“Look at this!” Thor shouted, holding Loki and forcing him to gaze out over the destruction in the city. “You think this madness will end with your rule?”

“It’s too late,” Loki said. Thor thought he was beginning to understand what he had done. “It’s too late to stop it.”

“No,” Thor said. “We can. Together.”

Loki looked him in the eye . . . and then betrayed Thor again, stabbing him in the side with a knife hidden in his sleeve. Thor dropped to the ground, clutching the wound. “Sentiment,” Loki said mockingly.

Enraged, Thor got to his feet and pounded Loki through the window. Then he lifted him up and slammed him to the stone balcony. He was beyond talking now, and Loki knew he was in trouble. He looked to his scepter but it was out of reach, so he rolled to the edge of the balcony and let himself fall.

Thor rushed to the edge and looked down. Loki fell . . . and landed on a passing Chitauri flying machine. Piloting it, he sped away, leaving Thor alone on top of Stark Tower.

On a bridge near Grand Central Station, Cap huddled behind a destroyed car with the Black Widow and Hawkeye. “Lots of civilians trapped up there,” Hawkeye said, indicating the nearby buildings. A flight of Chitauri went over, and Cap noticed something different about one of them.

“Loki,” he said. He was shooting at the civilians fleeing through the streets. “They’re fish in a barrel down there.”

Chitauri foot soldiers dropped onto the bridge and advanced toward them. “We got this. It’s good,” Natasha said to Cap. “Go.”

“You think you can hold them off?” Steve asked.

Hawkeye glanced over his shoulder as he nocked an arrow. “Captain, it would be my genuine pleasure.”

They swung into action. Cap sprinted down the street in pursuit of Loki while Hawkeye and the Black Widow started taking down the Chitauri and freeing trapped civilians. On the street level, Cap dodged explosions. “Just like Budapest all over again,” Natasha said as she shot down a pair of Chitauri trying to get behind them.

“You and I remember Budapest very differently,” Barton said.

Steve got to the police lines. They were firing at the Chitauri and holding their ground, but they were clearly overwhelmed. He heard one of them say it would be an hour before the National Guard could arrive. “Do they know what’s going on here?” a second cop said.

The first cop looked up at the Leviathan. “Do we?”

Steve vaulted over a line of destroyed vehicles and landed on top of a taxi. The police pointed their guns at him, but he ignored that. “You need men in these buildings. There are people inside, and they’re going to be running right into the line of fire. You take them to the basements, or through the subway. You keep them off the streets. I need a perimeter as far back as Thirty-Ninth.”

The sergeant looked at him like he’d just escaped from the loony bin. “Why the hell should I take orders from you?”

Steve didn’t have time to argue about it, because at that moment, the Chitauri attacked. Their flyers swooped low and dropped ground troops close to the police line. Steve blocked a blast with his shield and in the same motion batted away the closest Chitauri. He pivoted and brought the shield up to parry a spear thrust from another Chitauri, knocking it down with a single punch and then grabbing its spear away. He slashed a third Chitauri down the with spear and without breaking stride lunged forward to grapple with a fourth and beat it into submission before throwing it back off the roof of the taxi.

Without another word to Steve, the police sergeant started calling orders into his radio. “I need men in those buildings,” he said, pointing so all his officers could see. “Lead the people down and away from the streets. We’re going to set up a perimeter all the way down Thirty-Ninth Street.”

Steve didn’t stop to gloat. There was a war to win.

He got back together with Hawkeye and the Black Widow. The three of them took Chitauri down as fast as guns, bow, and shield could do it. Even so, they were close to being overwhelmed—until lightning struck out of a clear blue sky, decimating the Chitauri in the area.

Thor dropped down to land in front of them. He looked wounded, tired . . . and as angry as any of them had ever seen a man look.

In that moment, Steve was glad he wasn’t a Chitauri. And he was especially glad he wasn’t Loki. “So what’s the story upstairs?” he asked.

“The power surrounding the cube is impenetrable,” Thor said.

“Thor’s right,” Tony said as he zipped overhead. “You’ve got to deal with these guys.”

“How do we do this?” Natasha asked.

“As a team,” Steve said.

Thor was still watching the Chitauri zipping over-head. “I have unfinished business with Loki.”

“Yeah?” Hawkeye said. “Get in line.”

“Save it,” Steve said. “Loki’s going to keep this fight focused on us, and that’s what we need. Otherwise those things could run wild. We’ve got Stark up on top—”

He broke off as a motorcycle engine approached, idling down. Steve glanced over and saw the welcome sight of Bruce Banner. “So,” Bruce said. “This all seems horrible.”

“I’ve seen worse,” the Black Widow said.

He knew what she meant. “Sorry.”

“No,” she said. “We could use a little worse.”

“Stark,” Steve said into his mic. “We got him.”

“Banner?” Tony said.

Steve nodded. He knew Tony could see it, but he wanted Bruce to. “Just like you said.”

“Then tell him to suit up,” Tony said. “I’m bringing the party to you.”

A moment later, they saw Iron Man swoop around a corner to their north . . . and right behind him, the gargantuan armored Leviathan, shattering the corner building as it made the turn in pursuit. “I . . . I don’t see how that’s a party,” Natasha said.

Iron Man dropped almost down to street level, and the Leviathan followed, smashing cars and streetlights out of the way as it bore down on the group of heroes. “Dr. Banner,” Steve said. “Now might be a really good time for you to get angry.”

Bruce was already walking toward the Leviathan. “That’s my secret, Captain,” he said over his shoulder. “I’m always angry.”

When he turned back to face the Leviathan, his transformation into the Hulk was already beginning. He grew, his clothes shredding away from his body as ordinary Bruce Banner became the eight-foot-tall, two-thousand-pound mass of invincible rage called the Hulk. As the Leviathan ducked its head toward him, the Hulk brought his fist down on the creature’s head with a booming crunch that shook the bridge the Avengers stood on. The Leviathan’s head dug into the road surface, plowing up chunks of concrete. Its momentum shoved the Hulk back, but he stopped himself as the rest of the Leviathan’s body toppled up and over them. It crashed to the street below and lay still.

All over the city, the Chitauri stopped and screeched in sudden shock, as if they had never imagined the great beast could be defeated. The Avengers looked around. All six of them were together as a group for the first time in combat. Maybe the tide was beginning to turn, Steve thought.

Then Natasha, looking up into the sky, said, “Guys?”

They all looked. More Chitauri poured through the portal . . . and more Leviathans. What they had thought was the climactic battle had in fact just been the beginning. 8Oc9BaF3ohMEPZEzCiHqyBqxthgqyUEYScIuLxi+nibm48cPwiPwxbHFX3/TyCyg