Marvel, page 3
Thor tossed Mjolnir into his left hand, using the sturdy leather strap to spin the hammer and deflect their shots. The Destroyer veered to the right as Thor careened into it with his shoulder, bringing along the full weight of his bulk. Still the machine fired, stumbling briefly, head rearing back, its laser weapon shearing one of the helicopters in half. Both smoking pieces plummeted to the road, scattering the human soldiers. They fell back, abandoning their ruined cover, as three black vans swerved to a stop on either side of the thoroughfare, containing the violence to the immediate area. The humans did not realize, could not realize, that an uncontrolled Asgardian Destroyer would make quick work of any weaponry they threw at it.
“Flee!” Thor thundered to all, to anyone who would listen. “Take your men and go! There is nothing”—Thor flipped the hammer into his right hand and wound up, cracking the Destroyer in the back of the neck—“to be done! Flee!” He lashed out with his right foot, denting the machine just above the knee. “The machine defies our will! Go!”
“Asgardians! With me!” Sif charged into the intersection, taking Bryldir and the others with her. “Is this mess with the Destroyer your brother’s doing? It feels like his work.”
“Loki, yes!” he called after her. “Ah, but it would be just like him to delight in such chaos.”
More armed soldiers emptied out from the vans that had arrived. Sif commanded the Asgardians to spread out; icy sword raised, she taunted the Destroyer to attack. It did, but not before elbowing Thor hard in the chest. Pain exploded up his collarbone, a buzzing like electricity in his ears as he staggered back. Orange fury blazed from the Destroyer, but Sif handily dodged out of the way, teleporting before the killing blow could land.
Thor grabbed his chest, feeling where the breastplate had contorted, the edges of it digging into his skin. Smoke billowed from the street, from the buildings, from the wreckage piling up in the road. One Asgardian shouted at the Destroyer to distract it, but moved out of its sight too slowly, meeting his end.
The humans retaliated, the erratic, explosive pop-pa-pop-pa-pop of their rifles drowning out Sif’s voice. Every blast was sharp, returned to him again and again inside the ravine of glass, every shot rattling in his chest before the next round of fire came. Thor’s focus narrowed to the Destroyer as he shut out the riot of smoke and metal around him, trusting that Sif would handle what she could, leaving the machine to him. Her efforts and those of the Asgardians were not in vain: Distracted, the Destroyer’s chest cavity shook as it gathered strength, firing off another razor-accurate molten beam, slicing a black van in half horizontally. Of the human soldiers gathered before it, some ducked; others did not.
Protect them. Protect them all. And then: Loki will be banished from Asgard for this, or worse. He will deserve it and I will see it done.
It was Loki’s doing, of course it was, for who else could conceive of such a devious betrayal?
Thor swung Mjolnir with both hands, spinning into it, the song of lightning and thunder in his blood swelling once more. Even through the smoke, the sky darkened. Clouds mustered, heavy with promise, and when his hammer connected, the Destroyer’s left arm came away at the shoulder. Thor tore it free with a snarl, lifted it into the air, and let the lightning come, hot electricity engulfing the machine’s arm, flashing up and down and licking out in every direction while Thor brought it down on the Destroyer’s head.
The electricity jumped from arm to body, and the surge of power made the thing go briefly rigid. In that tiny stillness, Thor felt relief that it was over, that they could set this somehow to rights. As the Destroyer froze, a cheer went up from the Asgardians. The power surge stalling the Destroyer didn’t last long, but it seemingly lost its cruel directive, wandering away from Thor, listing hard to the right. Black fingers of smoke parted, and Thor allowed his gaze to stray from the machine, where he saw the man in the suit with the device to his ear. He had fallen but was sitting up now, and he drew a heavy, strange weapon from inside his jacket. It was nothing like the rifles of the other humans, sleeker, simpler, but no less sinister.
“No!” Thor raised his hand.
The man either couldn’t hear him or ignored his shout. He fired the weapon, a sizzling white beam, not terribly unlike the Destroyer’s, leaping from muzzle to machine. It hung like a festival streamer in the intersection for an instant before dispersing. The blast of it shook the Destroyer from its frozen state. There was no time to confer with Sif. The Destroyer was no longer in arm’s reach. He threw himself into the air, landing just in front of the man with the odd weapon, simultaneously hurling Mjolnir toward the Destroyer’s head.
Either the city had gone quiet again or Thor had lost his hearing. The Destroyer’s purple eyes locked on him, and the blast came, split into two spears of orange light as Mjolnir sped toward her intended mark. All weapons met their targets. Thor’s hammer ripped through the Destroyer’s mask, its beam weapon widening, erupting, wild and unchecked. It was done, going up in a blaze of red and then purple.
He knew it was done, though he could not verify it with his eyes.
Thor Odinson was falling.
His knees hit the road, and then his palms. Sirens. Voices. The shrieking was endless and overwhelming until it abruptly cut out and he was alone again. No, not alone. On hands and knees, he looked away from the blood pooling between him and the earthling slumped to his left. He could not smell burning but understood that he was burned. Badly.
Fatally.
A warrior experienced all sorts of pains in a lifetime of battle, recovery, and training. A warrior went to bed hurting and often woke the next day hurting, too. Sometimes there was satisfaction in the throb of tired muscles, and sometimes there was just pain to be endured. This was something new, a feeling only to be felt once in the boundless life span of a god. He did not want to explore what was left of his face and neck and chest, for he wanted to think his last thoughts as one who was whole.
Lucky. I have been so very lucky, he thought, for my entire life, I have been a man made whole—by love, by fate, by family, by prophecy.
Ragnarok. The two-thousand-year cycle of death and rebirth for the gods of Asgard. Always, it occurred the same way, with the same signs. What would it mean now that Thor Odinson was dead? Was the cycle beginning anew?
Sirens. Voices. Someone was coming near, shaking him. Cradling him.
From birth to death, a man who was whole.
The man with the strange weapon was curled on his side, and one might think him asleep but for the gaping hole in his head. He somehow managed to gurgle, then go limp. The gun tumbled out of his hand. The silver-white pin on his lapel was smudged with blackened skin and blood, and read, Stark Industries.
Something cold touched his wrist as he tried to recall what in the hells Stark Industries was. It didn’t matter. Mjolnir had returned to him. She rested against him, a comforting presence. His knees gave out. His cheek met the road.
My family, he thought. Mjolnir. My one inheritance. She must have it…She must. There was a persistent heaviness over his brow. He could not feel his fingers or his feet. Who will tell my family I am gone?
Somewhere, he knew, Loki, the God of Mischief, was laughing.
And like winter alerted to itself by the last leaf of autumn touching down, Odin woke from his long, restless sleep. “What has happened in my absence?” he asked. “Where is my son?”
3
BILLOWING SMOKE ROSE LIKE black sails over Manhattan, spreading quickly up 7th, clearly visible from the heights of Stark Tower. Tony watched the city burning, helicopters silently filing past his windows in an urgent parade, the thick ballistic glass insulating him from the chaotic whir of the blades. He knew the area. That’s a shame, he thought. Brand-new shawarma place opened there last week.
“Super-duper,” he said with a sigh. “That means I’m late.” Tony turned his back on whatever problem that happened to be in Midtown. His office, top floor, of course, was monk-sparse, gray marble and concrete, a central aquarium full of exotic something or others casting rippling white lights across the floor. Pepper had insisted on its installation. Apparently, a few goldfish were meant to lower his sky-high blood pressure.
Maybe Happy took the expressway. That would certainly help his blood pressure.
“We can wrap this up later if it’s a bad time?” a man suggested in his ear.
He had almost forgotten a potential investor and sometimes-friend was on the line with him. Warren. Oops.
“No, no, we can do this now.”
With a flick of his eyes, Tony dipped back into the call. His smart glasses were proprietary Stark tech, and a must for a man who needed his brain and hands stimulated in ten different ways at any given moment. With a blink or a wink, he could check his messages, the headlines, stock projections, inflation reports, and that day’s market price of Shibumis at Marea.
And—anywhere, anytime—Tony could also take meetings with fellow millionaire playboys. Like this one, Warren Worthington the Third, whose aggravatingly perfect face and hair hovered above his desk while Tony went desperately seeking his coffee. He could feel a migraine building. Moments earlier, an intern had appeared to shakily leave Tony’s coffee order (latte, half coconut milk, half two percent, three espresso shots, extra foam—but not a cappuccino—two raw sugars) on his desk with the apologetic reverence of a temple supplicant. Pepper had started choosing interns with lots of tattoos and piercings, to spice things up, which was fun; they lasted about as long as the clean-cut MIT grads in chinos and boat shoes, which is to say, more than two weeks and less than six months. Tony glanced into the metal cylinder mug containing his second round of morning motor oil and smirked; they had forgotten the foam on his order, but he was a benevolent god, so he let it go.
This time.
Warren laughed softly. Like Tony, he could take his meetings anywhere. This time it was in what looked to be a raw-wood Icelandic sauna or the set of the latest prestige television fantasy schlock. Somehow, even in a sauna, he hadn’t even broken a sweat. Warren gently toweled his Grecian bust of a face and shook his head. “Are you sure? Looks like you’re getting another call…”
Sure enough. Tony chugged his drink, Warren’s opinion be damned. “Ignore it. Where were we?”
His other lines were lighting up. Tiny red lights flashed at the corner of his VR display. That happened often enough that it barely gave him pause. There were always a million fires to put out and never enough hands to grab the extinguisher. He whirled away from his desk, glanced at the time, and strode toward the private elevator bank behind a Japanese screen at the back of his office.
“You were buttering me up to hand over a few million to fund your latest vanity project. The I.M. Suit Mark One, I think you called it in the material Pepper sent over. I was resisting. And we were at Nisanti. Or rather, you were.”
Oh boy.
“Right. That.” Tony called the elevator from his smart glasses. The other line continued to blip, and Tony continued to forward the calls to voicemail. He was on his way to a lunch date with a Department of Defense rep. He rarely took in-person meetings in the tower. His office was a sanctuary, and most people found it unsettling. Pepper said it gave “solitary confinement energy.” So what if it did? It was his. No, he preferred to talk numbers over the chef salad at Johny’s, which was less of a salad and more just piles and piles of ham on three cherry tomatoes. A thing of beauty. True New York City art.
“That club in Hell’s Kitchen?” Warren continued. Still no sweat. How did he do it?
“Mmhm.”
What was the point of having a private executive-level elevator if it took this long to get places?
“You know, the one where you were canoodling with the commissioner’s daughter.”
Tony managed not to roll his eyes. It would screw up the smart glasses interface. “Canoodling? Seriously? Can we be grown-ups for a second? Stark Industries makes bombs and guns. I run a multinational conglomerate, not a Sunday school. You’re going to miss out on the investment of a lifetime because of a few rumors? There’s no protein there. For all you know, I was meeting my lawyer there. The Mark One is going to be the greatest leap forward in personal defense in a century, and I’m offering you ground floor on it.”
Warren pinched the bridge of his nose, appearing genuinely pained. “There are sources.”
“Sources but no pictures! I might get around, Warren, but I’m not stupid,” Tony replied, triumphant. The elevator finally arrived, announcing itself with a cheerful, robotic: “Executive level, going down.”
Warren stood up and left the sauna, radiant, and met a young man at the door, his nail tech, probably, given the culty pale-blue jumpsuit they were wearing.
“Are you at Guerlain?” Tony asked, momentarily distracted.
“Peninsula.”
“Ah. Bet looking like that is a full-time job.”
Warren shrugged and settled into a plush massage chair, flapping a towel over his shoulder. The tech was dismissed from the room with a wave of his hand. “Genetics, mostly.”
“Your nail guy any good?” asked Tony. Whoever was trying to get through on his line was not giving up easily. The red light at the corner of his attention was starting to sync up with his caffeine-addled heartbeat. Pepper is going to kill me for getting this worked up.
“Mm. Victor is in love with me, but he has the best eye for detail in Manhattan.”
“Good for you.” The migraine bloomed, creating a wild halo effect around Warren’s angelic wreath of golden curls. Tony gritted his teeth, accustomed to this pain. His friend having the intestinal business fortitude of an Occupy Wall Street career jongleur wasn’t helping matters. “You should take five to think big about the Mark One. Actually? I’m a generous man, take the whole pedicure hour.”
Warren smiled in a way that was somehow both condescending and sympathetic. The door opened and closed, and Tony heard Victor return to line up his files and scissors. “Listen, Tony, I don’t even know why you’re making this so difficult. Honestly, it’s borderline unseemly.”
“Don’t be nauseating.” Tony’s stomach lurched into his throat as the elevator hit top speed. He was dropping toward street level like a shuttle breaching atmo. He swallowed and contemplated his coffee, then thought better of it. Another sip and his heart might explode.
“I can’t help it.” Warren placed his feet into a bath of warm water. He was using a smartphone like a Stone Age savage. Maybe Tony didn’t want his investment after all. “You don’t need money from Angel Investors.”
For the thirtieth time, Tony forwarded the insistent jerk on the other line to voicemail. If Happy was late, or if, God forbid, that accident in Midtown was bad enough to shut down streets, he was going to lose his mind.
“No, but I want it. We’re about to go supernova with this thing, Warren. Don’t worry about bad press. We welcome bad press, okay? We’re anti-fragile here. All press good press, blah, blah, you know the rest.” Warren scoffed, but Tony buzzed on. The coffee was hitting like a meteor. He could feel himself starting to blab defensively—bad habit—but he couldn’t stop himself. “There’s no risk here, I’m just looking for a little padding. Gratis, in case the production phase gets rocky.”
“You said the Mark One was a sure bet.”
“It is, but machining on this guy is going to be a doozy. Look, Stark Industries is fat with DOD contracts right now, so we won’t fail—”
“But you’re still paranoid.”
“No, I’m diligent, there’s a difference. Forget the rumors about me, okay? We’re old friends, you would’ve recognized this for the favor it is before you contracted billionaire brain worms or whatever is happening here. This, like, skinny dip into moral superiority—”
Warren wasn’t budging. In fact, he was snorting. Then he barked with laughter. “I’ll stop you there. The commissioner’s daughter, Tony? After you just got the contract with the department? It’s a bad look.”
“Very cool and very self-aware coming from the guy who runs through K-pop idols the way frat houses run through toilet paper.”
Warren’s assistant should’ve handed him a napkin for the way his smile dripped. “Not common knowledge. Did a tree fall in the forest if it didn’t make Page Six? I’m sorry, old friend. Even if we set aside the optics, I just have a bad feeling about this one. Nobody needs a mechanized weapon suit for self-defense, not in the private sector. Think of the liability. We stay clean. We’re a family business.”
Whoever was on the other line gave up. About time. The LED display at the top of the elevator counted down silently.
Tony knew it was over, but with that much caffeine he had the impulse control of Ted Bundy. “My dad’s name was Stark, too, wasn’t it?”
“It’s a no, Tony.”
The elevator doors swished open, dumping him out into the cold glass cathedral of the lobby. Pepper was there, coiffed and besuited, blue eyes hot as soldering irons. Her mouth was already open, a stack of papers clutched to her chest, but she clammed up when she noticed he was on a call.
Tony held up his hand, indicating she should wait. He started off across the lobby, his bodyguards Tank and Lazer flanking him as Pepper fell into step. He had no idea why the best bodyguards and bouncers insisted on American Gladiator names, but some things just were.
“Got it. Well, I personally wouldn’t bet it all on a tummy ache, but you do you, man,” said Tony. Pepper was humming like a fusion engine. He could see her visibly fighting against the urge to interrupt him. Nobody, not even Virginia Potts, interrupted Tony Stark on a business call.
As they finished up, Warren took Tony off video. His voice was warm and almost sad, closer now that the phone was nestled against his face. “This is coming from a friend: You don’t need my money. You need a therapist.”
