Chapter 295: Avengers — Assemble!
"Here's your shield back. That other thing's a Senzu Bean — eat it, and your left arm will heal right up.
"Pick up your shield and go protect your people, or run and hide like a coward — that part's entirely up to you." Banner's words landed on Steve like a hammer blow, striking straight at his chest.
"But if you choose to be a coward — know that Hell's Kitchen won't welcome you back." The words cut through Steve like a blade, sinking deep.
Banner didn't wait for a reply. He turned and walked out of the room.
Steve stayed exactly where he was, staring down at the shield in his hands, standing alone like some solitary mountain peak.
Outside, Banner and Hawkeye leaned against the wall, while Natasha stood by the railing, hands gripping it as she stared up at the sky, thick with alien warships. "You think Steve's actually going to come out?" she asked, worry plain in her voice.
Hawkeye turned to look up at the fleet-darkened sky, his gaze steady and certain. "Relax. This is Steve we're talking about. We both know it: Steve made Captain America. Not the other way around.
He's got a stubbornness, a courage, nobody else on this Earth can match. He's not going down that easy."
Banner let out a quiet chuckle. "Relax. Steve'll come around."
Hawkeye shot him a look of mild surprise, not quite expecting a man who barely knew Steve personally to have this much faith in him.
"You're that confident in Steve?" he asked, testing the water.
Banner shook his head, a faint, mysterious smile crossing his face. "I'm not confident in Steve. I'm confident in Ethan."
Natasha and Hawkeye both blinked, genuinely thrown by the answer — the last thing they expected to hear from a man with seven doctorates in physics.
For a beat, they both privately wondered if Banner had simply been brainwashed by the same uncritical devotion they'd seen in so many uneducated Hell's Kitchen locals.
"What are you looking at me like that for?" Banner said, his voice rising, a note of genuine exasperation creeping in. "You two just don't get Ethan. You don't get what Hell's Kitchen actually is." His words felt like a key turning, slowly opening a door on something they'd never really understood about the place.
He looked down over the neighborhood below. Unlike the rest of the panicked, chaotic Big Apple, Hell's Kitchen showed no sign of falling apart. No one running screaming through the streets. Just orderly, deliberate movement.
Women hurried children indoors. Men rushed to shutter their storefronts, gearing up for the fight ahead. Cigarettes hung from their lips, an assortment of weapons in hand, marching with steady purpose toward the heart of Hell's Kitchen.
What started as one or two people quickly became clusters of three, five, ten — steadily merging into one enormous, unified force. Barely a word passed between them. Just resolve in their eyes, and a wordless, practiced coordination in every step.
"The hell are you doing out here, you old fossil? Get back inside, I've got this!" a young man shouted — though the words carried real respect and trust underneath the gruffness.
"Kid, I was firing guns before you were off the tit," the old man shot back with a grin. "Fought in World War Two. Been through just about every kind of war there is. Only thing I never got to do was fight aliens. Today, I finally get to see what these bastards are made of!"
"Ethan's paying $10,000 a head for every alien we take down!" a middle-aged man shouted, practically giddy. "And Stark Industries is buying back their gear too! These aliens are basically walking piggy banks!"
"Personally, I just want to bring one home as a trophy," a young man said, rubbing his hands together with excitement. "Gonna be a hell of a story to tell my kids someday!"
"Never in my life did I think a small-time gangster like me would get to fight in an alien war!" a massive, hulking man bellowed, swinging a baseball bat overhead. "Die tonight and it'll still have been worth it!"
"LET'S GO, BROTHERS!" they roared together. "Show these bastards what Hell's Kitchen is made of!"
Natasha and Hawkeye watched all of it unfold from their vantage point, faces frozen in disbelief. They couldn't understand it — why these Hell's Kitchen residents, faced with a full-scale alien invasion, showed no fear or hesitation at all, but instead this strange, electric excitement.
"Aren't they scared?" Natasha finally asked. "Don't they care if they die?"
"Everybody's scared of dying. Hell's Kitchen's people, if anything, are more afraid of it than most — they fight this hard precisely because they want to keep living, not because they've stopped caring. It's just that Ethan's led them to victory, over and over, so many times by now, that they believe in him completely. They believe the Lord of Hell's Kitchen will protect them. That Ethan would never abandon them," Banner explained.
Natasha and Hawkeye traded a glance, both seeing the same disbelief reflected in the other's eyes. Neither of them could wrap their head around this kind of trust in one man.
Is Ethan really that unstoppable?
Banner went on. "Besides — Hell's Kitchen's got more than just Ethan. It's got the rest of us, too. You think we're going to let ordinary civilians take point first?"
As if timed perfectly to Banner's words, a streak of red shot through the sky, tearing into the alien fleet — Iron Man. Tony.
His firepower alone was already enough to choke off a good chunk of the black hole's exit point, holding back a serious number of aliens all on his own.
Just as Banner's patience was running thin, ready to jump in and help himself —
The door finally opened. Natasha and Hawkeye's eyes shot toward it, and a familiar figure stepped through.
Steve. The Captain America who used to burn with unstoppable fighting spirit.
He'd suited up in his old, familiar uniform, eyes locked on Natasha, Hawkeye, and Banner, burning with resolve once more.
"Sorry — took a minute to get myself squared away. Hope I didn't keep you waiting too long."
"Avengers. Assemble."
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