Chapter 161: Avengers Assemble. The Plot Begins.
Matthew sat with the question of whether to find the Ancient One for a while.
She was the most powerful practitioner on Earth and the guardian of Kamar-Taj. That was not a combination that made him relaxed. His public titles had accumulated nicely over the past year or so: outstanding young entrepreneur, patron of disability medicine, a man committed above all things to the welfare of the people. But none of that changed what he actually was. A transmigrator. And the Ancient One could read timelines through the Time Stone.
If she looked at the timeline and found something about his presence that threatened the Earth, the most efficient response available to her was to simply remove it.
The fact that he hadn't been removed yet might actually mean something. Might mean his presence hadn't registered as a threat. Or hadn't yet.
He turned it over for a moment, then decided the argument for going was stronger than the argument against. If she was going to deal with him, his going to her voluntarily changed nothing about that outcome. And there was another consideration: magic as a discipline genuinely interested him. If an opportunity to learn something about it existed, he wanted to find it.
The practical question was where.
The New York Sanctum? Kamar-Taj itself?
And even if he found her, would she agree to meet?
He was still working through the logistics when the issue resolved itself.
Somewhere in a SHIELD underground facility, the Tesseract, which had been sitting in monitored storage, did something it was not supposed to do.
The energy discharge started small and became very quickly not small. Blue-white arcs spread out from the cube in every direction, filling the containment space, sending monitoring personnel scrambling back from their stations.
Fury arrived fast and started evacuation.
He hadn't finished it before the Tesseract escalated. Gamma radiation and raw energy output surged from inside, and then a beam of blue energy shot from the cube's surface and opened a portal in the middle of the underground room.
A figure appeared inside it.
When the figure stepped through, the portal closed behind it.
The footsteps in the silence that followed were deliberate.
Loki looked at the ring of agents with weapons trained on him and felt nothing in particular about it.
"Sir. This is your first warning. Please put down the primitive spear." Fury's voice came from somewhere in the arc of personnel surrounding him.
Primitive spear.
Loki glanced at the Chitauri Scepter in his hand.
This is what you're calling a primitive spear.
He looked around the room at the assembled SHIELD personnel, their firearms, their tactical gear, and the entirely reasonable confidence of people who had never encountered anything that could make their weapons irrelevant.
Well. In that case. Let me show these people from Earth exactly what a primitive spear can do.
He raised the Scepter.
A blue beam discharged from the tip and went through the nearest agent before the man had time to register that something had been fired. The wound didn't bleed. The heat from the beam sealed the tissue as it passed through.
The remaining agents opened fire. Loki walked through it. He was done with the agents in moments. Hawkeye, who had tried to enter the engagement, found the Scepter's other function applied to him directly: the blue light at the tip, pressed to his chest, rewrote what he was loyal to.
Fury grabbed the Tesseract's containment case from the equipment rack and moved for the exit.
Loki raised the Scepter again.
The beam hit the case, sent it spinning, and put Fury on the floor.
Loki walked over. He looked down at Fury, who was still trying to reach his weapon.
He put his foot on Fury's chest.
"So. You still think this is a primitive spear?"
He picked up the case, turned, and walked away. He collected Erik Selvig and several others along the way, pressing the Scepter's light to each of them in turn, and walked out of the underground facility with a small entourage and the Tesseract, leaving Fury on the ground in a room that was beginning to structurally fail around him.
Fury looked down at the bootprint on his chest.
He said something under his breath that fell somewhere between "goddamn" and worse.
He hauled himself up, looked at the ceiling, and pulled out his radio. "Hill! Barton's been compromised!"
"If you see him, stop them!"
He walked out giving orders to every unit he could reach, and once he was clear of the building he pulled out his phone.
Several rings. The call connected.
Matthew's voice came through. "Director. What can I do for you, want to meet and have lunch?"
"This time I actually have a job for you." Fury didn't engage with the tone.
"And it's a big one."
"How big?"
Matthew had been in the middle of a conversation with Logan about how to reach the Ancient One. He stopped moving.
"Blank check. You write the number."
The line went quiet.
After a few seconds, Matthew spoke. "...Are you telling me the world is ending?"
His first thought was Thanos. But that didn't fit the timeline. The Earth still had the Ancient One and Odin providing coverage. Thanos moving at this stage made no sense.
So what was it?
Logan, who had heard enough of the call to know something significant was happening, had gone very still beside him. Even Wolverine, it turned out, was not immune to wanting to know what was going on.
Fury exhaled. "You could call it that. If nobody moves on this, it might actually get there."
"SHIELD's assessment is that the Tesseract in the wrong hands becomes exactly the kind of weapon that ends the world. And the person who just took it has every intention of using it that way."
"Loki is his name."
Matthew's expression shifted. The information dropped into place against his existing knowledge of the timeline.
This was the Avengers 1 sequence. And an event this size meant a System payout on the other end.
He agreed on the spot.
He turned to Logan. "Sorry. The Ancient One question is going to have to wait a few days."
Logan lit one of the cigars Matthew had brought, and waved a hand. "Don't worry about it."
"Xavier's been lying there for two months. A few more days won't change that."
"Saving the world takes priority over waking up a transmigrated bald man. That's just math."
He let the joke settle, then looked at Matthew with something more serious in his face.
"If you need the X-Men, say the word."
"Saving the world is everyone's job. We're not sitting this one out."
The following afternoon. The Helicarrier.
A Quinjet descended through the cloud layer and landed on the flight deck. Coulson led Steve Rogers and Peggy Carter down the boarding ramp, walking ahead of them and explaining what they were looking at as they went.
Having Peggy beside him had done visible things for Steve's state of mind. The two of them had been talking continuously since they boarded. There was no shortage of material when both people came from the same era and could catch every reference the other made, even the ones that were several decades old.
Soldier Boy had spotted them from across the deck. He didn't go over. He looked them over carefully, straightened his jacket, raised his chin, and walked inside.
"Who's that?" Steve asked.
"Soldier Boy," Coulson said. "Another super-soldier. Came out of the ice the same way you did."
"Same way you both did," Tony said, appearing from the direction he wasn't expected from.
"Nice to meet you, Captain. And..." Tony looked at Peggy.
Peggy smiled and put her hand out. "Peggy Carter. Also recently defrosted, as it happens."
Tony shook her hand. "Tony Stark. I'm from this century, for the record."
He paused. "Can I buy you a drink when this is over?"
"I'm afraid I don't drink well," Peggy said, glancing at Steve. "Another time, maybe. I already have plans."
"Fair enough." Tony shrugged. "I'll congratulate you in advance."
While Tony and Peggy were still talking, a helicopter with the Umbrella logo came down on the landing pad. Matthew stepped off.
Tony's face changed immediately. "Matthew. Good timing."
"I've been working on some new things while you were out. You'll need to come try them out with me when we're through here."
Matthew gave him an OK and turned to greet Steve and Peggy briefly, then fell in beside Tony and they walked inside together.
Once they were gone, Steve looked at Coulson.
"Do we need investors?"
Coulson blinked.
Steve continued, entirely in earnest. "Why else bring in businessmen? Do they understand how dangerous a combat situation is?"
"They're not here for their money," Coulson said quickly. "Their combat records are both exceptional. Mr. Lawrence in particular was brought in directly by Director Fury. The fee involved was significant."
"So. Mercenaries."
"More accurately, contractors."
Steve shrugged. The concern had been about civilians getting hurt in a fight. If the people in question could handle themselves, that resolved it.
Inside the Helicarrier, Dr. Banner had already started working. Peter Parker was moving through the corridors looking at everything.
Soldier Boy was standing in a hallway smoking. When he saw Matthew and Tony come in wearing suits, he looked them over, then set his cigarette aside.
"Matthew Lawrence."
"You know me?" Matthew looked at him.
"Saw footage of you on that street. The mercenaries."
"I'll give you this: it was interesting to watch."
He paused. "In a decorative kind of way. Nice flower arrangement."
Before Matthew could respond, Tony stepped in without being invited. "I know you too."
"Benjamin. Goes by Soldier Boy, right?"
"I've seen your footage as well. Specifically the part where the Soviets used you as a test subject."
"Want me to put it on the screen for everyone?"
Soldier Boy's response stalled. He looked at Tony with an expression that was working out what to do next.
Fury's voice arrived before it got there.
"This is not the time for internal conflicts."
"If you want a target, I have one."
He held up a still frame from security footage. Loki's face.
"We have his location."
"Move out."
That evening. A Quinjet cutting through the dark.
In the cabin: Steve, Peggy, and Soldier Boy. Three people who had been on ice since the forties, sitting across from each other, all of them in their respective uniforms.
Steve and Peggy's suits were close to identical with minor variations between them. Soldier Boy was in the classic Vought-era uniform from the world that had produced him.
All three of them had shields.
Soldier Boy's gaze kept moving to them. Eventually he couldn't leave it alone.
"One question."
He looked at all three shields. "Why do all three of us have shields?"
"And why do our suits look like someone hit copy and paste?"
Steve said nothing.
Peggy said nothing.
Both of them were asking themselves the same question.
Three people pulled out of the ice. Same patriotic aesthetic, same load-out, same basic combat profile. The overlap was difficult to explain.
After about ten seconds, Steve offered what he had. "Shields were popular in our era?"
"As for the suits..." He thought about it. "Maybe the same tailor."
The cabin settled back into silence.
Natasha's voice came from the cockpit.
"Target zone reached. Loki is engaging civilians."
"Open the hatch," Steve said.
The hatch came open.
Steve went out first with the shield, from about fifteen meters up, no hesitation. Peggy followed.
Soldier Boy watched them both drop without any apparent concern for the altitude, and made a different calculation. He asked Natasha for a parachute, clipped in, and stepped out at his own pace.
His stated position on the matter: "The fall won't kill me. But only an idiot chooses the hard way when there's a perfectly good parachute sitting right there."
Below.
Loki had assembled a crowd in a plaza and was making them kneel. He had found one person who wouldn't and was raising the Scepter to make a point about that when he heard two things coming from directly above him, moving fast.
He didn't have time to look up before the first shield connected with his face.
Two seconds later, the second one hit him in the stomach.
Several more seconds passed. Soldier Boy drifted down under his parachute, landed, walked over to where Loki was, picked up his shield, and swung it into Loki's face with full commitment.
Loki tried to register his objection. "How dare you, you insolent-"
The shield arrived before the sentence did.
The impact sound was very clean and carried well across the plaza. The people who had been forced onto their knees found it satisfying.
Loki, on the ground, touched his face and looked up with genuine fury. "You ignorant mortal. You dare raise a hand against a god?!"
"A god." Soldier Boy's smile was cold. "Go to hell."
He gave Loki the middle finger.
Then he hit him several more times with the shield, the way you deal with something you want to stay down.
Loki's consciousness departed after the eighth or ninth impact. He lay still.
Soldier Boy straightened up, looked at him, and shook his head slightly.
"Gods. Not that impressive."
He took out a cigarette, lit it in front of the crowd, and turned to acknowledge the people who were clapping. He had a particularly warm smile ready for the older women in the crowd, several of whom received a wink that sent them home in an excellent mood.
Steve watched all of this and had some thoughts.
"Ben. That was too much."
"If Loki is actually hurt, we can't get any information about where the Tesseract is."
Soldier Boy looked at Loki on the ground, then at Steve lecturing him, and raised one finger.
"First. I don't like being lectured."
"Second. You jumped out of a Quinjet and landed on him. You think that was gentle?"
"Third. Our job is done. We can go home."