Adam was standing on the street with one hand pressed against the roof of a wrecked car and the other hand braced on his knee.
His alien transformation had ended again.
The Omnitrix was red on his wrist, and his breathing came out uneven. His body felt like someone had taken all the cold out of him and left only the exhaustion behind.
Fifteen minutes.
That was how long he had pushed Big Chill this time.
In that time, he had frozen two more Leviathans, dropped more Chitauri chariots than he could count, and turned more than a thousand ground soldiers into ice-covered statues across the streets. Even the Avengers had gone quiet for a moment when they saw what the roads looked like.
Adam lifted his head and looked around.
The street was no longer just broken. It was frozen.
Chitauri bodies stood trapped on the road, against building walls, and near the crystal tunnels he had made earlier. Some were frozen halfway through climbing. Some were still holding their weapons. Several fallen aircraft were sealed in thick ice, and one frozen Leviathan lay across two buildings like a dead bridge.
Adam looked down at the red Omnitrix.
"Yeah," he muttered. "That makes sense."
He drew in a deep breath and started running.
The more he used an alien, the better he became at it. That much was clear now. His first breath attack had been clumsy. By the end, he had been freezing groups, vehicles, and whole lines of Chitauri with far less wasted effort.
But efficiency did not mean endless stamina.
His body still had limits.
Then Natasha's voice came through the comm.
"Can anybody copy? I can shut the portal down."
Adam almost stumbled.
'Already?' he thought.
For a second, it felt too fast. Then he looked at the city around him and realized how wrong that feeling was. He had been fighting for a long time. Not one clean transformation, but again and again, every time the cooldown ended.
This timeline had already changed.
In the movie, the Avengers had been getting worn down by the end. They were still fighting, but the numbers were crushing them. Here, Adam had removed entire chunks of the army from the board. His speed, phasing, and freezing had cut through enemies that would have kept the others trapped for much longer.
It still had not been enough to end the invasion by itself.
The portal kept feeding more enemies into the city.
Tony and Thor had been holding the sky as hard as they could, and Adam had frozen several Leviathans, but the pressure never fully stopped. If this kept going, he would run out before the army did.
Steve answered Natasha through the comm.
"Wait."
Adam kept running.
Tony's voice came next, rough and focused.
"I got a nuke coming in, and I know just where to put it."
Adam looked at his watch again.
The red light was still there.
"Of course," he said under his breath. "No pressure."
He ran harder.
The streets around him were full of the enemies he had frozen. Alley after alley had Chitauri locked in ice, and the sight made the whole city feel changed from the version he remembered. He had not wanted to break the event completely, but he had definitely stepped on the timeline.
Now he had to hope he had not stepped on the wrong part.
Stark Tower was ahead.
Adam pushed through the street until he reached a clear view of the sky. Above the tower, Tony was already carrying the missile toward the open portal.
Adam stopped below and looked up.
'Please tell me I didn't mess this up,' he thought.
He remembered the original scene. Tony went through the portal, lost power, fell back, and Hulk caught him. That was how it was supposed to happen.
But he also knew enough about alternate universes to be afraid.
In one version, one small change was enough to send everything wrong. Iron Man might not come back. He might drift too far. The portal might close a second early.
Adam clenched his teeth.
He could fly as Big Chill if the watch recovered in time. Maybe he could even go up if something went wrong.
But that thought scared him too.
If he interfered at the wrong moment, he could make the problem worse.
So he waited.
Everyone waited.
The missile disappeared through the portal with Tony behind it.
The Chitauri below started dropping as the enemy force lost power. Frozen or not, alive or not, the army began falling apart at the same time.
Steve's voice came through the comm.
"Close it."
Natasha drove the scepter into the device.
The beam above Stark Tower cut out, and the portal began collapsing.
Adam stared upward so hard that his eyes started burning.
Then Tony fell through.
For one terrible second, he did not slow down.
Adam moved before thinking, but the Omnitrix was still red.
Then Hulk shot upward, caught Tony in midair, and brought him down hard enough to shake the street.
Adam let out the breath he had been holding.
"Thank God."
He ran toward them.
By the time he reached the spot, Tony was lying on his back with Steve, Thor, Hulk, and the others around him. Adam stopped near Tony's side, still breathing hard.
Hulk roared in Tony's face.
Tony jolted awake.
"Please tell me nobody kissed me," Tony said.
Adam laughed once before he could stop himself.
Tony's head shifted slightly, and his eyes moved toward him through the damaged helmet.
For a second, Adam almost forgot the battle had just ended.
Then Tony spoke again, slower this time.
"There's a shawarma place about two blocks from here. I don't know what it is, but I want to try it."
Adam smiled.
"No," he said. "That line is mine."
Steve looked at him.
Adam lifted one finger. "I mean, after we finish this. The battle is not fully over yet."
The Omnitrix turned green.
Adam looked at it, then at Stark Tower.
He activated Big Chill again and lifted off the ground. The others moved toward the tower in their own way. By the time Adam reached the top, the elevator doors opened and the rest of the Avengers arrived too.
Loki was still there.
He looked beaten, furious, and trapped.
The Avengers surrounded him.
Adam landed near them as Big Chill, while the team finally captured Loki.
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