Heroes Assemble!

Counter Strike

The portkey jewellery that Harry'd had made for the Avengers was, for the most part, a blessing. It enabled anyone wearing one to travel from wherever they were to Paradis Noir in a blink of an eye. At least, a blink of an eye that had you wanting to throw up and lay down after it. That feeling eventually went away the more you used it. Sort of.

The drawback to the jewellery portkeys was in leaving the island. They had only one destination: Avengers Tower. More specifically, the common area in the lounge of Avengers Tower. Which really wasn't so bad if you lived in New York. So, as Avengers began arriving in an almost continuous stream, people like Matt, Jessica, Luke and Peter were able to simply head straight for the elevator to go down and then use one of Tony's private cars.

But for others who were only using the Tower as a waypoint, it was a lot more difficult. Scott and Hope needed to go to San Francisco; Jennifer to Los Angeles; T'Challa home to Wakanda; and Sam to Washington D.C. Thankfully, Doctor Strange and Wong offered to help out. Sling ring-made portals were the order of the day, with the Doctor even accompanying T'Challa to Wakanda after everyone else had been taken care of.

Everyone knew that they had a limited window of time to get everything done and to be back but what they needed to do was too important to put off. Especially those that were gathering their loved ones to take them to safety.

ooo00ooo

"Tony?" Pepper asked as he arrived along with what seemed like half of the Avengers all within the space of a minute. "What's going on? Is something wrong?"

"We just finished a meeting, that's all," he replied, racing across the room to wrap her up in a huge hug.

"You know you can't lie to me," she said, pushing back to stare into his eyes. "Something's happened. Is it the aliens that you and the others fought off or the thing on the TV that gave away everyone's identities?"

"A bit of both?" Tony tried and then, when he saw that that wasn't going to be enough, he sighed. "No, you're right, there's more. We're not sure, but we think those aliens are just the start of something big."

"Something like New York all over again?" Pepper asked wide-eyed. "I'll get Morgan and a suitcase for each of us. I assume we're moving to the island?"

Tony couldn't help but grinned, she really was the smartest woman that he knew.

"Knew I could count on you," he said.

Giving her a quick kiss, they separated and he headed for the nearest terminal. If there was going to be a battle for the planet bigger than anything even he could imagine, then they needed to bring every trick to the party that they had.

"Boss?"

Tony barely glanced up as Happy appeared beside him.

"Ah, just the man that I wanted to see," he said. "We're moving to the island for the next while; lock the Tower completely down. No access in or out except for Avengers."

"That's going to take time," Happy frowned. "There's a lot more people in here than just us – everyone in R and D ..."

"Just make it happen, Happy," Tony said, turning from his console and clapping his friend on the shoulder.

A rapid series of whines followed by bursts of orange had the two turning towards the windows.

"Are those ...?" Happy asked.

"Yep," Tony replied.

"All of them?" Happy asked.

"You better believe it. The full House Party Protocol."