Commissioned by @Austin on Patreon.
Disclaimer - All the usual Yada Yada Yada. I don't own any rights to any characters in this fic save for my OCs. Don't sue me.
Anywho, without further ado - read on.
Earth-6161 [May 2012]
Manhattan, New York [Stark Tower Periphery]
–Tony Stark–
"Stark, do you copy?" His comms crackled to life as the face of Agent Hill appeared on his HUD. He was currently doing fly-bys around the perimeter, occasionally checking in on Weber to see if she needed help or something but so far, there was not even a change in her facial expression to show anything. He had a hunch that the constant stream of water coming from the river and even the sea that floated all around her in a ring was her source of continued strength but that was all it was at this point, a theory.
Noting down that little tidbit in a file he created about her just in case, he replied, "Yes, I copy, Agent Hill. We are holding the line as of now but where is the help? The Air Force can barely aim their missiles properly and the National Guard came rolling in with tanks whose shells can barely reach the top of Stark Tower, let alone the portal. What are you, people–"
The comms glitched for a moment as it was switched to Fury. Before he could get a word in, "Stark! You have a nuke on your ass!"
His blood ran cold as his body went slack inside the suit. Thankfully Jarvis was piloting the suit otherwise he might just have crashed after that.
"What did you say, Fury? Are you insane? What happened?" He fired off at Fury as Jarvis began pulling up all the available satellite data.
"How long?"
Fury's voice was laced with despair, "5 minutes, maybe less."
"SHIT!" He cursed and turned sharply on the spot, heading straight to Weber, who was now standing right next to a very confused looking Hulk who was floating on top of a water platform. Jarvis displayed the latest data on the HUD as he detected the Jets coming towards them.
Fury couldn't even get them the Jet tracking data because they were all locked out for some reason. With the Air Force in the mix, there were now 4 jets heading towards Manhattan at the same time, with two of them in formation but those two could not be ruled out because they did not know to what extent the WSC had authorised the strike.
"Weber!" HE snapped as soon as he reached the weird water sphere thing that worked as the sharpest knife in the world, "We have a missile incoming. It's a nuclear warhead." He delivered the news with the same levity as announcing their deaths, which it really was.
He could see even Hulk, limited in his ability as he was, reacting sharply to the news. Flinching and recoiling back from him.
Weber's reaction was less obvious but telling all the same. The water on her sphere wobbled violently for a bit before a chill ran down his spine as the city beneath him trembled. Great Torrents of water rose out of the surrounding water bodies, creating what was essentially a city sized floating pool above the city, dwarfing every single building and even Manhattan underneath it.
Small(relatively) lances of water lashed at everything and anything near the portal, as Weber slowly floated down to come face to face with him, the sphere of water peeling away as her glowing blue eyes made contact with his face plate's glowing blue ones. Thankfully, his face was hidden behind the plate.
"From where? How Long?"
Jarvis, good boy that he was, immediately scrambled to display that information to his HUD as he repeated what he saw, "We have four jets, one or maybe more of whom are on their way here with a nuclear missile. Once that missile leaves the jet, we only have maybe two minutes before it blows up and takes the city with us. We need to stop the missile from leaving the jet itself because if–"
He was interrupted by Weber who was floating there with her eyes closed and now her entire body was glowing blue, wow, that was…enchanting.
"I sense 8 different people up in the air, heading straight at us. Four of whom are in a single jet heading towards us, significantly faster than the others."
"Jarvis?" He asked in confusion. The data only showed four jets and even if they were two seated jets, which was impossible because who used those in an active warzone, there should not be four people in a single jet.
"I have verified the records from multiple sources, including experimental Stark Industries satellites. The data is correct."
He shook his head at that. Now was not the time for that. He knew the jets were coming and according to Fury, the jet coming from the Helicarrier could be a decoy as well because the World Security Council had its hands in multiple pies, including very highly decorated officers in the Army who have the authority to launch Jets, that included Nuclear missiles.
So, they couldn't just leave the other jets. Fury was already working on issuing recall orders for all Jets but they just didn't have the time to–
"I can do it. With a thought." Weber said as her glowing blue eyes bored into his. He grit his teeth as his palms clammed up. He tried to deflect, "I don't know what you're talking–"
"I know you do. I can do it. I can kill all eight of them with a thought, just say the word, and it will be done. No risk of nuclear armageddon if we do that." Weber said it so casually as he physically recoiled and felt sick as he felt himself considering the option.
Four, maybe eight people dead? In exchange for hundreds of thousands or even millions alive with no dead city. It was a no brainer. Logical. Downright reasonable even.
And yet, his hands trembled as he thought of the deaths of innocent pilots, people who were coming here in hopes of helping the people, dying after being killed by their own people, to save more.
He continued to float there, silent as his mind ran circles around itself. No matter what, he couldn't bring himself to–
"As I thought," his neck snapped up as he looked at Weber who was now looking to the left. Her hand slowly rose in that direction as his heckles rose, his hand moving to stop Weber in some fashion because he absolutely did not want the deaths of innocent people to stop—
His thoughts came to a halt as he saw Weber's hand pause mid way as the glow around her body subsided.
"Stop!" He screamed even though he knew that it was not him that stayed Weber's hand. It was something else and the next moment he knew why.
"Sir, one missile inbound. ETA - 1 min 54s"
The same message echoed across every single comms channel as everyone in the team now knew that a nuclear missile was headed their way.
"Fuck!" "Language!" "Stark! What is happening?" "How did Fury miss this?"
He ignored all of them and focused on Weber who just glowed less than before, without any change in her facial expression. She then mechanically turned towards him, "You have a minute to find out how to close that portal, that sceptre might come in handy. If not, this city is doomed. I will try as much as I can to get everyone away but after that, I am done."
Weber then turned to Hulk, "Handle the portal. Make sure nothing escapes. You can escape your bounds, I know it." Somehow her words did something as the Hulk's body began compacting but unlike the usual process, it didn't immediately turn him into Banner but instead, turned him into what might pass for a normal human, if a normal human was seven feet tall, green and made up entirely of muscle.
"Thank you," He blinked in surprise as he heard Banner speak from Hulk's mouth as the giant jumped off the water platform with his fists cocked back, straight towards the portal.
He floated there, slack jawed, as the small Hulk collided with the absolute giant that was the Leviathans and it was the lizard's face that folded in on itself, releasing a massive shockwave. His jaw hung agape as he watched the Hulk change course mid air, with an accompanying thunderclap that had him perform manoeuvres mid air that were more common with his suit than a landlocked Hulk.
With that, Weber turned her back to him as she dissolved into water and merged with the giant cloud of water floating above the city. With the madness that was Banner somehow merging into Hulk and gaining the ability of three dimensional movement, he had temporarily forgotten the massive cloud of water floating above the city that would wreck the city just as much as the nuke would, if one ignored the long lasting effects of a nuclear explosion.
There was a sudden red alert on his HUD as Jarvis detected massive energy congregations right in between the cloud of water. Before he could even react to that, the massive cloud of water dropped.
"Oh, Fu–" His words were drowned out by the literal ocean of water that was dropped on top of the city.
How was this going to help the city in any possible way?!
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