20demayo Chapter 321: Shawarma
Chapter 321: Shawarma
In New York, the Avengers had regrouped in the centre of the debris-filled avenue. They were bruised, exhausted, and thoroughly confused."Okay," Tony said, flipping his faceplate up to reveal a sweat-streaked face. "Did anyone catch what just happened? Because one minute we are fighting an endless alien swarm, and the next, they all collectively decided to take a permanent nap."
"The Chitauri share a hive connection with their command vessel," Thor said, resting Mjolnir on his shoulder. "When the mothership falls, every soldier linked to it perishes in the same breath. It is like cutting the root of a great tree."
"So who cut the root?" Steve asked. "We didn’t send anyone to orbit."
"Fury’s contact," Natasha said. She had been listening on the comms. "The woman who provided the attack coordinates."
"Carol Danvers," Tony confirmed. "Or Captain Marvel. Arthur always said she could take apart an army by herself. I assumed he was exaggerating." He looked at the empty sky. "Apparently not."
Steve frowned. "One person took out an entire fleet? In space?"
"I could do the same," Thor said simply. "But yes. This woman must be formidable."
"Great. That’s great. But more importantly, has anyone seen Loki?" Tony looked around the ruined avenue. "He didn’t show up during the battle. He didn’t command his forces. He didn’t do the whole ’kneel before me’ speech. That’s not like him."
"Something is wrong," Thor agreed, his expression darkening. "My brother would never miss his own conquest. He lives for spectacle."
The question hung in the air. Nobody had an answer.
Then, suddenly, the wreckage around them began to move.
Every single piece of Chitauri technology, every alien corpse, and every massive Leviathan carcass began to disintegrate. They crumbled into fine, golden ash, blowing away harmlessly in the evening wind.
At the same time, several small, precise portals opened near perfectly intact alien rifles and glowing energy cores. The dark openings quietly swallowed up specific high-tech samples before snapping shut without a trace.
The Avengers raised their weapons, immediately going on high alert.
"Fury," Steve said into the comm. "Are we looking at a secondary attack?"
"Unknown," came Fury’s reply, clipped and careful. "But if someone wanted to hit us, they wouldn’t start by tidying up."
Then, the portals changed.
Larger, wider openings appeared simultaneously across the city. Brighter. Warmer. And from them came people.
Not soldiers or new threats. Civilians. People who had been trapped under collapsed rubble, who had not evacuated in time, whose hiding places had failed them. They were covered in dust, coughing, disoriented, and in rough shape. But they were alive.
Steve lowered his shield.
"Avengers, stand down!" Steve ordered loudly. "Tony, scan for critical injuries. Natasha, help me coordinate triage. Let us get these people to the medical tents right now!"
As the team rushed to help the bewildered civilians, the same unspoken question passed between them: who possessed the power to clear a city of alien debris and rescue hundreds of trapped survivors simultaneously?
Tony helped a limping woman safely to the sidewalk. He looked up at the clean skyline where Leviathan carcasses had been hanging from buildings five minutes ago.
"Arthur’s back," he muttered.
"No way," Steve argued, shaking his head. "I know he is a powerful wizard, Stark. But this is too much. Clearing an entire city and finding every trapped survivor in seconds? That’s not a wizard. That’s—"
"Godlike?" Tony offered. "Yeah. But it’s him. Trust me, Cap. He always finds a way to make the impossible look casual. It’s his brand."
Steve opened his mouth to argue. Closed it. He simply did not have a counter-argument.
Tony clapped the Captain hard on the shoulder. "We will find out soon enough. In the meantime, who wants shawarma?"
—
Across the Atlantic, the exact same miracle was happening.
The dead Chitauri soldiers and shattered metal chariots scattered across London began to dissolve silently into golden ash. Small dark portals opened like hungry mouths, swallowing intact alien weaponry before vanishing completely.
The wizards raised their wands instantly, forming a tight defensive circle.
Then the bright portals opened. Trapped Londoners were deposited gently onto the bridge, coughing and disoriented, but completely safe from the crumbling buildings they had been buried under.
"Healers!" Sirius bellowed, waving his arms. "Get the bloody healers over here! Aurors, secure the perimeter and start checking these people!"
Harry lowered his staff. A wide, knowing smile broke across his tired face. He could feel the magical signature woven through the rescue portals. He would recognise it anywhere.
"Arthur," Harry said quietly.
Draco turned. "Hayes?" He looked at the dissolving wreckage and the rescued civilians appearing across the city. "Hayes did this? All of this? How?"
Harry shook his head. "I have no idea how. But this is definitely him."
Draco stared at the clean streets where alien bodies had been lying a minute ago. His expression was doing something complicated, caught between professional admiration and personal affront that someone could be this far beyond him. "Is he really this powerful?"
Harry looked at the golden dust still rising from where a Leviathan carcass had been. "Yes, Draco. He is."
"Always liked the bloody drama, that one," Sirius said. "Does the grand, mysterious cleanup. Makes everyone guess who was responsible. And then patiently waits to show off."
Harry almost smiled. That was Arthur Hayes down to the bone.
—
Tony’s original plan was shawarma. There was a specific, hole-in-the-wall joint in midtown he had been eyeing since before the battle had even started. But he had foolishly overlooked one critical detail: the entire city had been evacuated. Every single shop, restaurant, and food cart in Manhattan was shuttered.
So, no shawarma today.
In the end, Tony moved the gathering to the sprawling grounds of his upstate New York manor.
Tony had quickly salvaged the bar, patched together the projection system, and ordered JARVIS to acquire every piece of food still available in post-invasion New York.
The Avengers sprawled across the outdoor furniture, bruised and tired and riding the strange high that follows surviving something that should have killed you.
Tony was on the low couch arguing with Thor about combat effectiveness. Steve sat in an armchair holding an ice pack to his ribs. Banner was asleep on a recliner, snoring faintly. Natasha was perched on the bar with a glass of something strong. Barton sat beside her, quiet, dark circles under his eyes, but present.
Nick Fury stood by the glass railing, watching the ocean. He had decided to attend because Carol had updated him on what happened in orbit, and he knew Arthur would show up eventually. Coulson and Hill were at a corner table, writing after-action reports, because some people cannot stop working even after saving the world.
The massive projection wall flickered to life. JARVIS had collected the high-definition footage from London and was now playing it for the team.
Chitauri descending from the sky. Broomstick riders rising to meet them in tight formations. Wizards casting spells that blew alien chariots apart.
Every conversation on the patio instantly stopped.
They watched the aerial dogfight. Wizards on brooms, diving and banking through formations of alien chariots, casting at speed. They watched ground forces in robes holding intersections with barriers and coordinated volleys. They watched a grey-haired witch take a blast to the shoulder, get healed in three seconds, and destroy the chariot that shot her.
"I have seen Elena and Tristan on those broomsticks," Tony said, leaning forward. "But this is something else. How are they pulling those turns? The G-forces alone should be turning them into paste. It makes no sense."
"It doesn’t," Barton agreed quietly.
On screen, Harry Potter destroyed a Leviathan with a single bolt of staff lightning. The creature’s head exploded. Three hundred wizards roared.
Tony sat up. "He one-shot it. One shot. I needed missiles, a Hulk, and divine intervention. This guy pointed a stick at it and it exploded."
"It is a mage’s staff," Thor corrected. "And that was fine lightning. Very fine. He has clearly trained hard to produce a bolt of that calibre."
"Better than yours?" Tony pressed, grinning.
Thor considered this with the careful gravity of a man being asked to evaluate a rival’s craftsmanship. "It is different."
"That’s a yes."
"That is a ’different,’ Stark. I am the God of Thunder. My lightning is the storm itself. His is channeled through an instrument. They are not the same art."
"Different means better and you can’t bring yourself to say it."
"It means different." Thor’s tone carried the unmistakable finality of a god who had decided the conversation was over.
Tony turned to the room. "This footage is great, but you know what would be better? If the people who fought in London were here. I want to meet the wizard who one-shot the space whale. I want to buy him a drink and then convince him to help me with a few things."
"And how exactly are you planning to bring them here?" Steve asked.
"We could ask Winky," Natasha suggested.
"No need for that," said a very familiar, infuriatingly calm voice from directly behind the couch. "I can bring them."