#valenix

- There’s a war meeting where Justin Hammer is suspiciously calm and cocky. 

- The ‘weapon’ Hydra has been hiding is a portal. When it opens and the Chitauri flow through, Tony goes to Bucky and takes the majority of his magic, and then flies to the battlefield to take out the hive mind. 

- Steve misinterprets Iron Man’s actions and assumes he’s part of Hydra, and stabs Tony in the chest. Tony drops the armour, then destroys the hive mind by using his arc reactor equivalent as a bomb. 

- There are flashbacks revealing that Obie tricked Tony into setting off the Jericho in a city of innocent people, resulting in the huge amount of magic Tony has had this whole time. 

- Steve makes it to Tony’s side in time for Tony to die. 

... I’m sorry. But remember, the Temporary Character Death tag is there for a reason ;)

Later, Thor would mournfully explain that his brother had a wealth of skills at his disposal, primary among them being an unusually skilled control of the magic he had. It wasn’t that he was more powerful than others, per se, but rather that he was far more sly and knowledgeable, which made him a formidable opponent.

Steve shook his head, momentarily dazed, but the man was already on his feet and running, not for the gate but for the other side of the castle courtyard, where a trellis of roses led to the top of the castle wall. Arrows followed him, but something about the man seemed to flicker each time - as though the man was capable of dodging incredibly fast, almost like he wasn’t there at all. With an oddly graceful leap and a startlingly fast climb, the man had reached the top of the trellis. 

He saluted them as he threw himself over the wall, disappearing from view. Steve was running before he really knew what he was doing, relying on his instincts and superior speed to get him where he needed to go. He was up and over the wall in the blink of an eye, a part of him - however small - relishing the feeling of actually doing something, instead of sitting around in the palace as a king behind the scenes. He landed on the street two stories below; he caught a flicker of black hair disappearing around a corner and he was off, crashing his way into the street and sprinting after his prey. 

The man seemingly leapt across a major thoroughfare, slipping through a small crowd of talking cityfolk standing in the middle of the road to dart down a smaller street on the other side. Steve followed, determined not to lose sight, but he wasn’t as slim as his target; he had to yell ahead to make people move, had to dodge around those who didn’t, if not resorting to pushing them aside. The next street was smaller, only a handful of boys kicking a makeshift ball back and forth to point him in the direction the man had gone. 

It was an alleyway, narrow and dark, between two taller buildings. He skidded to a stop in the entrance.

The alleyway was empty.

He jogged down its length, already knowing what he didn’t want to believe; there were no hidden doorways, no cracks, and no low windows through which the man could climb. He glanced up, but nobody ran across the rooftops; the walls were smooth and far too high to jump to.

A crow sat in a gutter, watching him with one beady eye. It cawed.

It sounded like a laugh.

Steve panted for a moment, not so much out of breath as trying to calm himself down, but the rage simmered to a boiling point of frustration. He turned and slammed a fist into the wall. When that didn’t help, he tore the shield from his back and threw that too, half hoping that it would ricochet the way Tony had intended it to do.

It didn’t. It crashed and skidded across the cobblestones, then came to rest in a puddle, gently rocking back and forth.

He stared at it, panting. He should go home; find out what the spy had been doing, what information he’d managed to get, if Clint was okay.

“Is this a bad time?”

Steve was highly strung enough that he immediately turned and put a fist through the face that had appeared behind him, only registering that the face was pale and kind of resembled the face of his target. The only thing that gave him pause was the way his fist disappeared into the man’s jaw and came out the other side without ever, apparently, meeting any physical barrier.

The other man just looked mildly surprised.