Stalling for Time

"Loki has departed! We can stop pretending!"

T'Challa, Annie, and the others had followed Loki as he escaped. They immediately reported to the others when Loki left the helicarrier!

"Alright, the plan is a success! Thor, calm Hulk down! Keep him from actually tearing the helicarrier down! Otherwise that bald egg would really beat me down!"

Tony smiled triumphantly when he heard that Loki had left. It was eerily similar to Loki's own smile!

…

Everything settled down rather quickly, although the helicarrier was utterly devastated! SHIELD's crew was occupied with the repair, as they suffered heavy loss!

"Stark, how are we supposed to know where Loki is now?" The Captain asked Tony curiously.

"Don't worry Cap, I've left tracking device on Loki. We just need to follow him!"

Tony smiled confidently, as if he had planned everything!

"Alright then!"

Nobody raised any objection to Tony's plan. The Justice League members gathered on Tony's flying device, which immediately flew to follow Loki's signal!

...

"Sir, we have reports that Stark and the others had left the helicarrier! He brought the Captain and Thor with him. What should we do?"

"Where are they going?"

Nick Fury furrowed his eyebrows when he heard Hill's report! He already suspected that Stark had a hand in this incident! But he had all his hands tied. Even Captain America seemed to follow Tony!

"Tell Natasha to take one of the Quinjet and follow them as soon as Barton wakes up. We need to get on top of whatever they're going to do!"

Nick Fury finally gave his order after a few seconds of silence. At this time, his deck consisted of only Natasha and Barton!

Fortunately, Natasha did knock Barton out of Loki's control just like in the original plot! Otherwise, Natasha would be the only one left under Nick Fury's command!

"Also, tell the repair crew to finish repairing the helicarrier as soon as possible! We need the bare minimum of combat ability! And bring out the Pegasus Program weapons!

"War might be coming!"

Nick Fury stood at the helicarrier command station, looking at the sky outside the bridge. He seemed to have steeled his will as he commanded Hill!

"But, Sir..."

Hill began to protest, but paused in hesitation!

"I will hear no objection. You have your order! We cannot leave the safety of the world to civilian vigilantes, those so-called Justice League that claim to protect us!"

Nick Fury put an end to Hill's protest in a low voice!

Nick Fury was rather desperate. Had those people been under his Avengers initiative, he would've been able to trust them!

But they weren't under his control, or any government or organization control for that matter! Nick Fury need some serious insurance to guarantee that they would not catastrophically fail!

"Yes, sir!"

Hill helplessly replied to Nick Fury's firm conviction!

Everything flowed neatly under Nick Fury's command!

A Quinjet departed the helicarrier a few minutes later, rushing towards the direction of Tony's flying device!

...

"Stark, Loki had stopped for some reason, right in the middle of New York City! What is he doing there?"

Tony and the other had been following Loki's tracker when Banner suddenly spoke to Tony, his eyes still on the glowing red dot on the map!

"Fuck, Loki's going to Stark Building! He must've wanted to use my Arc Reactor to ignite the Tesseract!"

Tony noticed that Loki had stopped on the Stark Building, the one he just finished not long ago! He immediately understood Loki's intent!

"Ugh, this aircraft is too slow. I should go on ahead—it's one thing if he wanted to use my reactor, but I can't afford him destroying my building!"

Tony was anxious, worried that the building he just finished would be destroyed by Loki!

"I'm going to lead the way. You can follow behind me!"

Tony activated his nanoarmor and jumped off the aircraft, before racing towards the Stark building!

"Let's hurry up and follow him—I don't want any accident!"

...

Tony flew at top speed: nothing worries him more than the safety of his building! He even broke his own records!

The New York City skylines slowly rose from the horizon, just a few minutes later. His prized landmark, the Stark Tower, was also visible!

"Well, thankfully, it hasn't been destroyed!"

Tony sighed in relief when he saw the Stark Building still standing. It seemed that Loki didn't want to destroy the building outright! He must've needed it to summon his alien army!

Tony quickly flew towards his building. He then noticed Loki, instructing an old man to operate a device several meters tall atop the tower!

The old man was Dr. Selvig, who was controlled by Loki. He was going through the process to connect the device to the building's reactor: as expected, he wanted to use the reactor to power the device!

"Hey, reindeer! The zoo is that way, are you lost?"

Having approached the building, Tony kept his distance and sneered at Loki!

"Humans...why do you always rush towards your fate?"

Loki's face immediately changed when he noticed the armored Tony. He cried out in disbelief.

He had thought that the chaos in the helicarrier would buy enough time for him to open the wormhole. As long as the Chitauri army is here, none of those people would be able to do anything!

He didn't expect that Tony would follow him this soon, before his device was even ready!

He recalled that this earthling possessed great combat prowess. Even him wouldn't be able to beat this human easily! If they fought and destroyed his device in the process, his plan would be all for naught!

This is outside of Loki's calculation. His face darkened. He channeled his divine power through the Mind Scepter and shot a beam at Tony!

He have to personally stall this earthling, so that his device could activate!

...

"Hey, hey, calm down! Is 'reindeer' really that embarrassing for you? Well, it's not like I haven't been itching to kick your ass myself!"

Tony dodged the beam by turning sideways. His voice was still calm as he charged at Loki!

Bang!

The impact from Tony's armor sent Loki flying. Loki fell from the platform where the device and Dr. Selvig were. Tony ignored the device and Dr. Selvig, opting to pursue Loki!

"Hah, he fell for it! As expected from a stupid earthling!"

Loki wasn't exactly in the position to gloat, but he was elated that Tony ignored the device. He only had to hold for a minute, before his army would erase this earthling from the planet!

Loki kept running and dodging, avoiding direct confrontation. He would shoot beams from the Mind Scepter from time to time, just enough to keep Tony's attention at him!

Like a cat chasing a mouse, Tony also fired beams from his gauntlet at Loki!

He even engaged Loki in close combat!

The intense noise from their battle reverberated across the city for quite a while, wrecking the top floor of the Stark Building!

The energy beams that they both fired left deep craters on the walls and even on surrounding buildings, concrete burning with black smoke!

Minutes quickly passed, and Dr. Selvig finally finished activating the device. Blue light pierced the skies of New York City from the device!

...