Chapter 31 - Battle of New York XV

'Stark, can you hear me?' Fury yelled into the coms 'You have a missile heading straight for the city…'

"How long?" Tony replied anxiously, blasting a Chitauri Elite on his right, then twirling in the air as a Chitauri Soldier attacked him from the left…

Everything was chaos…

It was a luxury that Tony's coms were even working considering the damage his suit had sustained, but such was the magic of Jervis…

The AI had diverted resources to the matter without instruction…

'Three minutes max…' Fury replied, a bit of anxiousness in his usually calm voice 'The payload will wipe out everything…'

"Jervis… put everything we have into thrusters…" Tony commanded, and his trusty AI made the change in an instant…

Power was diverted from all non-essential systems and even some essential systems…

Before the waiting Chitauri Elites could have their pound of metal, The Iron Man suit sparked with Arc Reactor energy, and Tony's thrusters roared with renewed vigor…

Within the blink of an eye, Tony was speeding across the air, twice as fast as any jet…

"Plot an intercept course…" Tony commanded his AI, but with most of the energy diverted to sustaining the thrusters, there was little calculation capacity remaining inside the suit…

But Tony wouldn't be a hero if he could not function without the suit…

And some would be surprised to learn that within the suit was an even greater man…

"Pull up the data and I'll do the math…" Tony ordered, seeing his suit was on the frits…

The moment the data was presented in his visor, Tony's brain jumped into high gear, accounting friction, wind speed, velocity, and extrapolating this data to find an intercept point…

Tony found the conclusion in a couple of seconds – there was no way he could intercept the jet before the missile was launched so…

His only choice was to intercept the missile, itself…

Any genius would know that a man holding a missile could only end one way…

Yet, without any hesitation, Tony followed the flight path that would guarantee interception with the missile…

Any wise man would choose to run away, escape the blast radius and live to fight another day after Manhattan was destroyed…

However, even with all his brilliance, Tony decided to be foolish on this day…

------------------

Mirio stood in front of the energy bubble shielding the tesseract…

The weight of his mission finally dawned on Mirio…

The Cube that sustained the portal in the skies above was right in front of him, yet so far away…

Never once in his life had Mirio felt so close to something that was so unattainable…

Even as he stood there with the solution to all the world's problems in front of him, Mirio could feel the crushing presence of something otherworldly weighing down on his shoulders…

It was the same feeling he got whenever he looked up at All-Might…

The tingle in his spine warned Mirio that what he was about to attempt was impossible, but to be a hero, one had to learn to go beyond his limits…

"Hew… Hah… Hew…" Mirio took a couple of deep breaths to adjust the state of his mind, and then he was ready…

As ready as he would ever be…

Natasha had asked him to wait until she returned, but there was no way he could when more civilians were dying by the second…

Slowly…

Very slowly…

Mirio placed his index finger against the energy bubble and pushed…

There was a lot of resistance…

As his strength gradually increased, Mirio activated his quirk to its utmost capabilities, limiting his permeation to only his hand…

"AAARARGHHHH!" Mirio roared as he pushed his finger forward with all his might, going beyond just Superhuman strength, accessing his superhuman will as well…

Pushing and pushing…

Mirio pushed relentlessly…

Push…

The blue energy of the shielding fought against all foreign invasion, burning Mirio's hand like a flame on the driest wood possible…

Mirio could feel the blue energy eating away at his hand, but even so, there was no way he could give up…

Not when so many people were depending on him…

Not when The Avengers were depending on him…

Mirio could tell that Natasha had never really left to head downstairs…

She remained on the stairs, out of sight to give him the choice – do it or don't do it, nobody would blame you…

Mirio knew that somewhere deep inside, Natasha was hoping that he wouldn't do it, but saving a million was the purpose of Lemillion…

It just so happens that he would be able to achieve that number all at once today…

"You didn't have to do it…" Natasha appeared behind Mirio without making a single noise, not that he would have noticed anyway, given all his pained shouts…

By now, Mirio was using the entirety of his arms to fight against the resistance of the energy shielding…

"This needs to be done…" Mirio responded through gritted teeth, orifices bleeding "Besides, you made it my choice when you left…"

"Was I that easy to read?" Natasha smiled sadly, leaning on the ledge like it was a normal Monday "I knew you would do it, but some part of me hoped you wouldn't…"

"GRRR!"

The only thing that could be heard next was Mirio's pained shouts…

Until… finally…

---POP---

A loud noise of penetration told Mirio and Natasha that his permeation quirk had indeed worked, his hand was now inside the barrier, capable of disrupting the portal above…

But that also meant Mirio's body existed in a similar state to the Infinity Stone inside the Tesseract…

An intense pain ripped through Mirio's body, but after getting a feel for the energy barrier, he was certain that he could do it – he could disrupt the portal…

As a matter of fact, the portal was already disrupted the moment Mirio's hand penetrated the energy barrier, and he could feel the energy building for a powerful backlash…

Even without the brilliance of Tony Stark, Mirio knew that the moment his hand was removed from the energy barrier, the stored energy would explode outward, vaporizing everything nearby…

"I can do it…" Mirio yelled to a surprised Natasha "I can close it… just tell Cap to give the command…"

Natasha was happy the portal could be closed, but she could also see the faint flicker of blue energy coursing just below Mirio's skin…

Without anywhere for the energy to exit, it had begun to enter his body…

Natasha took a single step backward, about to follow her training to get clear of the blast radius, but she suddenly stopped…

Even though every fiber of her being was telling her to get clear, there was no way she could leave a kid to die doing an adult's job…

Especially when this Universe wasn't even his…

"It's okay…" Mirio grunted, reading Natasha's expression "You can leave… survive and save more people… the blowback isn't that strong, so you can escape…"

"I would never leave a kid to sacrifice his life without being able to do the same… we either get out of here together or not at all…" Natasha made her intention clear, then relayed the information into her coms "The kids believes he can close the portal…"

'We can see that…' Steve's reply came over the coms as he watched the portal above New York City flicker for an instant…

It was definitely unstable…

The moment Mirio pierced through the energy barrier, the portal had already begun to destabilize…

The only thing keeping the portal open was Mirio's body, acting as a conduit…

Now, all Mirio had to do was remove his hands…

But even without that, the portal was a few minutes away from a total collapse…

"Arghh!" Mirio yelled as a new jolt of brutally ran amok inside his body "I am losing it… it's collapsing already…"

'Close it!' Steve ordered, but just as Mirio was about to withdraw his hands, releasing the energy of the tesseract directly upon himself and Natasha, Tony intervened…

'Wait!' Tony yelled into the coms 'A nuke is coming that will blow in less than a minute… and I know where to put it…'

Tony didn't even need to elaborate for everyone to know that he planned to put the missile inside the portal…

"Thor!" Mirio yelled, hoping the Asgardian would hear him through Natasha's coms "Take her away…"

While Mirio knew the names of every Avenger in the battle, it was only because he was an observant person…

He hardly knew any of them enough to be on a first-name basis, but this was WAR…

It had a way of bringing people closer…

Luckily, Thor was already on his way to Stark Tower on Steve's orders…

There was no need for Mirio to yell because Steve would not allow two Avengers to be lost on the same day…

Thor's landing on the Stark Tower cracked the ground, and without any pause, The God of Thunder snatched Natasha into his arms, spun his hammer, and soared across the skies once more…

All before Natasha could even react…

Within a couple of seconds, Thor landed next to Steve, placing a shocked Natasha on the ground…

Natasha's heart shattered a bit more at that moment…

-----------------------

Mirio felt the energy of the tesseract running amok inside his body as the portal slowly began to destabilize…

He clung to the energy of the portal…

It was as if he was holding two ends of a broken rope…

Mirio's arms were being pulled from both sides, and soon, everything would fall apart, ripping his arms away from his body…

Just a couple of seconds ago, Mirio's main concern was closing the portal, but now, he was forced to keep it open until Tony flew the missile inside…

Everyone knew it was a one-way trip, but no one dared to say it…

Losing one Avenger was a lot…

Losing two Avengers was unthinkable…

"ARGH!" Mirio screamed in pain as the energy of the tesseract separated more and more, forcing him to tether the two ends of the energy strands to his body…

His permeation quirk went into overdrive…

The only way Mirio was able to hold onto the tesseract energy was because the energy existed in a similar state of intangibility as his quirk…

However, just as the energy was about to slip through his fingers, Mirio felt more strength surge from somewhere deep inside…

"PPPPLLLLUSSSSS UUUULLLLTTTRRRRAAAA!" He yelled to the high Heavens, his voice echoing across the high-rises of New York City…

Mirio could feel energy connecting inside his body…

In his mind, he could witness lights connecting from one to the other, like power being passed down from one generation to the next…

WHITE…

SKY BLUE…

RED…

GREEN…

ORANGE…

PURPLE…

BRIGHT YELLOW…

And then a myriad of colors combined…

Mirio's mind blanked as he was absorbed into his quirk for the first time in his life – a quirk that didn't originally belong to him…

Finally, Mirio would be able to see the changes caused to his quirk by Eri's fast-forwarding…

And it was more amazing than he could ever imagine…