Tony braked and skidded to a halt as the Asgardian rolled away from him, tearing up trees and brush as he went. He got to his feet and extended a warning hand. “Do not touch me again,” he said.

Tony flipped up his faceplate. “Then don’t take my stuff.”

“You have no idea what you’re dealing with.”

“Uh, Shakespeare in the Park?” Tony joked. “Doth mother know you weareth her drapes?”

“This is beyond you, metal man,” Thor said. “Loki will face Asgardian justice.”

“If he gives up the cube, he’s all yours. Until then . . . ” Tony’s faceplate clamped back down. “Stay out of the way.”

He turned to walk back to a place where he could make a clean takeoff. “Tourist,” he muttered.

That was the last straw, apparently, because the next thing Tony knew, the Asgardian’s hammer had hit him about as hard as he’d ever been hit in his life. The force of the blow carried him through the trunk of a tree and laid him out flat in the dirt.

“Okay,” he said. It was on.

He got up and hit the Asgardian with a repulsor blast, but that didn’t keep him down for long. The Asgardian got up, raised his hammer high, and brought down a bolt of lightning, channeling it straight into Tony’s suit. Inside the helmet, every heads-up display went nuts. Systems shorted out, and Tony was having a hard time moving. “Power at . . . four hundred percent capacity,” Jarvis said calmly.

“How about that?” Tony said. He took advantage of the overcharge and unleashed another repulsor blast that drained the excess power and blew the Asgardian farther away into the forest. The Asgardian came back at him, flying through the air, and Tony flew to meet him. They swerved through the air, pounding on each other and shattering trees and rocks as they hit them. When they came back to ground, they kept grappling, exchanging punches that dented Tony’s armor and caused cascading alerts through all of his systems. The Asgardian caught both of Tony’s forearms. His grip was strong enough to start to crumple Tony’s armor. Tony got free by firing a repulsor blast into his face, but they closed on each other again and the Asgardian nearly crushed Tony flat with a hammer blow. He jetted out of the way at the last moment and circled around for another go.

As Tony reared back for a punch and the Asgardian prepared to answer with his hammer, Captain America’s shield sang out of the darkness, deflecting hard off the Asgardian’s hammer and Tony’s gauntlet before returning with perfect accuracy to Cap’s waiting hand. They both looked up to see him standing on a nearby outcropping of rock.

“Hey!” he said, like a father showing up to break up a fight between two of his sons. “That’s enough!”

He dropped down to the ground next to them. “Now I don’t know what you plan on doing here—”

“I have come here to put an end to Loki’s schemes,” Thor said.

“Then prove it,” Cap said. “Put that hammer down.”

“Uh, no, bad call,” Iron Man said. “He loves his hammer—”

The Asgardian interrupted Tony by smashing him out of the way with a backhand swing. “You want me to put the hammer down?” he roared, and leaped high into the air, bringing his hammer down toward Captain America.

Cap got low and got his shield up.

The impact of the hammer on the unbreakable shield sent out a shock wave that smashed every tree within a hundred yards to kindling. The Asgardian rebounded from the force of the blow, sprawling on his back. For a moment, there was silence, broken only by their heavy breathing and the sound of tree branches crashing down to earth.

Then Captain America said, “Are we done here?”

Tony powered down. As much as he hated to admit it, Cap was right. They were fighting over nothing, wasting time while their enemies got closer to using the Tesseract. Thor leaped back up the side of the mountain and picked up Loki. Tony and Cap waited while Natasha brought the Quinjet around. At least all the blown-down trees gave her an easy location to aim for. cV99cPnJ0mj8O6nGKB6s2UKm6kFbIRXGi9R0NJ5n0vmUcPxWVM+SsTV6ytULoSp+