Cap said, unable to understand.
—People aren't even running away. They're just standing there watching the robot. Some are crying. What's going on? Is everyone under some kind of mass hypnosis?
"That's... how do I explain this. Right! Cap, did you have a toy you treasured as a kid?"
—I had a toy airplane.
"Imagine that treasured toy airplane showed up in real life, right now, fighting bad guys to save you. That's what it feels like."
—Ah... I get it. Still, this is dangerous... Hey! Stark, don't just stand there watching! Fight!
The Gundam fired its beam rifle, shooting down Leviathans, and swatted Chitauri air units out of the sky with its shield like mosquitoes.
When one Leviathan body-slammed it, the Gundam braced with its shield, tossed the rifle aside, drew the ultrasonic vibration knife from its back, and drove it into the Leviathan's head. It was fighting well. Watching that, Tony said,
—Is the Federation's mobile suit a monster!?
I ignored Tony's otaku outburst and instantly teleported to the top of Stark Tower. When I got there, Hulk was holding Loki by the legs and smashing him into the ground.
Thud! Wham! Crash! Thud!
"Ugh!"
One more round—
Thud! Crash! Thud! Whack! Smack!
"Gods are weaklings."
Loki was embedded in the floor, unable to move, only groaning.
"Uuuugh..."
Then Hulk reverted to Banner. I ran over and supported him, asking,
"Dr. Banner, can you transform now?"
"Urgh... Did I change again?"
"What happened?"
"I was trying to close the portal somehow, but Loki flew over and stabbed me with his spear. After that I don't remember..."
"I see."
So it turned out like the original, unintentionally. Just then, Dr. Selvig hurried over to us and said,
"We need Loki's spear to close the portal."
"Understood."
I picked up the spear that had fallen nearby and went to the Tesseract. Dr. Selvig came with me, powered up the computer linked to the Tesseract, and helped stabilize the energy. Once preparations were done, I spoke to the rest of the team.
"I found a way to close the portal! Should I shut it now?"
Cap answered.
—Close it!
Tony suddenly stopped me.
—No, wait!
—Stark, the enemies just keep increasing.
—A nuke is heading your way. It'll detonate in one minute.
Honestly, I didn't get it. Why fire a nuke first? What was the military doing? Was Manhattan that worthless? Maybe they panicked in the face of an unprecedented alien invasion, but it was still absurd.
[Master, the Gundam is under concentrated fire.]
I glanced down and saw countless Chitauri flight units swarming the Gundam, firing beams. The Gundam blocked with its shield, struggling, but it wouldn't last long.
Just then, I saw Iron Man flying in, holding the nuclear missile. This event would give Tony trauma, but there wasn't much I could do. And for Tony's growth, I decided to leave it alone.
Iron Man used the thrusters on his chest to angle the missile upward, grazed Stark Tower, and shot straight up into the portal.
Shortly after, a bright flash appeared in the space connected to the portal — the nuke had detonated.
Immediately, the Leviathans in the sky and the Chitauri air units all dropped to the ground at once. The Chitauri were a race whose bodies were mostly mechanical; when the command mothership was gone, they all shut down.
A moment later, the explosion's force started to push through the portal, and Cap said,
—Jin, close the portal.
At Cap's signal, I stabbed the device sustaining the portal with the spear, shutting it down. Then I pulled the Mind Stone out of the spear and put it in my inventory. With the sustaining energy gone, the portal began to shrink and disappear.
Thankfully, Iron Man came back through the portal to Earth, but he was unresponsive and in free fall. With no Hulk, I jumped from the building, caught Iron Man, used the walls to slow our descent, and landed safely on the street.
The team gathered where Tony and I had landed. Cap looked worried about Tony's condition and hurriedly tore open the faceplate of the Iron Man helmet.
"Tony! Tony!"
No response. Thinking Tony was dead, Cap hung his head with the look of someone who'd lost a comrade. I ignored Cap, went to Tony, and pounded his chest.
Thump! Thump!
"Tony, Pepper's pregnant."
"Gah! What did you say!!??"
Tony gasped awake, horrified.
"It's a joke. That works as a stimulant for people who won't wake up."
"Ah, damn it. You buy the drinks."
Everyone laughed at that. Laughing, Cap sat down, exhausted, and said,
"We won."
Lying on the ground, Tony said,
"Yeah, we won. Good job, guys. Don't come to work tomorrow. There's a shawarma place two blocks from here I've always been curious about. My treat, let's go eat."
Then Thor said with a dark expression,
"There's still unfinished business."
We went up to the top floor of Stark Tower and gathered in front of Loki. Loki still couldn't get up from the damage Hulk dealt him, crawling, grabbing the stairs, and struggling to turn over. Then he said to us,
"The drink you offered — I'll have it now."
I poured a glass and handed it to Loki. As a fan, I could grant him at least that request.
While we were watching Loki, SHIELD agents swarmed in, put special cuffs on his wrists, and took him away. They also took Loki's spear, which no longer had the Mind Stone. One agent asked why the spear was like that, and I said it broke when I closed the portal.
Once things were mostly wrapped up, we moved to the shawarma place as Tony wanted. The shop had taken damage in the incident too — part of the ceiling had collapsed. When the team started ordering, I nudged Natasha.
"What?"
"Order the chicken shawarma."
"Chicken? Why?"
"Chicken's hard to mess up."
"Got it."
Natasha and I ordered chicken. The rest of the team ordered whatever they liked. Sure enough, everything tasted bad and everyone ate in silence. Their faces looked like kids forced to eat the healthy food mom sometimes makes. Luckily, the chicken shawarma was at least decent.
The Gundam had taken so much damage it couldn't move, stuck kneeling on one knee, shut down.
Its shield was half gone, one arm and a third of its face were destroyed too. For now we couldn't move the massive Gundam, so I just removed the critical components and took them.
With the Chitauri army attack, the whole world was in an uproar. Media outlets began interviewing survivors, and stories of the team's heroics spread across every channel. Along with that, my powers were revealed to the entire world.
"Chairman Jin saved me from an alien right before I died. I love you, Jin!"
"Captain saved me. I just wanted to say thank you for saving me."
"Black Widow is so cool."
"I have no regrets now. I saw a real moving Gundam."
The Gundam reaction was especially intense. Even though police and firefighters said it was dangerous, tons of people came to see it.
Before long, countless flowers and candles were placed in front of the Gundam, along with thank-you signs and post-it notes.
Loki and the Tesseract were transferred to Asgard under Thor's supervision without issue, thanks to Nick Fury's influence. Banner went with Tony to Stark Tower, and Cap and Barton returned to the lodging SHIELD assigned. Natasha, of course, came to my house in New York.
With the New York incident, the value of decent companies and real estate plummeted, so I started buying them back. I also donated a fair amount to New York City's recovery fund.
When I tried to move the Gundam back to the island, the mayor of New York contacted me directly and asked if we could leave it in Central Park. I'd already removed the important components, so it was fine.
They moved the Gundam in the same pose to a spot the city prepared in Central Park. The plan was to make a park within a park, erect a monument in front of the Gundam, and permanently record the heroes' deeds and names. And, of course, boost tourism.
The problem was Japan. Japan went crazy over the Gundam too. Some people reportedly cried and fainted after seeing a moving Gundam. Yoshiyuki Tomino, the father of Gundam in the Marvel universe, said, "I'm glad I've lived long enough to see this."
Up to there it was heartwarming, but true to Japan, the insane comments started: "Gundam is ours, so they should bring it here," "Gundam saved America, so America owes Japan," and so on. It even escalated to New York City getting hit with an international lawsuit demanding the Gundam.
Luckily, I mediated. We agreed to give Japan a full-scale model similar to the New York Gundam, plus the broken arm and half of the shield from the real one that saw action.
That settled the incident. Bandai in the Marvel universe agreed never to touch the copyright of the Gundams I make as a hobby again.
And there was one more thing to handle. I went with my bodyguards and secretaries to the Manhattan site where recovery and Chitauri equipment collection were underway. I'd gotten word that Executive Order 396-B was being enacted.
Simply put, it meant alien materials would be managed by the Department of Damage Control, a joint venture between Stark Industries and the government. I owned a lot of Stark Industries stock, so my money was in it too.
The problem was the announcement came too late, so workers who'd already been hired had to stop everything. The government gave some compensation, but it was far less than the contracted amount, so the hit was inevitable.
I had people gather the workers who'd been employed, introduced them to appropriate jobs, and for those skilled in this field, after background checks, I placed them in Damage Control. It had just been formed and was short-staffed, so there was no problem.
Among them were Adrian Toomes and the workers he'd hired.
So he was here.
I didn't need the others — just Toomes and the inventor, the Tinkerer. I planned to make them Avengers. They were sympathetic, livelihood-driven villains, and I honestly thought they'd just had terrible luck.
And Toomes is a loving father who cares for his family. One reason I chose him was that he never revealed Spider-Man's identity to the end.
Spider-Man will grow up fine on his own. He's kind and full of justice. And Stark's there too. Should be no problem.
I had my secretary call Toomes and the Tinkerer separately, put them in a car, and we went to a bar.
"Didn't expect to see you here."
Toomes and the Tinkerer were quite surprised to see me.
"Let's have a drink. This is going to be a long conversation."
"Drinking at this hour... Anyway, got it. I have things to say too."
Then the Tinkerer said,
"I'm a fan. You're my role model. The Gundam was truly moving. It's an honor to meet you."
The Tinkerer, an inventor, showed excessive respect seeing me, the top in the field.
"You make really good things out of that junk. The problem is they're just copies of existing stuff."
The Tinkerer really did whip up electric toothbrushes, razors, shredders, and more from junk. Later he'd make equipment for Vulture and Shocker too, so he was genuinely talented.
We went into a quiet bar, sat down, and ordered drinks. Toomes took a drink and said,
"First, thanks. For introducing other jobs to the workers I hired. My vision went black there."
Toomes had another drink.
"But man... I invested everything I had in this job. Bought trucks, equipment. How can they cancel a contract like that unilaterally? Is that how the rich and the government always do things?"
I took a drink too.
"Hmm... Bad luck. Probably New York City just needed to clear the area and hired workers without thinking it was alien material. Then a government department was formed late and decided to collect it. Honestly, this is New York City's fault. If they'd thought it through a little, they wouldn't have hired people so recklessly."
Hearing me, Toomes sighed, frustrated, and drank again.
"Handling things like that? Damn it!"
"What are you going to do now?"
"Phew... Well, you'd know. You called us here."