Midnight Escapades

Thor feels anger pulse through his veins as he realises that his father pulled them back into the bi-frost, and as they emerge on the other side, he shouts. "Whatever the cost, the Realms must know that the new King of Asgard will not be held in contempt."

Odin gains a look of exhaustion on his face as he realises his son was more focused on the lost glory of battle than his friends, who are all injured. "That's pride and vanity that talk! Not leadership! Have you forgotten everything I've taught you? What of a warrior's patience, their cunning?" He spits back at the boy in the same tone the boy had used.

"While you wait and be patient, the Nine Realms laugh at us! The old ways are done. You'd stand giving speeches while Asgard falls!" He shouts at his father.

"You're a vain, greedy, cruel boy!" Odin shouts at his son, letting his mask of composure slip for a moment before reapplying it.

He freezes for a moment as his son shouts back at him, "And you are an old man and a fool!" The whole world seems to stop at Thor's words. Odin falls quiet. When he speaks again, there's something terrifying beneath the calmness of his words.

"A fool, yes! I was a fool to think you were ready," he said as Loki took a step towards Odin imploringly.

"Thor Odinson... You have disobeyed the express command of your king. Through your arrogance and stupidity, you have opened these peaceful realms and innocent lives to the horrors of war!" The Allfather says this as he plunges Gungnir into the Observatory's control panel. The turret turns, the Bifrost energy building along with Odin's rage. It fires as the Bifrost opens at the end of the platform, creating a portal behind Thor.

Odin turns angrily to his son and says, "You are unworthy of this realm."

He rips a disc off Thor's chest. "Unworthy of your title..."

He rips away Thor's cloak. "Unworthy of the loved ones you've betrayed..."

"I hereby take from you your powers." Odin extends his hand towards his son. Mjolnir goes flying from Thor's grasp and into Odin's hand.

"In the name of my father..." A finger of lightning comes off the hammer and hits Thor, disintegrating the right scales on the arm of his armour and part of the chest piece. "And of his father before..."

Another strike disintegrates the remainder of Thor's armour, including the cape and torn-away disc on the floor. "I cast you out!"

Odin thrusts Mjolnir before him, and with a crack of thunder, Thor is hurled backwards into the open Bifrost and disappears into the vortex. Odin holds Mjolnir in his hand, staring at it bitterly. He closes his eyes and, lost in contemplation for a moment, whispers something quietly. "Whoever holds this hammer, if he is worthy, shall possess the power of Thor. Runes appear on the side of the hammer, as if carved into its smooth surface. The runes linger for a moment, then disappear. Suddenly, Odin turns and hurls the hammer into the Bifrost along with its previous owner.

Thor opens his eyes, surrounded by darkness. Suddenly, he's blinded by the bright headlights of a vehicle. He is confused about what type of beast it could be, but being the son of Odin, he fears no beast and tries to summon Mjolnir as the vehicle swerves, the side of it coming straight at him. It slams into him as the world goes black.

…

I was awoken by one of the alarms I had set up with Jarvis going off. After my head cleared a split second later, I realised it was the one for, 'Your attention is needed urgently, but there is no current danger to the premises.'

I stretched and cracked my back as I got up, and the alarm turned itself off. Thankfully, Pepper was away on a business trip and wasn't woken up by the siren. As I went down to the workshop, I said, "Jarvis, What's going on?"

"Well, sir. There are multiple events occurring concurrently." replied the AI in a tone I swear meant he was tired or something.

I pinched my nose as Dum-E brought me a cup of tea. I thanked the robot as I responded, "Show me."

"Well, firstly, operations off the Chinese coast are wrapping up after the earthquake a month ago, and the fleet is heading back to the States to resupply. They are then being redeployed to the Indian Ocean in preparation for the severe flooding expected in Pakistan, Iran, and India," he said as I interrupted.

"Where's the urgent stuff?" I said.

He sighed before saying, "Very well." A large gamma-ray spike has been noted in Rocinha, Brazil. I at first ignored the spike since I've noticed the area has been emitting increased amounts of radiation for a few months, but earlier the spike increased and then started moving north-west and is now somewhere in Costa Rica."

"Banner, huh." I said as he continued. "Also, several energy spikes of hawking radiation spiked in New Mexico a few moments ago. I suspect it may be the extraterrestrials you warned me about."

Naturally, I had explained to Jarvis everything I had told Pepper. However, I had also told him several events to look out for within quite wide periods of time, since the movies seemed never to let one know exactly when they were.

I sighed before saying, "Suit up." As I walked forward, I saw several pieces of the much sleeker and red-gold-clad MK. V. armour. It had all the features of the MK. II except that it incorporated magnetic servos, which almost quintupled its strength, and when combined with the psychosis and vibranium alloys, made me basically immune to all kinetic, thermal, and mental attacks. Since it didn't have to rely on hydraulics, the suit was naturally much smaller.

I stretched, testing my reflexes in the suit. It had only been a few weeks since Jarvis cleared me for flight, as my injuries had finally finished healing. I had gone in a suit a few times and even fought some bad guys. But this was the first time I was going to be fighting something other than normal humans.

Guilt also came across me, as I knew I would be dooming Pepper to be worried each time I donned this suit of armour, but I also couldn't just sit back and fight with puppets. I had to do this personally.

Ah, who was I kidding? I just wanted to fight.

As I stepped into the makeshift launch pad I had built, the front of my suit clamped down, and I took off. I free fell off the cliff, and a few metres above the water, I reactivated my thrusters and strained as the suit fought against gravity, and my body felt the weight of the world literally crashing against it.

The two thrusters around my feet began to fuse together as parts slid to and through, until they formed a massive booster. Jarvis took control of the suit since, essentially, this form turned me into a missile as each of the servos locked into the most aerodynamic position.

As Jarvis turned up the thrust, it felt like I was no longer lying front first in the suit but standing, as the acceleration I was experiencing was about the equivalent of 2Gs. I almost instantly broke the sound barrier, and a split second after that, I was already well above Mach 2, and it continued to climb.

Jarvis throttled the output once we reached around Mach 5 at sea level, since the air around us was beginning to turn into plasma. "Ready," I said, a grin appearing on my face.

"Yes, Sir. Commencing Ballistic Trajectory Calculations..." A few seconds after he spoke, the suit began to climb as the thrust went higher. It took only a few minutes for us to travel over four thousand miles as the suit began to slow down and we began to descend. I must say it was almost mesmerising watching the bands of plasma ripple around the bubble of pure energy that had formed around us.

"Normal flight controls, activating..." said the AI as I regained control of the suit and began to close in on the giant green figure, taking enormous leaps and causing several cracks as it landed.

I watched from a few dozen miles away as the creature continued to cover about half a mile with each leap. From what I could see, Hulk was breathing pretty heavily. It seems he's getting tired, I thought to myself, which was confirmed by the most recent gamma-ray reading, which stated that the levels of radiation had dropped precipitously.

I wasn't dumb. It wasn't like I didn't want to go a few rounds with the guy, but right now I needed to make my way over to New Mexico, but I wanted to make sure the big guy didn't accidentally smoosh anyone before he passed out around Guatemala, or something of my memory serves.

The Hulk continued to jump, crossing over into Nicaragua and then Honduras, before finally passing out inside a cave located somewhere in the middle of the Guatemalan jungle.

I landed with a thump as I stared at the now naked and gaunt-looking Bruce banner. I turned him over and looked straight into a face that heavily resembled Mark Ruffalo. While I liked Edward Norton's performance, in my mind, Bruce Banner and Mark Ruffalo would always be the same.

I began to spray a shit tonne of sleeping gas straight into his lungs, and I was pretty sure he was going to have the worst possible hangover when he woke up, but it was better than him transforming mid-flight.

…

Bruce woke up with the worst headache he had ever experienced. He had gotten some really bad ones after transforming, but this was categorically the worst one yet. In fact, it hurt so much that he failed to notice he was now on a bed.

He continued to press his fingers into his skull in the vain hope that they would phase through and stop the pain. After it eventually subsided, he finally looked around at his surroundings and froze. He was still in his shredded shorts, but he was now in a warm bed.

He surveyed his surroundings while looking around at the classic motel room and froze when he saw the note on the dresser. Along with a blue Walmart bag. He staggered up while holding up his pants with one hand and picked up the note, which read,

[You owe me a favour, Ironman.]

[P.S. The car is a blue Buich outside.]

He paused, seeing the name of the famous superhero that he had seen on the Brazilian news networks. He shook his head, realising he was hungry, and opened the blue Walmart bag to see several items. Namely, a heart monitor, a pair of stretchy pants and a t-shirt, a set of car keys and an envelope containing a fake driver's licence with his name on it, a rental agreement, and a thick wad of cash.

He shook his head as he put on the clothes and walked out of the motel. As he passed the key to the receptionist, she said, "Rough night, huh?"

"Uh, yeah," he said absentmindedly, still trying to figure out how he got back to the US, before he turned to the older woman and asked, "Where exactly is this?"

His question simply caused the woman to burst out laughing and say, "Son, you're in Santa Fe, and if you don't know why, then you need to get some help."

"I will." Bruce said, "How much do I owe you for the room?"

"Oh, nothing; your friend covered it last night," she replied.

He paused and said, "My friend?"

"Yeah. Burly fella. Mexican. Uh, no older than twenty." He said he found you drunk and paid for a room before leaving.

"Oh. Well, have a nice day, maam," he said as he turned to leave.

(Read A few Chapters Ahead on My Patreon: patreon.com/AvonAce)