Respect | S. Rogers [1]

44 | BATTLE OF NEW YORK

"That was the plan."

"Not a great plan. When they come, and they will, they'll come for you."

"I have an army," Loki pointed out.

"We have a Hulk."

"I thought the beast had wandered off."

"You're missing the point," Tony shook that truthful statement off. "There's no throne, there is no version of this, where you come out on top. Maybe your army comes and maybe it's too much for us, but it's all on you. Because if we can't protect the Earth, you can be damned well sure we'll avenge it."

Loki who was slowly walking up to him, with his sceptre in hand stopped before him. "How will your friends have time for me, when they're so busy fighting you?" The god tapped Stark's chest clinging with the arc reactor. He looked to him bewildered, he was supposed to be under his control now. He tried again and nothing happened. "This usually works."

"Well, performance issues. It's not uncommon," Tony explained casually, slightly anxious as his suit still wasn't ready. "One out of five—" Loki grabbed him by his throat throwing him across the room in anger.

"Jarvis, anytime now," the genius told his AI.

Grabbing his throat again, Loki muttered: "You will all fall before me."

"Deploy! Deploy!" Tony managed to choke out before Loki threw him out of the window off the building, shattering the glass.

As Tony was falling down to the ground, a red pod came out of the building. Its laser recognized the bracelets' signals on Tony's wrists right before transforming into a suit that latched onto him just in time to avoid falling to his death and onto the passing people.

Now as Iron Man, Tony shot up to Loki's level. "And there's one other person you pissed off! His name was Phil." He sent a blast of energy to him with his suit as the portal powered by the tesseract opened creating a black hole with electric blue streams in the sky.

As an army of aliens came through the portal invading the city, the quartet neared the place.

"Stark, we're on your three, heading northeast," Agent Romanoff, Black Widow told him.

"What? Did you stop for drive-through?" Tony asked sarcastically, they were late. "Swing up Park, I'm gonna lay 'em out for you." Soon enough a group of Chitauri came in the view of the quinjet who were shot down by Romanoff.

Clint piloting the jet flew them to Stark Tower aiming at Loki, who in response fired a blast of energy from the sceptre making the transport twirl. As they dropped out of the air spinning, Rose and Steve had to grab onto the jet so they wouldn't fall. The place shook as they slammed into the street.

With weapons in hand, except for Rosemary who kept in on her holster, they got out of the quinjet to the torn-up street ready to fight.

"We got to get back up there," Steve said as they jogged towards Star Tower, freezing at the sight of the big hole in the sky whilst the rest of the civilians were running away. Some sort of leviathan-chitaturi gigantic creature came out of a wormhole, moving as it was floating.

A primal growl was heard and as the creature passed over the quartet, more Chitauri—these looking more person-like, barely— started coming out of it.

Rose stared stunned at the aliens, never in her life imagining such a scenario occurring. More Chitauri zoomed in on top flying vehicles.

"Stark, are you seeing this?" Captain America asked him.

"Seeing, still working on believing," he told him. "Where's Banner? Has he shown up yet?" he asked making the team frown in confusion.

"Banner?"