Chapter Text
Soft golden light pours from a twirling circle of stardust. Snow drifts through the air, edges glinting in the otherworldly twist of colors. They stand on a cliff of ice and centuries, frozen together in time, just waiting to be uncovered.
There’s so much left within the stronghold to be found. Technoblade and Phil stand hovering above a portal to the skies, hand in hand, and they wonder. What have they found, and how much deeper must they go? What awaits them once they’ve taken their plunge, found their way up to the stars and further?
They’ve made it this far. They’ve made it past worlds against them and past the very gates of hell and they’re still standing, hand in hand before the stars.
“The world,” murmurs Technoblade, turning to look at Phil, nodding with the weight of both of their lives within his expression.
“The world,” replies Phil, a pride-filled grin stretched across his teeth. He squeezes Techno’s hand encouragingly, his palms warm and steady, the two of them held together as if their souls sit upon their wrists, fluttering just behind their individual pulses, beating as one.
In the end, neither will remember who took the first step. Perhaps it was in tandem, as they reached the lip of the portal, boots steady on the thin eye-coated rim beneath them. Perhaps one took initiative and the other followed, their hesitation eliminated as their choice became clear.
The rulers of the Antarctic Empire disappear in a flash of blue light.
—-
It starts with a little blip on a computer. As it always does, it starts with a soft red light and an emergent beeping, calling for attention. And then, as small red lights and alerts on computer screens always do, it spirals.
It’s been a long time since any sort of energy from the tesseract bothered New York. Or — to that matter — just about anywhere on earth. There’ve been blips of cosmic energy from people like Strange or even Maximoff when things get real complicated. None of it is ever enough to show up on SHIELD’s hyper-specific radar, though.
So when Fury walks up to a random, unlabeled red light one day and finds that an energy signature larger than what had come from Loki has suddenly popped up in the middle of New York, he knows his day is going to be longer than usual.
There’s no intel. No news, no deep-web forum posts to pick around in. There’s only a beeping red light and an unidentified portal building somewhere around the middle of god-damned midtown Manhattan, and isn’t that the worst and best place for a portal to be growing? You’ve got the Avengers, a smattering of idiot vigilantes, and a little over a million civilians just waiting to get involved in an attack.
So, he does what any other rational asshole would do. He calls up the Avengers and he tells them that if anyone so much as takes a break for coffee before this new threat is dealt with, he will know and he has guns. The Avengers, in typical Avengers fashion, moan and groan and then put on their big-boy pants and get ready to go.
—-
It takes a while to find it.
It’s not like any of them — (to Tony’s knowledge) — have access to any sort of magical-portal-tracker. That’s another thing. It isn’t magic, no matter how much Thor likes to wave his hands and refer to it as such. Magic is just science that people have been too lazy to diagnose as such in the past, and he always endeavors to diagnose.
But, in the end, nothing that comes out of the ass-end of a massive glowing portal wants to stay hidden for long, and The Avengers find their target.
It’s in a dingy black alleyway, which is decently uncharacteristic for supervillain entrances. It takes a long while of scanning Manhattan, talking to random civilians, and just straight-up hacking into security cameras before they find it. Jarvis does a good chunk of the work — looking through everywhere with anything that even smells like technology to find their portal.
Well — it isn’t their portal. That’s obvious. In fact, when Tony first faces it, he’s not sure how to confirm that it isn’t some sort of terrifying modern public art project.
A long, spiraling circle of eyes dances across the bricks in the alley, twisting like vines across a wall. They stare deep within the nothingness and air between him and the portal, shining with the soft golden light emanating from between them. The portal itself looks like the stars themselves have come down to brush up against humanity, a deep inky well of black spilling out of the air, filled with pinpricks of starlight.
“That’s new, isn’t it,” Tony says, raising one gauntleted hand up to the swirling vortex.
The comm-link crackles on as his confusion catches the attention of the others. This time it’s Cap, voice solid and warm and distantly concerned. “What is it, Iron Man?”
“You tell me,” he replies, throwing his other hand up to gesture vaguely at the thing in the wall before him. “Jarvis, what’re we looking at here?”
“It seems to be powered by some sort of energy adjacent to but not limited to the Tesseract, sir, I’ve never seen anything quite like it.”
“So you’re telling me the internet-wizard is confused too?” Groans Clint from the other side. “Drop the cords, Iron Man. I’m heading over.”
There isn’t much to do as the rest of the team heads to his location. Other than banter, Tony paces and watches the portal build, little bits of liquid starlight tearing away and dripping down the wall. It’s beautiful, in a way, but he’s long past his days of vanity. So with one repulsor up and another waving rapidly as he rants to Jarvis about the portal, he waits.
And then—
The portal glows, a brighter light than before, no longer golden but a familiar Tesseract blue. Tony looks to it with eyes slit with concentration, suddenly aware that he may be about to walk into a fight with anything from armies to gods.
“Think you all can go any quicker?” He quips into the comms, though any response is quickly drowned out by the sound of something mechanical. Of an almost scream, raw and broken like gears being snapped and metal bent. Tony gags as it fills the air, stuffing his ears, painful and loud, forcing him to bend over to desperately try and avoid the terrible noise.
But it just keeps growing, and growing, as the glow grows too, until the entire alley is a conglomeration of screaming and light and suddenly, blissfully, Jarvis shuts off noise input to the suit.
“Fuck,” he heaves raggedly, hands still held outward but shaking badly. The only thing keeping him upright now is the suit. “Thanks, Jarvis. Is it still getting louder?”
There’s a short pause. Then: “…Yes, sir. Much louder. I believe the rest of the team is trying to reach you on line-“
“Stark— come in!”
Jarvis cuts off just as Tony switches comm lines, replaced by Steve’s concerned tone. Some sort of odd fondness bubbles up inside — but it’s replaced when the man continues to shout.
“Cool it, capsicle!” He retorts, lazily shaking his arms out and trying to unclench every goddamn muscle in his body. “I’m fine, everything’s fine, the portal is just glowing and screaming—“
“Glowing and screaming portals are not a good sign, Man of Iron—“
“I got the memo, Thor,” Tony grumbles back. A quick switch back to outside noise being enabled shows that the sound has continued growing, and so has his own headache. “Alright. Deafen yourselves as best you can when you head over. Brucie’s out of commission anyway. Thor, I need you to inspect this. Hawkeye, take your hearing aid out if you can. We probably need to start blocking civilians off from here, and I wouldn’t be surprised if we get a visit for underoos or Daredevil while we’re at this—“
He cuts off as suddenly, the noise from outside starts to filter into his helmet again. Though instead of that awful, inhuman screaming, it’s been returned to normal. Car alarms and honks flicker through the nearly empty roads behind him. For a moment, it’s like you can ignore the portal is even there.
And then —
A long, thin white hand crawls out from the portal, sinking through the mass as if feeling for someone on the other hand. It twists, the blackened, inhuman ends to its nails clawing through the air, cutting through the portal.
It’s followed by an arm, clad in heavy blue fabric, swathed in golden rings and bracelets. And then a leg, and a shoulder, and the swell of a heavy blue cloak, lined with fur and adorned with filigree of golden and silver. And then feathers, black as the portal behind them, black as night, black as death, hanging in the air and shivering, bristling, as they are followed by a man.
Then the process repeats, a thicker hand held in the first, clawed and covered in a fine layer of pink-grey fur. An outfit of thick fabric and soft blue colors sweeps from the portal, heavy and regal and expensive. Gold hangs from every inch of this new thing’s wrists, knuckles, even its neck, its face, a mask of ivory bone hanging from its skull, some awful and grotesque beast over another.
The first man, with blue eyes and blond hair and an exhausted expression, tilts his head to the side at Tony, gaze confused and inquisitive.
“They have redstone on the moon,” he says, taking a step forward. The beast beside him follows, snorting at the first man’s curiosity. “Techno, why would they have redstone on the moon—”
Tony doesn’t hesitate. The whines of his repulsors fill the air as he lifts his hands, the blue glow from the portal disappearing as it starts to shrink, as his own light fills the air.
“Alright, uhh — winged man and friends,” he starts, taking a step forward. The shorter of the men before him gasps, eyes lighting up. The taller shrinks back, eyes narrowing in suspicion behind the massive skull mask hanging over his expression. “Welcome to earth. Are you peaceful or do I need to break out the big guns?”
“Earth?” The winged man turns to the beast and frowns. “But— no.” He turns back to Tony, scoffing a little. “Mate, we just left Earth. This is the moon.”
He has to bark out a laugh at that. “Kid, look around you. Does this look like the moon?”
The man clearly doesn’t take kindly to being called kid. His eyes narrow, his jaw twisting with irritation. “Alright, I’ll admit it looks a little fucked up, but that portal doesn’t lead to any other SMPs. It’s supposed to lead to the moon. That’s the whole point of a frozen stronghold to the moon.”
“Look. Admittedly, I might be missing some vital context. But whatever the hell a frozen stronghold is? It didn’t lead you to the moon. This is Earth, and I’m Iron Man. You two got names under all those robes?”
As it turns out, they have more than just names. The taller one slips a hand beneath his cloak and draws a sword, the metal a blackened, warped sort of thing, gold inlaid in the handle and emerald green fashioned into the sides.
“Alright, then. Thor, we’ve got offworld foreigners— that’s your sorta thing.”
“Who is he—” the shorter chuckles. “Who is he talking to? Techno, this is so fucking weird—”
There’s a slam, and a squawk of surprise from the bird-man, and Tony whirls around to see Thor, standing behind him, Mjolnir still swinging in his heavy-handed grip. When he turns, both of the strange men are holding weapons — the taller with his sword, the bird man with his shoulders high, fingers taught around the thin string of a bow, a glowing purple light emanating from the wood and the arrow between them.
“He smells like lightning,” growls the larger man, and he advances, an arm going out, held protectively between the winged man and Tony and Thor. “Phil—”
“They’re not Asgardians,” says Thor, ignoring the two men. He cocks his head, walking up, expression confused more than worried or angered. “They’re not anything I’ve ever seen.
“Rude.”
“You’re the one showin’ up on our world in a creepy portal, friend,” Tony quips back to the shorter man’s response. “What is it we can do for you before you head on your way?”
The two share a look. The one called Phil shakes his head, laughing a little as he lowers his bow just enough to address Tony. “We’re not heading anywhere, mate. We only just got here. So if you’d just fuck off and let us on our way—”
“No can do, Maleficent. You’re from off-world — can’t have you runnin’ around and screwing things up.” He lifts his gauntlets again, getting ready to fire. Phil immediately lifts his bow once again, his mouth straight and eyes losing all mirth within them. Even Thor seems to recognize the sudden hostility. He strides up, Mjolnir crackling at his side. “Now if you’ll just surrender peacefully, we can figure this out.”
“The Antarctic Empire doesn’t surrender.”
The man with the bone mask advances quickly. He swings his sword out, and suddenly the sides are alight, flames licking up and through the air. He growls, and then an arrow is shot, only barely missing Tony — though it’s clear that this is only a warning, and that the winged man will not miss again.
“Alright! We’re doin’ this the hard way.” And, Tony fires.
The stunning bolt hits the larger man square in the chest, sending him flying a few feet away. The shorter man shouts roughly, fear invading the confidence in his voice as he runs after him. The second bolt misses — and Phil throws himself down next to the larger man, panicked.
“Tech- Technoblade, you’d better be ok—”
“S’ S all good, Phil,” mutters the one named Technoblade, waving a lazy, clawed hand. Tony takes a step back in surprise.
“That was full voltage, right, J?” He asks into his helmet, to which he’s given an affirmative. He whistles. “Alright, Thor. They might be stronger than we thought.”
Technoblade is already rising, staggering to his feet drunkenly as if all it has done is thrown his rhythm off. Suddenly, his sword is gone, replaced by a massive wooden crossbow, creaking with the weight of some sort of foreign, crude explosives linked into the top. He leverages it, pointing it directly at Tony, and then—
And then a blur of blue and red and white streaks through the sky, shining in the morning light, smashing into the crossbow and reducing it to a pile of broken wood on the ground. Technoblade lets out a roar of anger and yanks the shield off the ground before it can be returned to its owner, tossing it into the air and right at Thor.
“Alright!” Tony lets out another repulsor blast, this time at Phil. It hits him in the chest and he screams, guttural and disgusting, before collapsing to the ground, body twitching with the residual energy. Technoblade’s sword returns and some sort of battle cry falls from his lips. He throws it forward, and this time, it hits its mark.
Tony doubles over as the sword sinks into his suit, an alarm popping up on screen as the thing carves into the metal like butter. The hilt buries itself into his shoulder, immediately cauterizing the wound with the fiery edges. He stifles a scream into his helmet as Jarvis lists off the damage, eyes squeezed shut.
He hears Thor rush forward in his own moment of weakness. There’s a violent cry, the drawing of another weapon, and Mjolnir crashes against something, unable to break it with the first swing. From above comes Cap, landing just behind Technoblade, standing right above Phil, twitching on the ground, groaning, apparently not yet knocked completely out. Who are these people? How are they withstanding this — and where the hell have they come from?
“Get away from him!” Shouts Technoblade, launching himself into the Captain and throwing him to the side like a sack of potatoes. But Tony has recovered enough to stand, and Jarvis is on his side, and he raises his hands, and—
Technoblade falls to the ground with a whump and one last broken shout, body seizing as the electrical current reduces him to the same state as the man beside him. His sword clatters to the ground, his mask slipping from his face.
Tony, Cap, and Thor stand there, heaving out heavy breaths. They stare down at the offworlders.
Then Tony realizes the light from before has disappeared, the portal completely gone, leaving the wall behind them a blank slate of brick and mold as if nothing was ever there. A sharp sigh escapes him and he switches his comm channel with a groan of irritation.
“Fury?”
“Yes, Stark?” Is the answering response, SHIELD’s director’s dry, irritated tone ringing through his helmet.
“We have a problem.”