"Relax, gentlemen. Your savior has arrived."
A figure of burnished gold tore through the sky at nearly five times the speed of sound and slammed into the battlefield in a perfect three-point landing. The armor gleamed like a falling sun, servos humming as it straightened in front of Steve Rogers and Logan.
Logan snorted. "Flashy as ever. But the timing's good."
Steve allowed himself a brief smile. "Tony, we'll draw their fire. You get inside and shut down the Helicarriers."
Even with Iron Man joining them, it was still only three against more than sixty Hydra combat robots, hundreds of soldiers, and several unknown enhanced operatives. A prolonged fight would be pointless. If the Helicarriers launched, they lost.
Tony nodded without arguing. Since the Asgard incident, he trusted Steve's judgment far more than he used to. "Got it. But where's everyone else?"
Logan answered grimly. "Probably captured."
Tony's eyes lit up. "Including Rowan?"
Steve shook his head. "Rowan never came. He stayed at the school with Professor Xavier."
Tony sighed theatrically. "That's a shame. I finally build something worth showing off, and he's not here to be impressed."
The Hydra robots didn't give him time to mourn his missed audience.
They charged as one.
"Alright," Tony said, squaring his stance. "Try this."
The arc reactor at his chest flared. Concentric rings of golden light spun outward, then collapsed into a single, devastating beam. A column of gold punched through the advancing robots, drilling straight through armor and circuitry alike. As Tony rotated mid-air, the beam swept across the formation, cutting down machine after machine until more than half the robotic force lay in smoking pieces.
The beam faded. Tony exhaled. "That's all I've got like that. Power drain's brutal."
Even his upgraded reactor had lost nearly half its charge in seconds.
"Cover me," he added, already accelerating toward the Triskelion. "I'm going for the launch systems."
Steve and Logan surged forward, throwing themselves into the remaining robots and soldiers to keep them from pursuing.
"Watch the enhanced ones!" Steve called after him.
High above the battlefield, unseen, Rowan Mercer hovered in silence.
He had arrived earlier than Tony and chosen not to intervene. The Helicarriers hadn't launched yet. Steve and Logan were still alive. Banner's sudden disappearance was concerning, but not fatal. For now.
If he ended everything too quickly, the world would never grasp how close it had come to disaster. Letting the crisis escalate a little longer had value.
Rowan watched Tony's golden beam with interest. "That's close to a plasma-electromagnetic discharge," he murmured. "Crude compared to mine, but clever."
Tony's attack was built from Asgardian technology mimicking the Bifrost's principles. Rowan's own version fused magic and electromagnetic control directly. His could bisect a mountain. Tony's couldn't.
Still, the ingenuity deserved respect.
Rowan's attention sharpened.
The battlefield shifted again.
Tony reached the entrance to the Triskelion and was intercepted by figures who were clearly not Hydra soldiers.
Gordon appeared first, featureless eyes fixed on his target. Daisy followed, her forearms encased in Hydra-built amplifiers. Rowan recognized them instantly.
"Inhumans," he muttered. "And working for Hydra, of all things."
Daisy raised both hands.
The air rippled.
Not a blast, but a focused vibration that slipped past armor plating and rattled the brain inside. Tony's flight cut out instantly. He staggered mid-air and crashed hard to the ground, clutching his helmet.
"JARVIS," Tony groaned. "Countermeasures. Block the waveform."
"Already adapting, sir."
The armor's internal shielding flared to life, isolating the vibrations.
Too late.
Gordon was already behind him.
The teleporter reached out, fingers brushing Tony's shoulder, preparing to send him halfway across the planet just like Banner.
Above them all, unseen, Rowan watched quietly.
If Tony vanished too, the battle would tip fully into desperation.
And then, finally, it would be time.