly. Then, before Hawkeye could respond, the man vanished.
No, not vanished. Ran at an incredible speed. For just a moment, Hawkeye had seen him start to move.
In the moment he spent thinking about that, a blast tore through his side. He spun and went down hard.
“Clint!” Black Widow called. “Clint’s hit.”
Captain America ran to Hawkeye’s aid and was knocked hard out of the way, slamming into a tree trunk. He looked around and called out, “We’ve got an Enhanced in the field!” That was their term for other people like the Avengers, who had some kind of power unknown to regular humans.
Black Widow got to Hawkeye’s side. “Can someone take out that bunker?” She ducked away from incoming fire.
The Hulk was the first to respond, plowing through the bunker and destroying it. “Thank you,” Black Widow said. She looked down at Hawkeye’s wound. It was bad.
“Stark, we really need to get inside,” Captain America said. The invisible shield was holding them up, and they still didn’t know where the Enhanced was or what he could do.
“I’m closing in,” Iron Man said. A Chitauri beam knocked him off balance in the air. “Jarvis, am I closing in? You see a power source for that shield?”
He landed on the outside wall of the fortress, knocking soldiers away as Jarvis responded, “There’s a dense particle wave below the north tower.”
“Great,” Iron Man said. He fired repulsors down a narrow alley, blasting open a gate. “I want to poke it with something.”
Taking to the air again, he concentrated his fire on the shield in that area. A rupture appeared, and the shield began to lose coherence. The hole got larger, energy spitting around its edge. They were through!
“Drawbridge is down, people!” Iron Man called out.
Captain America heard him and turned to Thor, who was finishing off the closest defending soldiers. “The Enhanced?” Thor asked.
“He’s a blur,” Cap said. “All the new players we’ve faced, I’ve never seen this.” He scanned the woods and the outside of the fort. “Actually, I still haven’t.”
“Clint’s hit pretty bad, guys,” Black Widow said over their comm link. “We’re gonna need evac.”
More tanks and soldiers started spilling from the fortress gate. “I’ll get Barton to the jet,” Thor said. “The sooner we’re gone, the better. You and Stark secure the scepter.”
“Copy that,” Cap said. Soldiers charged out from their cover, with a tank coming up behind them. All of them were in a single line because of how thick the forest was in their area. “It’s like they’re lining up,” Thor said.
Cap knew what he was getting at. “Well, they’re excited,” he said.
He held out his shield, and Thor swung Mjolnir against it, sending a shock wave down the path that scattered the soldiers and destroyed the tank. They’d practiced that move, and both of them grinned to see it work.
Thor began spinning his hammer, getting ready to take off. “Find the scepter!” he called.
“And for God’s sake, watch your language,” Iron Man added.
Cap headed for the fortress. He couldn’t help but smile at Tony’s joke. “That’s not going away anytime soon.”
CHAPTER 3
With the shield down, Iron Man could fly straight through the fortress’s large windows into what looked like a command center. The soldiers inside hit him with everything they had, mostly machine guns, but they couldn’t hurt the suit. “Let’s talk this over,” Tony said, holding up his arms… then he took every single one of them out with a burst of disabling fire from his shoulder guns. He nodded, surveying what he had done. “Good talk.”
Most of the soldiers weren’t in any shape to reply, but one of them groaned. “No it wasn’t.”
Grinning, Tony moved deeper into the fortress. He found a scientist busy at a computer terminal in another room and leveled him with a repulsor blast. Then he looked at the computer and opened the Iron Man armor to get out of it. “Sentry mode,” he said. Then he pulled out a small device and set it next to the computer. It lit up and started copying all the data from the terminal. “Okay, Jarvis, you know I want it all. Make sure you copy Hill at HQ.”
Outside, two legionnaires carried Hawkeye on a stretcher as Black Widow watched. “We’re all locked down out here,” she said. The rest of the soldiers were surrendering, with Thor making sure they didn’t get any ideas about further resistance.
Captain America was going inside. “Then get to Banner,” he said. “It’s time for a lullaby.” The Hulk was a powerful ally, but he could also be dangerous. Black Widow had the best rapport with him and was the best at getting him to turn back into Bruce Banner.
Back at the computer terminal, Tony was looking around. “He’s got to be hiding more than data,” he said out loud. “Jarvis, give me an IR scan.” Maybe something would show up on infrared that Tony couldn’t see.
“The wall to your left,” Jarvis said. “I’m reading steel reinforcement… and an air current.”
Tony looked more closely. There was a tiny line in the wall. He followed it with his fingertips, looking… “Please be a secret door, please be a secret door…”
With a click, the door slid aside.
“Yay,” Tony said. On the other side of the doorway was a long, dark stairway. He headed down.
Black Widow found the Hulk tearing apart the remains of an enemy tank. She approached carefully and sat where he could see her. “Hey, big guy,” she said. “Sun’s getting real low.”
The Hulk stopped what he was doing and scowled at her. She held out one hand, palm up. He hesitated, then did the same. Natasha ran her fingers softly over his palm and up the inside of his wrist. She felt the tensions simmering in every fiber of the Hulk’s muscles. He sighed and pulled away from her, walking slowly—and his change started. He shrank and the green color vanished from his skin. By the time he reached the other side of the clearing from the destroyed tank, he was Bruce Banner again, staring into s
pace as he recovered from the change. Natasha found a blanket and put it over him. She was the only Avenger who could do this. It had started to mean a lot to her. Bruce was still haunted by some of the things he’d done while he was the Hulk, and it made Natasha feel better to know that he trusted her. She waited with him and also for word from inside Baron Strucker’s fortress.
Captain America punched his way through the fortress garrison until he caught Strucker trying to escape deeper into the maze of passages and rooms. “Baron Strucker,” Cap said. “HYDRA’s number one thug.”
“Technically, I’m a thug for S.H.I.E.L.D.,” Strucker said.
“Well, then, technically you’re unemployed,” Cap shot back. “Where’s Loki’s scepter?”
“Don’t worry, I’ll give you the precious scepter. I know when I’m beat. You’ll mention how I cooperated, I hope?”
“I’ll put it right under ‘illegal human experimentation,’” Cap said, referring to the Enhanced they had seen outside. “How many are there?”
Strucker was looking over his shoulder, a sudden smile on his face. Cap turned to see a young woman coming out of the shadows. She was slim and alluring, but also strange, her eyes wide and not quite focused on him. There was definitely something off about her. He had just completed that thought when she flicked her wrist and sent him flying without ever touching him. He rolled down a flight of stairs, his shield absorbing some of the impact. By the time he’d gotten to his feet and raced back into the room, she was gone. A heavy vault door ground shut behind her.
“We’ve got a second Enhanced,” he warned the team. “Female. Do not engage.”
Strucker was gloating. “You’re going to have to move faster than that if—”
Captain America was out of patience. He knocked Strucker into the wall and considered what to do next.
Coming out of the tunnel at the bottom of the secret staircase, Tony Stark found himself in a huge chamber littered with equipment. He was still taking it all in when Cap’s voice came over the comm link. “Guys, I got Strucker.”
“Yeah,” Tony said. “I got… something bigger.”
Suspended from the ceiling was a Chitauri Leviathan. The last time Tony had seen one of them, it had been trying to destroy New York City. He looked up at it, then got himself focused on the lab equipment again. There were prototype weapons, some robotic components, strange biotech assemblies… it would take him some time to figure out what all of it was.
And there, set into a pedestal with cables and conduits running out of it, was Loki’s scepter. “Thor,” Tony said into the comm. “I got eyes on the prize.”
He started toward the scepter, looking closely at it to see if it was defended in some way. He was so focused on it that he never saw the woman next to him, whispering in his ear as red tendrils of magical energy wormed out from her fingertips and into his mind.
Tony turned and saw the Leviathan, whole and roaring over him. He was in an alien landscape, the sky overhead thick with stars. There were bodies everywhere, soldiers in strange uniforms… and the Avengers. Thor, Black Widow, the Hulk, Captain America. All dead. Cap was closest. Still eyeing the Leviathan, Tony knelt to see if Cap still bore any signs of life—and Cap’s arm shot out! He grabbed Tony. “You could have saved us. Why? Why didn’t you do more? We could have… saved…”
Cap’s hand fell away, and he died.
Tony looked up and saw not one Leviathan but ten, then a hundred, surrounded by an endless fleet of alien vessels, all lifting off from this dead planet and heading for Earth, which hung like a shining blue marble in distant space…
Tony snapped out of it, dropping to his knees, sweat pouring down his face from the intensity of the vision. What had happened to him? Must have been a flashback from the Battle of New York. He looked back to the scepter. All their problems had started there, and once the Avengers had the scepter, those problems would be over. He reached out and took Loki’s scepter.
From the shadows, the twins watched. “We’re just going to let him take it?” the man asked quietly.
His sister nodded, a wicked smile on her face. She had a plan.
CHAPTER 4
The Avengers’ Quinjet soared high into the atmosphere, headed from Sokovia back to base. Tony was in the pilot’s chair. Behind him, Hawkeye lay on a chair folded down as a makeshift gurney. Thor, Black Widow, and Captain America watched over him. He was in rough shape. Behind them all, Bruce sat by himself.
Natasha went back to him, knowing she could do nothing for Clint right then. “Hey,” she said. “The lullaby worked better than ever.”
Bruce still looked worried. “I wasn’t expecting a Code Green.” That was what they had started calling his transformations into the Hulk.
“If you hadn’t been there, there would have been double the casualties. And my best friend would have been a treasured memory.”
“You know, sometimes exactly what I want to hear isn’t exactly what I want to hear,” Bruce said.
Natasha considered this. She spent a lot of time trying to help Bruce, but sometimes she thought he didn’t want to be helped. “How long before you trust me?”
He looked up at her. “It’s not you I don’t trust.”
Their gazes met. She was really starting to care for him, and she knew he felt the same. “Thor!” she said. This would help. “Report on the Hulk?”
“The gates of Hel are filled with the screams of his victims!” Thor said proudly. She shot him a glare, and he realized his mistake. “But not the screams of the dead,” he added quickly. “Wounded screams, mainly. Whimpering. A great roar of complaining, and tales of sprained, uh… deltoids. And gout.”
Bruce and Natasha looked at each other again, smiling now at Thor’s awkwardness.
“Banner,” Tony said from the pilot’s chair. “Dr. Cho’s on her way from Seoul. Okay if she sets up in your lab?”
Bruce nodded. “She knows her way around.”
More quietly, Tony consulted with Jarvis. “Tell her to prep everything. Barton’s going to need the full treatment.”
“Very good, sir,” Jarvis said. “Approach vector is locked.”
“Jarvis, take the wheel,” Tony said. He spun in his chair and went back to Thor, who sat with the scepter wrapped in a cloth. None of them wanted to touch it bare-handed.
“Feels good, right?” Tony prompted. “You’ve been after this thing since S.H.I.E.L.D. collapsed. Not that I haven’t enjoyed our little raiding parties, but…”
“But this brings it to a close,” Thor said.
Cap joined them. “As soon as we find out what else that thing’s been used for. And I don’t just mean weapons. Since when is Strucker capable of human enhancement?”
“Banner and I will give it the once-over before it goes back to Asgard,” Tony said. To Thor, he added, “Cool with you. Just a few days until the farewell party. You’re staying, right?”
“Of course,” Thor said. “A victory should be honored with revels.”
“Well, hopefully this puts an end to the Chitauri and HYDRA,” Cap said. “So, yes. Revels.”
Around sunset the Quinjet arced over New York City and braked to a landing on the new pad on top of Avengers Tower. Tony had rebuilt the building after the Battle of New York, and it was better than ever. No longer just Stark Tower, now it was the headquarters and research center for the Avengers.
Maria Hill met them on the landing pad. As Thor and the others went with Hawkeye to the lab for his treatment, Cap and Tony stayed with Agent Hill. “Dr. Cho’s all set up, boss,” she said to Tony.
He nodded toward Captain America. “He’s the boss. I just pay for everything, design everything, and make everyone look cooler.”
“What’s the word on Strucker?” Cap asked.
“NATO’s got him,” Hill said. The European military authorities would hold him until they decided what to do.
“And the two Enhanced?”
She handed Cap a file. He looked at it and saw two pictures
, one of each of the Enhanced they had seen in the Sokovian fortress. They had been photographed at a political rally protesting American involvement in Sokovia. “Wanda and Pietro Maximoff,” she said. “Twins, orphaned at ten, when a shell collapsed their apartment building. Sokovia’s had a rough history. It’s nowhere special, but it’s on the way to everywhere special.”
Cap took this in. He was more interested in people than geopolitics. “Their abilities?”
“He’s got increased metabolism and improved thermal homeostasis. Her thing is neuroelectric interface. Telekinesis, mind control…”
He was looking at her the way he always did when she used specialized vocabulary.
“He’s fast and she’s weird,” Hill said to keep it simple.
Cap nodded. “They’re going to show up again.”
“Agreed,” Hill said. “File says they volunteered for Strucker’s experiments. It’s nuts.”
“Yeah,” Cap said. “What kind of monster lets a German scientist experiment on them to protect their country?”
He watched her get his joke. That was exactly what Steve Rogers had done during World War II. “We’re not at war, Captain,” Hill said.
“They are,” Cap answered.
Tony got repairs started on the damaged Iron Legionnaires, checked on Hawkeye, and then met Bruce outside the lab. “How’s he doing?” Bruce asked.
“Unfortunately, he’s still Barton,” Tony said. “He’s fine. He’s thirsty.”
Bruce went to join Dr. Cho at Hawkeye’s bedside. Tony turned his attention to the scepter, which he had put into a device specially designed to hold it for analysis. “Look alive, Jarvis. It’s playtime. We’ve got only a couple of days with this joystick, so let’s make the most of it. How we doing with the structural and compositional analysis?”
“The scepter is alien,” Jarvis responded. “There are elements I can’t quantify.”
“So there are elements you can?”
