Loki's face was no longer that of a composed prince; it was a mask of jagged, ancient resentment. He didn't wait for Tony to finish his drink. With a blur of Asgardian speed, his hand clamped around Tony's throat like a hydraulic press.
The glass in Tony's hand shattered, wine staining the carpet like a dark omen. Tony gasped, his feet dangling inches off the floor as Loki hoisted him up. The God of Mischief leaned in, his breath cold against Tony's ear.
"You really think a few clever words change the outcome? Look at you. A mortal in a silk shirt, gasping for air. The universe has a hierarchy, Stark. And today, you're at the very bottom. You will all kneel, not out of respect, but because your legs will no longer be able to support the weight of your failure."
Tony's face turned a bruised purple, his hands clawing uselessly at Loki's wrist. The iron grip was crushing his windpipe, the sound of cartilage groaning under the pressure filling the quiet room.
Then, the world shattered.
A crisp, crystalline explosion rang out as the floor-to-ceiling reinforced glass behind them disintegrated. Loki jerked his head around, his predatory instincts screaming a warning a second too late.
Standing in the center of a swirling vortex of glass shards and high-altitude wind was Leo. He wasn't wearing armor. He didn't need it. A faint, golden aura clung to his skin, making him look less like a boy and more like an impending disaster.
"Let him go," Leo said, his voice terrifyingly calm.
He didn't wait for an answer. Leo blurred forward, his palm pooling with a concentrated, liquid-gold radiance. He slammed it into Loki's chest.
The impact wasn't a dull thud; it was the sound of a mountain being struck by a meteor. Loki's grip on Tony's throat vanished as the God was launched backward, his feet leaving the floor as he became a projectile. He slammed into the far wall, the structural concrete spider-webbing under the force of the hit.
A sphere of golden light remained stuck to Loki's torso, buzzing like a hornet, boring into his regal leather armor as if trying to find a way to his heart. Loki groaned, coughing out a puff of air, but he straightened himself up with terrifying resilience. His Asgardian physiology was built to take hits from Thor; a shove from a 'Midgardian' wasn't enough to break him, but the shock in his eyes was priceless.
Tony collapsed to his knees, sucking in air with a ragged, desperate sound. He didn't waste time being traumatized. He looked at the ceiling and croaked, "Jarvis... tell me the delivery guy is here."
"Deployment initiated, sir," Jarvis replied.
A hidden bay in the penthouse ceiling slid open with a mechanical hiss. A red, cylindrical pod—the Mark VII—shot out on a pillar of white-hot fire. It didn't wait for an elevator. It smashed through the remaining glass, streaking into the open New York sky.
Outside, the pod performed a mid-air ballet of engineering. Outer plates shed like dead skin, revealing the complex, interlocking machinery beneath. It reshaped itself in three seconds, shifting from a barrel into a humanoid silhouette. It dived back toward the balcony, matching Tony's position with surgical precision.
Tony stood up, spreading his arms wide, turning his back to the incoming suit. It was a leap of faith. The Mark VII slammed into his back, the laser-guided bracelets on Tony's wrists snapping into the suit's gauntlets with a metallic clack.
The armor wrapped around him like a living creature, the soft segmented lining molding to his frame, cocooning him in a billion dollars of protection. The helmet halves folded over his face, and the iconic gold-and-red faceplate clicked into place with a final, pressurized seal.
Vroom!
The eyes of the suit flared to life with a brilliant white light. Internal HUDs saturated Tony's vision with tactical data, green status bars scrolling past at light speed. The Mark VII hovered an inch off the ground, its back-mounted thrusters humming with a deep, resonant power.
Tony tilted his head, the voice that came out of the external speakers now distorted and metallic. "You forgot one person on my list, Loki. You pissed off a guy named Phil. And trust me, he was a big fan of yours until you poked him."
Loki snarled, a small blade flicking into his hand from thin air. He lunged, but the Mark VII was faster. Tony's arm snapped up, the repulsor in his palm whining as it discharged a boosted blast. The beam caught Loki mid-chest, pinning him back against the cracked wall. This wasn't the stun-setting of the Mark VI; this was a high-output kinetic strike that left a scorch mark on Loki's armor.
Leo, standing off to the side, watched the deployment with wide-eyed wonder. Even in the middle of a war zone, the inner nerd couldn't help it. "Okay... that was seriously cool. Why don't I have a suit that does that?"
The Mark VII looked different—meaner. It was stockier than its predecessor, the triangular arc reactor replaced by the classic circular design. It had extra bulk on the thighs and shoulders, packed with more weapons and boosters to offset the added weight. It was a tank that could fly.
Loki's dagger clattered to the floor as he struggled to stand. He finally noticed the wisp of golden energy still clinging to his chest. Leo grinned. That light wasn't just for show; it was a tracker, a piece of Leo's own "metal" intent that had seeped into the God's cloak.
"I can feel your heartbeat, 'Your Majesty,'" Leo teased.
Loki growled, a faint blue shimmer of Asgardian Divine Power flaring around his body. The golden light, lacking a continuous feed from Leo, flickered and died under the pressure of the god's innate magic.
Leo didn't mind. He crooked a finger, and Loki's fallen dagger zipped off the floor, hovering in front of Leo's face. He caught it, feeling the cold Asgardian steel. Beside him, the Chitauri scepter—which had been leaning against the bar—flew toward him. Leo didn't grab it; he let it bury itself in the floorboards right next to the Tesseract device, acting as a physical anchor.
"Leo, the cube's rig is drawing too much—" Tony started, but the sky cut him off.
A pillar of pure, blinding blue energy lanced out from the Tesseract, punching through the atmosphere. It hit the summit of the sky a kilometer up, and the air itself seemed to scream. The fabric of space-time tore open like a wet sheet, revealing a cold, black void on the other side.
The Portal was open.
Tony froze, his neck servos whirring as he looked up. In the darkness of the void, thousands of lights flickered to life. Eyes. Cold, cybernetic eyes.
The Chitauri poured through like a swarm of hornets disturbed from a nest. Two-man skiffs, long and skeletal, dived toward the city in a relentless stream. The screech of their engines was a sound from a nightmare.
Tony's jaw set behind the mask. His HUD shifted from blue to a deep, predatory red. "Jarvis, target everything that isn't us."
"With pleasure, sir."
"Army!" Tony shouted, and the Mark VII's boots erupted in fire. He rocketed toward the portal, a lone red spark flying into a tide of gray and gold.
On every Chitauri craft, one pilot steered with twitchy, insect-like movements while the gunner behind unleashed bolts of blue plasma. They fanned out across Manhattan, ignoring the 'metal man' at first to focus on the soft targets below.
Tony streaked through the swarm, his repulsors firing in rapid-fire bursts. Each shot was a kill, sending skiffs spiraling into the skyscrapers. But the sheer volume was overwhelming. He collided with the leading edge of the fleet, the armor groaning as Chitauri bodies bounced off his plating.
"Sir, we are being surrounded," Jarvis warned.
"I see 'em. Let's clear the air."
The Mark VII's shoulder pods irised open with a mechanical growl. Each bay was packed with forty-two micro-missiles. Tony didn't wait for a lock. He let them all fly.
The missiles streaked out on smoky white trails, their infrared seekers weaving through the air with lethal intelligence. A second later, the sky above Stark Tower became a graveyard. Dozens of skiffs erupted in orange fireballs, erasing hundreds of Chitauri in a single salvo.
But it was like trying to stop a flood with a bucket. For every hundred he killed, a thousand more surged through the gate. They began to spread, dropping lower into the canyons of New York.
On the ground, the transition from normalcy to hell was instantaneous. People looked up, phones in hand, expecting a movie stunt or a parade. Instead, they got strafed. Blue energy bolts struck the asphalt, blowing cars apart like they were made of paper. Concrete dust and the screams of thousands filled the air.