The night reeked of scorched metal, smoke, and death. Fires still burned across parts of Los Angeles as Stark's ruined office smoldered beneath floodlights and SHIELD's tightening perimeter. Drones circled overhead, scanning wreckage, bodies, and faces. Agents moved like clockwork, their orders clipped and merciless.
Iron Monger's monstrous frame still lumbered in the distance, locked in a brutal battle with Stark himself. Orders snapped through radios.
"Too many casualties. This mission is a complete failure," Coulson reporting flatly to Fury. "Requesting martial law. Lock down the area."
SHIELD pulled bodies from the wreckage—there was little else left to do. This night wasn't the end. It was only the beginning. A new game on a board no one had been prepared to play.
Far from the floodlights, beneath the broken husk of their overturned car, Liliruca Arde pressed a bloodied hand to her side. Kara huddled nearby, silent, trembling, her notebook crashed against her chest like it could keep her safe. Rumlow crouched behind the smoking wreckage, pistol drawn, eyes cold and sharp as he watched the chaos ahead.
The fight had found them.
Obadiah Stane's Iron Monger had come crashing down from the sky, torn apart by the icing problem Stark had predicted. The machine had landed like a meteor, throwing debris, flame, and death across the street. Their vehicle had been caught in the blast radius—flipped, broken, bleeding smoke into the night.
Now Iron Monger stood again, firing wildly. Missiles exploded without discrimination. He wasn't aiming for them. He wasn't aiming at anyone in particular. He was simply lashing out, enraged and wounded, trying to kill Stark and hitting everything else by accident.
One blast tore the road apart, not twenty feet from where they hid. Shrapnel screamed through the air. Rumlow pulled back without flinching. Kara gasped as rubble collapsed somewhere nearby.
"We need to move," Rumlow said flatly. Not a suggestion.
"No." Liliruca's voice was hoarse but firm. "Moving now will draw his attention. Wait. Find the opening first."
"You really think there's going to be an opening?" Rumlow said, not taking his eyes off the chaos ahead. "We're just trapped like everyone else and bleeding, and I've got six rounds left. Not exactly a winning hand."
"Then don't waste them." Liliruca's voice was strained, but sharp. "if you can't fight them just try to survive."
Rumlow gave a dry, humorless snort. "Funny. Thought you were the one bleeding out."
"Then you can just run.If one of us makes it out, that's enough."
Rumlow's lip curled faintly. "Still giving orders while half-dead. Impressive."
"Someone has to. You're not exactly stepping up."
Through the pain, Liliruca pulled a cracked device from her pocket. Blood smeared on its surface as she pressed it against the concrete. A weak light blinked on, barely alive. Its signal whispered into the void.
A simple beacon. A location ping. Sent to Luthar.
Kara's frightened eyes turned to her. "Even if he decides to come… wouldn't it take too long?"
Liliruca didn't answer at first. Then, quieter: "If he wants to save us, he'll come. If not, we die here. Either way, I've sent the signal."
Ahead, Iron Monger fired again, missiles obliterating another structure. Civilians screamed. Fire devoured wreckage. The machine's wrath had no direction—it simply destroyed whatever stood in its way.
Rumlow's hand rested loosely on his pistol. "Stupid way to die. Getting caught in someone else's war."
"You can run anytime."
He snorted. "I'm not stupid enough for that. If you die, Luther would not let me go."
Liliruca said nothing more. Her blood pooled steadily. Kara stayed silent.
The lights failed.
Static crawled across broken stone and steel. Radios bled whispers in languages not meant for human ears. Machine-voices chanted in corrupted hymns: numbers, codes, invocations stitched together by logic older than this world.
Reality buckled. Then it shifted.
Luthar arrived.
Not with thunder. Not with spectacle. He stepped forward as if the world parted out of duty alone, crimson robes stirring though there was no wind. Servo-arms flexed behind him, patient, silent. One hand gripped a chainblade, resting idle.
Behind him followed machines.
Servo-skulls drifted like carrion birds, bone-white and marked with erased barcodes. They whispered in binary, scanning the ruins with reverence. Mechadendrites uncoiled from his back, tipped with tools fit only for violence or industry.
Ten of them. Freshly made. Chanting machine-code beneath breathless skies.
Their weapons did not glow. They simply existed, awaiting orders.
Luthar surveyed the ruin without interest.
"Pathetic," he said. No one had asked.
His voice, layered with augmetics, carried effortlessly through the silence. It did not need volume to demand attention.
He passed Kara as if she did not exist. Passed Rumlow, whose pistol remained drawn but pointless. Passed Liliruca, bleeding beneath a broken stone.
His gaze turned upward, through ruin, smoke, and sky.
"You are too optimistic. Going out without weapons is stupidity in its purest form."
Servo-skulls spread outward. Glyphs flickered across the dark, unseen by human eyes.
"Next time, at least carry a chainsword. Or a standard firearm. Had you worn armor, these injuries wouldn't have happened."
Rumlow's grip tightened on his weapon. Luthar didn't even glance his way.
"You're a disappointment," Luthar said coldly. "Your reaction speed, your enhancements—all superior to Captain Rogers' profile. Yet here you are, injured without even fighting the enemy directly."
Kara said nothing. Rumlow lowered his gun, face unreadable. Even he understood the shame of it. Captain America would not have been caught in someone else's crossfire.
Liliruca exhaled faintly. "Can we save the lecture for later? I feel like I'm dying."
Luthar's glance told him otherwise. The injuries were serious, but far from fatal. His disappointment remained. Getting injured in someone else's battle was beneath those he allowed to serve him.
Rumlow understood his place. Luthar didn't care for his pride. Luthar didn't need to.
Reality closed behind him like a wound sealing shut. Lights returned. SHIELD's scans read nothing. Drones found silence. Heat signatures registered zero.
Only rumors would remain.
And somewhere beyond this ruined night, the machine-prayers had already begun to fade.
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