Battle of New York

"Stark, you seeing this?" "Seeing, still working on believing."

- Captain America and Iron Man

The Battle of New York was a major battle between the Avengers and Loki with his Chitauri army in Manhattan, New York City. It was, according to Loki's plan, the first battle in Loki's war to subjugate Earth, but the actions of the Avengers neutralized the threat of the Chitauri before they could continue the invasion. The Avengers who had been gathered by S.H.I.E.L.D. were inspired to fight by Phil Coulson's apparent death. This battle ended the War for Earth.

Destruction of Project P.E.G.A.S.U.S.
Loki returned from a different dimension two days before the battle to take the Tesseract, with help from Thanos and The Other. He teleported to the Project P.E.G.A.S.U.S. S.H.I.E.L.D. facility and took control of the minds of Clint Barton for his fighting skills and Erik Selvig for his knowledge of the Tesseract. Loki, Barton, and Selvig then escaped as the portal Loki used collapsed and destroyed the facility. Nick Fury told the rest of the organization known as S.H.I.E.L.D. that a war had just begun. He also thought that it was finally time to initiate the Avengers Initiative, a plan to recruit Earth's mightiest heroes for a team called the Avengers. Fury went to get Captain America while he sent Natasha Romanoff to get Bruce Banner, and Phil Coulson to get Tony Stark.

Capturing Loki
Later that day, Loki entered a gallery to create a distraction. He retrieved a scan of an eye for Barton, while Barton stole iridium to stabilize the Tesseract. S.H.I.E.L.D. sent in Steve Rogers to stop Loki, and when the civilians cleared the area, sent in Tony Stark in his Mark VI armor. Loki surrendered and let them take him into custody. On the way back to the Helicarrier, Thor came and took Loki from the Quinjet. Thor told Loki that he traveled from Asgard to get him. While Thor was talking, Iron Man attacked Thor for taking Loki from them. Iron Man and Thor fought, but Captain America stopped them. Thor became an ally and a member of the team.

Attack on the Helicarrier
The next day, the team gathered at the Helicarrier. As Tony Stark and Bruce Banner worked on finding the Tesseract, Loki waited in his glass prison for the team to come into conflict, while Erik Selvig finished the portal machine using the Tesseract and the iridium, and started setting it up on Stark Tower. Stark planted a device on the bridge to hack into all of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s secure files. He told Steve Rogers about his suspicions that they were being deceived, and Rogers, suspicious himself, investigated a storeroom. Natasha Romanoff went to Loki's cell to interrogate him, finding out that Loki intended to create chaos on the ship by triggering Banner to become the Hulk. As Rogers, Banner, and Stark all came to the conclusion that S.H.I.E.L.D. was using the Tesseract to create an arsenal, the team began to argue in the lab. Clint Barton and a group of enemies of S.H.I.E.L.D. attacked the Helicarrier, destroying one of the rotor blades, and causing a now-transformed Banner to chase Romanoff. As Rogers and Stark tried to fix the broken rotor blade, Thor saved Romanoff from the angry Hulk. When Hulk was distracted by an attacking plane, he ripped the F-35 Lightning II apart, the pilot barely surviving. The plane exploded and Hulk fell away from the Helicarrier. Stark and Rogers barely succeeded at fixing the rotor blade. Thor went to see if Loki was still in his custom-made prison, but was tricked into the prison by Loki. Phil Coulson came to save Thor with the gun made from the Destroyer's body. Loki tricked Coulson and stabbed him through the back. Romanoff found Barton, with whom she was good friends before Loki controlled him. She fought Barton and knocked him out, which took him out of Loki's control.

Loki released the prison with Thor inside, sending Thor hurtling toward the ground hundreds of feet below. Thor barely made it out of the prison before it shattered on sharp rocks, and Thor ended up in an empty field. Hulk landed in an abandoned warehouse. Banner woke up in the warehouse, where only one worker was present. The worker gave Banner some clothes and a motorcycle. Loki escaped while his allies fought the S.H.I.E.L.D. agents.

Coulson died trying to say that the team would never be able to unite without something to motivate them. Nick Fury took this advice to heart, and manipulated Rogers and Stark into working together. As he talked to Rogers, Stark worked out Loki's motivation to goad the Avengers into fighting him in New York City in front of the world, so that Loki and his army could be seen defeating Earth's heroes. Barton regained consciousness and talked to Romanoff about the possibility of going after Loki. Rogers came in and told them to suit up for the battle, and the four of them set a course for Manhattan.

Stark's Distraction
"And there's one other person you pissed off. His name was Phil."

- Iron Man to Loki

Iron Man arrived at Stark Tower where Loki was planning to open the portal to unleash his army of Chitauri. Stark fired his repulsor beams at the Tesseract, but it was protected by an impenetrable energy shield. With his armor damaged, Stark removed it and stalled Loki to give J.A.R.V.I.S. enough time to prepare the Mark VII armor. While Stark threatened Loki, he put on a set of bracelets. Loki tried to use his Scepter to take control of Stark, but the Arc Reactor in Stark's chest stopped the effect. Frustrated, Loki threw Stark out the window, but Stark's Mark VII armor deployed and formed on Stark via the bracelets just before he hit the ground. Flying back up, Stark blasted Loki in the name of Phil Coulson, but the Tesseract, in conjunction with the device Erik Selvig built, opened a portal to bring his army of Chitauri and Leviathans.

The Arrival of The Other Avengers
Stark flew toward the invading Chitauri and opened fire, destroying several of them. While he flew, he tried to call War Machine to join the battle, but Rhodes said he was busy fighting soldiers working for the Ten Rings at the Battle of Hong Kong. Thor arrived at Stark Tower and threatened Loki to turn off the Tesseract. Loki stated that it could not be turned off, and the two fought on the tower as more Chitauri arrived. In a Quinjet, Hawkeye, Black Widow, and Captain America fired on several Chitauri before being shot down by Loki, who then jabbed Thor with a small dagger before fleeing on a Chitauri Chariot. On the streets, the NYPD fired on the invading army to no effect, as Rogers, Barton, and Romanoff fought the army on the streets while protecting as many civilians as they could. Rogers took command of the NYPD, and told them to set up a perimeter down to 39th Street. The NYPD were later supported by the National Guard.

When Thor was flying around in New York, Stark asked him if he had ever seen , saying that he reminded him of it. In response, Thor asked how could Stark joke when they were in the middle of a war. Before he could finish his sentence, Thor was eaten by a Leviathan. In a rage, Thor used Mjølnir to get out of the creature.

Arrival of Hulk
Eventually, Bruce Banner arrived, and Stark led a Leviathan towards him. Banner transformed into the Hulk and destroyed it with Stark's help. For the first time, the Avengers stood united, ready to defend New York City. Loki ordered the Chitauri to arrive in full force. Rogers assumed command: he ordered Hawkeye to take a high vantage point and call out attack patterns and strays; Stark would maintain air superiority against the Chitauri; Thor could use his lightning to bottleneck the portal; Rogers and Romanoff would keep the fighting on the ground, and Hulk only got one word, "Smash." With that, Hulk attacked any and all targets of opportunity.

Though they were more than capable of fighting the invasion, Romanoff knew they needed to close the portal in order to win. With Roger's help, she jumped onto a Chariot to make her way to the portal, only to be pursued by Loki. Hawkeye targeted Loki with an arrow, which he caught, but it exploded, causing him to crash at the top of Stark Tower. Hulk arrived and beat Loki into submission. Unfortunately, even with Loki defeated, the Chiturai continued to invade and began to wear the Avengers down.

Now free of Loki's control, Selvig told Romanoff that he had had enough control to build a fail-safe into the portal device which could shut it down using an energy just like it, which meant they could use Loki's spear to close the portal.

The Nuclear Missile
Meanwhile, Nick Fury's superiors, the World Security Council, ordered Fury to launch a nuclear missile at New York City to end the invasion, but Fury refused the order. The Council ordered a jet launched anyway, so Fury ordered Stark to intercept the missile and take it through the portal toward the Chitauri fleet. Stark followed Fury's command and tried to call his girlfriend, Pepper Potts, realizing that he might not survive. Potts failed to answer because she was watching the battle on a television, wondering if Stark was still alive. Stark then went through the Wormhole to Chitauri Space, where the missile detonated, destroying the invaders' mothership and leaving their forces disabled on Earth. Stark's suit ran out of power and he fell back through the portal just before Romanoff closed it. Hulk caught Stark in mid-fall and he survived.

Aftermath
"The Battle of New York was the end of the world. This is the new world."

- Maria Hill

After the fight, the Avengers went to Stark Tower to capture the injured Loki and took him into custody. The team later ate at a shawarma restaurant. James Rhodes, who was busy fighting against the Ten Rings terrorist group on the other side of the world, soon joined them, too late to have any effect in the battle. Various news sources reported the Chitauri invasion and the Avengers' victory, and there was a widespread feeling of gratitude toward the superhero team, as opposed to Senator Boynton, who publicly called for the regulation of people with super powers. One of the reporters who wrote about the battle was Ben Urich for the New York Bulletin.

Later, the team met in Central Park to send Loki, Thor, and the Tesseract back to Asgard. The rest of the team went their separate ways. Tony Stark and Bruce Banner left together, Steve Rogers left on the motorcycle Banner brought, and Clint Barton and Natasha Romanoff left together. Later, The Other told Thanos that the Chitauri failed, and tried to excuse himself by saying that to challenge the humans is "to court death", to which Thanos simply smiled.

The consequences of the battle were numerous. The extensive repairs cost New York $160 billion dollars. Many Chitauri weapons and metals were picked up by ordinary people and found their way to the black market. The nations of Earth finally realized that humanity was not alone in the universe. Six months after the battle, WHiH World News held a 10 kilometer race to help support the reconstruction of other buildings that had been destroyed during the battle. The station successfully raised millions of dollars for the cause.

The leaders of S.H.I.E.L.D. decided to organize a special team that would deal with other supernatural threats. Phil Coulson, who was killed by Loki before the battle, became the leader of the team after his revival days later.

Many toy manufacturers felt that the Avengers would make great toys to distribute around America, which led to the "Heroes of New York" toy line. Among the pieces of Chitauri technology that found its way to the general population after the battle included a Chitauri Gun that was used in several bank robberies, a Chitauri Neural Link that found its way into the hands of the international criminal Vanchat and a Chitauri Helmet that carried an alien virus that caused three deaths in Wrigley, Pennsylvania.

NASA cancelled Project Valhalla, an initiative where alien assets would be identified and deemed useful or hostile before they entered Earth's atmosphere. One of the project members, Jane Thompson, would seek work elsewhere in another government organization.

In a speech to the United Nations in 2014, General Glenn Talbot told an assembly of representatives, including Adamo Dioli of Italy, that he was a witness to the Chitauri invasion of New York City. He went further in saying that this was when S.H.I.E.L.D. first revealed itself to the world, began accumulating super powered individuals, and started to abuse the public's trust.

By 2015, New York City residents had taken to calling this event "The Incident", in order to draw attention away from the horrible nature of the alien invasion. The area of the city known as Hell's Kitchen was reconstructed by Union Allied Construction. On a personal level, Tony Stark was affected adversely by his experience in Chitauri Space and falling back to Earth, suffering. When he returned to Malibu, the very mention of New York caused a severe panic attack; in one instance, when a child asked for his autograph on his drawing, Stark wrote "Help me" on the paper instead. The battle caused Stark to decide to create the Iron Legion to help him to protect the world.