After the War

The war is over.

After confirming their identities, New York emerged from their hiding places in high spirits, running and cheering in the streets to celebrate their survival. However, many others perished in the war.

Since its independence, the United States has been engaged in numerous wars, large and small. In order to protect the interests of arms dealers and maintain global hegemony, wars have been fought every year. Only during the years of the Zerg war did the Worms of the wars shrink. However, neither of the two world wars was ever fought on United States soil.

The Chitauri invasion marked the first war on United States soil in the new century. The United States people, who had been enjoying peace for so long and were just beginning to reap the benefits of global hegemony, were suddenly struck by an unexpected disaster as aliens began killing, burning, and wreaking havoc everywhere.

In this environment, don't count on the military or police. For the United States people, being a policeman is just a job, not a duty. When disaster strikes, self-preservation is the priority, and they don't serve the people, so why should they care about the lives of others?

As for the troop movement... from the opening to the closing of the portal, it took less than an hour, faster than the surrender of France. The troops there received orders to prepare for deployment, and then they were told here that they didn't need to go.

Fortunately, superheroes also stepped up on Earth's side. Although the Avengers didn't play a significant role in this war, the portal was blocked by a thunderstorm summoned remotely by the Rain Master from across the ocean, the Chitauri mothership was repelled by Helicarrier clad in Space Armor, and the portal was closed by Wei Xiuming, who had impure motives.

But they did show their faces!

Thor wields his lightning, defeating one powerful enemy after another, and finally uses his lightning to seal the portal; Iron Man traverses the city, clearing out the Chitauri stragglers and rescuing civilians from their clutches... while the others are busy closing the spatial portal.

The Avengers, gathered in Stark Tower eating steak to recharge, were unaware that Nick Fury was planning to pin all the credit for defeating the aliens on them. They had the exposure and the traffic; who else could claim the title of Earth's number one team?

As for the funding allocated by the World Security Council for maintaining the Avengers Initiative, he accepted it without hesitation.

After reporting his success to the World Security Council, Nick Fury had Wei Xiuming teleport the Helicarrier away from the troublesome New York —the act had to be convincing, the credit went to the Avengers, what was the Helicarrier doing here? What if reporters filmed them?

And the situation in New York is currently a complete mess: traffic jams, communication disruptions, and disaster victims not being properly resettled—can we expect a country that relies entirely on armored vehicles for disaster relief to do any better?

Of course, it's not their fault. Back when the Hulk and Abomination were locked in fierce combat on Fifth Avenue, some people were still having a "zero-dollar shopping" spree. Now that the aliens have been defeated, the law enforcement system is paralyzed, and all kinds of modern equipment are disabled due to the magnetic field changes brought about by the thunderstorm. Vehicles and communication systems are all unusable. It's a golden opportunity. If they don't make a fortune now, when will they?

However, given New York's prominent position, the state government dispatched a large number of search and rescue teams to manage traffic, search for the injured, and most importantly, clear the rubble to expedite reconstruction.

Of course, without large equipment, they couldn't just rely on their hands and shovels to dig. Tony Stark made a bold move and directly established a professional team, paid high salaries, to carry out disaster relief work using Stark's high-tech mechanical equipment.

In order to make themselves look better and for the president to gain more votes in his next re-election campaign, the United States government created a department called the "Disaster Control Bureau" in conjunction with Stark, consisting of some people who did nothing but do the work and were known as bureaucrats.

While compiling casualty statistics, the personnel in charge of the data collection discovered something interesting: apart from the buildings that were directly destroyed, a large portion of the casualties were from buildings that had collapsed after being struck by the corpse of the Leviathan.

This data, which was originally supposed to be kept confidential by the authorities, was somehow leaked. Due to the war and thunderstorms, communications were cut off in New York and the surrounding areas, and cell phones couldn't even be turned on normally. However, other places were unaffected.

Then a bizarre line of reasoning emerged—the most deadly thing in the war was the destruction caused by the corpse of the Leviathan, and the Leviathan was defeated by the Avengers.

Therefore, the conclusion that the Avengers = murderers = monsters was born.

And so a bizarre scene unfolded: while the reconstruction of New York, funded and manned by Stark, was still underway, anti-superhero marches and protests broke out in other parts of the country. They held up banners that read "They shouldn't have died" and roamed the streets in large numbers.

Some government officials seized the opportunity to conduct news interviews, shifting the blame for the city's destruction onto the superheroes—regardless of the facts or the outcome, it was enough to throw the mud at the superheroes.

Suddenly, sharp social issues were directed at the Avengers and the two ambassadors from Latovinia.

After the Black Mist surrounding the Helicarrier was dispelled, the Helicarrier once again made contact with the world through various signals, and countless S.H.I.E.L.D.. employees reported their safety to their families.

Wei Xiuming said to Nick Fury, "What are you planning to do with the Tesseract?"

According to Asgard rules, the Tesseract was Wei Xiuming's spoils of war and should be disposed of by him, a point Thor agreed to. Loki wanted to say something, but seeing Wei Xiuming handle the activated Tesseract with his bare hands without even a burn mark, he knew Wei Xiuming was a true powerhouse, so he swallowed his words.

So Wei Xiuming brought it back, maintaining his character setting of saving humanity's future.

After this experience, Nick Fury realized that the Tesseract was a great tool, but also a hot potato, so he passed the problem back to Wei Xiuming: "What do you plan to do with it... for example, give it to Thor and have him take it back to Asgard for safekeeping?"

Asgard's attitude towards the Infinity Stones is very ambiguous. They have their own power system and technology, and do not need to rely on external objects like the Infinity Stones. Hela, the first in line to the throne of Asgard and the eldest Hela, only commented on the Tesseract as "not bad." Therefore, the Tesseract was destined to gather dust after Thor brought it back to Asgard.

But there is much that can be accomplished if one stays.

"Now, the World Security Council should be able to approve my outer space defense plan, right?" Wei Xiuming didn't follow Nick Fury's lead, but instead brought up his previous proposal that had been rejected by the World Security Council.