Chapter 290: Don't Underestimate Hell's Kitchen
Hell's Kitchen.
"Ow... ow ow... easy, easy..." May winced as she tended to Thor's wounds.
After pulling Thor out from under Tsukasa's boot, Ethan had promptly washed his hands of the rest of it. Right now, he was busy scrolling back through the group chat logs.
Delivery Driver Extraordinaire: "That's it? I dropped my pants for THIS?"
Little Punk: "CHEATING. This is blatant cheating, Ethan! You didn't even DO anything and you're just walking off with the 50 Friend Points?!"
Marvel's Most Beautiful Woman: "He built the whole app himself. He can do whatever he wants with it. That's not cheating — that's just reasonable use of admin privileges."
Come Be My Family: "Don't worry, everyone — that one was just a demonstration. Going forward, bounties will post at irregular intervals. Claiming them comes down to two things: how fast you are, and how many people are competing for the same one.
If there's only one slot but more than one person signs up, we'll handle it one of two ways — either the employer picks who they want, or for random-assignment tasks, it's decided randomly.
Don't worry, there'll be plenty of bounties to go around going forward."
Trying to Be Better: "Thank you, Master! Understood!"
The Indestructible Underpants: "Guess it's time to start grinding Friend Points properly!"
Some Old Man Who Plays With Magnets: "Shame the people not in this chat can't take these tasks — otherwise every one of these would've belonged to the Brotherhood."
Once he'd finished laying out the rules, Ethan stopped paying attention to the chat and turned to face Thor directly, his gaze deep and unreadable, as if he could see straight through him.
"You," he said flatly. "You didn't come all this way just to rescue Loki, did you?"
Thor blinked, startled, then pressed a warm hard-boiled egg gently against his swollen eye socket with a resigned sigh. "I did come to bring Loki back, that's true. But there's something more important — I have to warn all of you. The Chitauri army is preparing to invade Earth."
His voice carried real urgency, real gravity.
Thor watched Ethan's face closely, hoping to catch some flicker of alarm or unease.
He was disappointed.
Ethan's expression stayed perfectly calm throughout, as though this were old news to him already.
Ethan smiled faintly, picked up a cup of hot tea from the table beside him, and held it out to Thor.
Thor eyed the cup, frowning, and shook his head. "You know I don't drink tea."
Ethan smiled and gave a light flick of his fingers — and instantly, the tea in Thor's hand transformed into a golden, foaming beer. "I know what you actually like. Made this one for you special."
Thor stared at the beer in his hand, surprised — though confusion won out over the surprise.
"Aren't you even the least bit worried?" he asked. "The Chitauri are one of the most dominant powers in the entire cosmos. Even Asgard doesn't provoke them lightly."
Ethan took a slow sip of his tea. "I know. Your brother already told me. Don't worry, though — I've already got a plan in place." Confidence and certainty shone plainly in his eyes.
Now that he knew a fight was coming, Ethan wasn't about to be foolish enough to think it would come down to just a handful of movie-canon heroes charging in alone.
Even in the films themselves, Ethan didn't buy for a second that it was really just those few Avengers holding the line by themselves. Other factions had to be helping — he didn't know for certain about Wakanda, but Kamar-Taj's sorcerers had almost certainly deployed, at the very least.
After all, in the source material, the Ancient One had been stationed near the New York Sanctum during the Battle of New York, not sitting idle back at Kamar-Taj.
And besides — how could ordinary civilians possibly just sit back and do nothing? This was their home. Their families. Even scared out of their minds, people would still fight to protect their own, wouldn't they?
If a handful of Avengers had been enough to hold the line back then, Ethan had no doubt Hell's Kitchen could hold its own too.
"You may not fully grasp what the Chitauri army is capable of," Thor pressed. "They're one of the most dominant forces in the entire cosmos. Even Asgard couldn't be sure of coming out ahead against them." He wanted Ethan to take the threat seriously — sure, Ethan was strong, but at the end of the day, he was still just one man.
And this time, it was very likely Thor's own brother who'd brought this disaster down on Earth in the first place — which only made him more anxious about it.
"Relax. I've already had my people notified and told to get ready." Ethan had, in fact, already gotten word out — not just to Hell's Kitchen, but to the High Table as well. Even the X-Men were already in the loop.
Ethan had also passed the news along to Uncle Fisk, instructing him to use the opportunity to spirit certain federal officials away "on vacation" at the appropriate moment — leaving those officials indebted to him personally.
Even S.H.I.E.L.D. and the FBI, organizations Ethan had no love for, had been quietly tipped off through anonymous channels. Whether they'd actually believe an anonymous warning was anyone's guess.
Ethan didn't expect much real help from them, honestly — as long as they handled some basic crowd control or rescued a few civilians, that would be plenty.
Ethan had also had the Hell's Kitchen company roll out a "Shelter Package" aimed at wealthy outsiders — a million dollars bought you a safe week's stay in Hell's Kitchen during the crisis, single occupancy. Quite the bargain, all things considered.
Naturally, there were tiered packages too — an $8.99 million full-family package, a $2.99 million trio package, and everything in between.
Nobody had actually bought one yet — but Ethan was confident it would sell out fast once word got around.
Watching Thor visibly working up to say something else, Ethan simply said, quietly, "Aren't you underestimating human civilization a little? Or maybe just Hell's Kitchen specifically?"
Ethan had noticed a running pattern with these Marvel aliens — they always underestimated Earth, always assumed the planet would fall the moment someone actually tried.
Granted, plenty of Earths — and even whole multiverses — really had been destroyed before. But the ones that actually managed to wipe Earth out were, more often than not, homegrown villains. When it came to actually destroying the planet, aliens had to get in line behind humanity's own.
Lucky for the Chitauri, too, that they'd picked the Big Apple to invade. If this had happened somewhere in the East instead, the Heavenly Sword Bureau would already be involved — and the Heavenly Sword Bureau made S.H.I.E.L.D. look like amateurs by comparison, no contest at all.
Just as Ethan sank deeper into thought, Thor cut in.
"Whatever you decide to do, Ethan — I'm behind you. Fully."
His tone was earnest, dead serious.
Ethan might actually have believed him too — if Thor's stomach hadn't chosen that exact moment to growl loudly.
Ethan told the kitchen staff to get Thor something to eat, then rose and opened a portal, stepping through.
He still had some people left to rally. He couldn't be expected to handle everything alone — as Earth's resident Sorcerer Supreme, the least Strange could do was send a few people over to help.
Besides, it had been a while since Ethan had actually seen Strange in person. Might as well check in and see how the man's magical studies at Kamar-Taj were coming along.
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