2012

This is a timeline of events that occurred in 2012.

* LexCorp creates a file containing informations about Wonder Woman.

#### 1st

* The first "Mandarin bombing" occurs, masquerading as a terrorist attack, and beginning the conflict later known as Aldrich Killian's War.

#### 30th

* Loki makes a deal with Thanos to recover the Tesseract from S.H.I.E.L.D. in exchange for a Chitauri army to conquer Earth.
* Realizing Loki is alive, Frigga tries to mentally communicate with him while he is in the Sanctuary. He refuses to respond to her, but she tells Thor and Odin he is still alive.

### May

#### 1st

* **Destruction of Project P.E.G.A.S.U.S.:**
	+ Aided by Thanos and his servant, 'The Other', Loki activates the Tesseract from within the Sanctuary. It teleports him to S.H.I.E.L.D.'s Joint Dark Energy Mission Facility in the Mojave Desert, where S.H.I.E.L.D. is conducting Project P.E.G.A.S.U.S..
	+ Loki steals the Tesseract and uses the Scepter given to him by Thanos to control the minds of several S.H.I.E.L.D. agents, including Erik Selvig and Clint Barton.
	+ They escape, and the Tesseract's energy destroys the base, beginning the Chitauri Invasion. In response, Nick Fury reactivates the Avengers Initiative.
* In Asgard, Heimdall sees Loki on Earth with the Tesseract, and informs Thor and Odin.

#### 2nd

* S.H.I.E.L.D. transfers Jane Foster to Tromsø, Norway to continue her research.
* In Russia, in the local evening, Natasha Romanoff is extracting information from Georgi Luchkov while letting him believe he is interrogating her. Phil Coulson calls one of Luchkov's henchmen and orders him to give Romanoff the phone or S.H.I.E.L.D.'s fighter jets will destroy the entire city block.
* Coulson tells Romanoff that she is needed, and while she is reluctant to leave her current mission, she agrees when Coulson mentions Barton has been compromised.
* In Kolkata, India, late at night locally, Natasha Romanoff tracks down Bruce Banner, and tells him his knowledge of Gamma Radiation is essential in helping S.H.I.E.L.D. locate the Tesseract. Banner reluctantly agrees to help S.H.I.E.L.D..
* In New York City, Steve Rogers sits in his new apartment looking through S.H.I.E.L.D. files. One of the files lists Peggy Carter's current phone number, and Rogers prepares to call her, but eventually decides not to.
* Nick Fury talks to the World Security Council, including Gideon Malick, about the Avengers Initiative.
* Unable to sleep, Steve Rogers goes to a boxing gym, where Nick Fury approaches him with a mission to retrieve the Tesseract.
* Tony Stark brings his miniaturized Arc Reactor online to power the newly opened Stark Tower in midtown Manhattan, built on the location of the former Pan Am Building. Phil Coulson visits Stark Tower in the night and asks him to review Erik Selvig's research on the Tesseract, as well as confidential material concerning the potential members of the Avengers Initiative.

#### 3rd

* Coulson flies Rogers to the Helicarrier, and tells him about the new uniform they have waiting for him.
* Loki conjures an image of himself to talk with The Other, who warns him not to fail his mission to retrieve the Tesseract, or else feel his master's wrath.
* Steve Rogers, Natasha Romanoff, and Bruce Banner meet on S.H.I.E.L.D.'s Helicarrier, and are impressed when it not only takes flight, but employs retro-reflective powers to "vanish".
* Erik Selvig tells the mind-controlled Clint Barton that he needs iridium. Barton and Loki make plans to go to Stuttgart to retrieve some of the element.
* The second Mandarin bombing occurs.
* Odin uses dark energy to transport Thor back to Earth.
* **Skirmish in Germany:**
	+ Banner sets to work tracking the gamma radiation the Tesseract gives off, while S.H.I.E.L.D.'s spy satellites find Loki in Stuttgart, Germany.
	+ Rogers (donning his new Captain America costume) and Romanoff travel to Stuttgart in a Quinjet to confront Loki, who is acting as a distraction as Hawkeye steals iridium to stabilize the Tesseract.
	+ Captain America fights him in the street, but the unexpected arrival of Iron Man prompts Loki to surrender.
	+ On the way back to the Helicarrier, the Quinjet is ambushed by Thor, who takes Loki and tries to reason with him.
	+ Iron Man pursues and fights Thor in a forest, but Captain America breaks up the fight and Thor agrees for Loki to be taken into S.H.I.E.L.D. custody.
* Parts of Vanaheim are attacked by Marauders. The Vanir in these areas retaliate, but are still defeated.
* On the Helicarrier, Loki is put in a cell designed to contain the Hulk. The Avengers debate about what to do with Loki, allowing him time to plot an escape.
* Tony Stark asks Bruce Banner about how he controls his powers.
* Late at night, Steve Rogers explores the lower levels of the ship and discovers a room full of weaponry.
* Erik Selvig uses the newly acquired iridium to advance his experiments.
* Coulson informs Thor that Jane Foster was safely moved to Tromsø the day before following Selvig's kidnapping.

#### 4th

* In the early hours of morning, Natasha Romanoff interrogates Loki in his cell, but he refuses to give in. However, in a moment of cruelty towards her, Loki accidentally lets slip that he is interested in Banner, and Romanoff realizes he intends to use the Hulk to escape.
* Meanwhile, Rogers finds several HYDRA weapons and uniforms from the 1940s in crates in the weapons room he had just discovered.
* **Attack on the Helicarrier:**
	+ As the sun is coming up, Rogers confronts Nick Fury, who confesses S.H.I.E.L.D. wants the Tesseract to develop weaponry.
	+ Loki's mind-controlled agents led by Hawkeye invade the Helicarrier and damage one of its engines.
	+ While Iron Man and Captain America race to repair the engine before the ship crashes, Bruce Banner loses control, turns into the Hulk and goes on a rampage through the ship.
	+ Black Widow frees Hawkeye of his mind-control by knocking him out. Thor distracts the Hulk, while Fury and Maria Hill hold off the other mind-controlled agents. The Hulk jumps out of the Helicarrier to attack a hovering F-35 jet, but ends up falling from the sky and crashing into an abandoned warehouse on the ground below.
	+ Thor tries to stop Loki from escaping, but gets trapped in Loki's cell and ejected from the ship, landing in a field. Phil Coulson confronts Loki, armed with a weapon made from the Destroyer's parts, but Loki stabs him to death with his scepter.
* Following his escape from the Helicarrier, Loki commandeers Stark Tower. The mind-controlled Erik Selvig uses a machine powered by the Tesseract to open a portal into space, allowing the Chitauri to invade Earth.
* The Avengers begin fighting to stop the invasion.
* The Chitauri on the sides of New York buildings scream. The Avengers come together in a circle, prepared to fight, as more Leviathans rain down from the sky.
* Captain America starts to give instructions to the Avengers for directing their battle strategy against the alien threat. He tells Hawkeye to take a nearby roof and assigns Iron Man the perimeter, then Stark flies Barton to the roof. He sends Thor to try to strike lightning at the portal, tells Black Widow to stay with him on the ground, and finally instructs Hulk to "smash".
* Hulk leaps onto a nearby building.
* Hulk smashes a Chitauri against a wall.
* Hulk leaps from building to building, pummeling Chitauri.
* Thor flies up to the Chrysler Building to use it as a conductor.
* Thor channels electricity through the Chrysler Building and fires it at the portal, taking out some Chitauri and an oncoming Leviathan.
* Meanwhile, Hulk passes an alley, on a smashing rage as he attacks Chitauri. He kills one using the wreckage of a car, before continuing on.
* On the Helicarrier, Nick Fury surveys monitors showing what is happening.
* Maria Hill tells Fury that the World Security Council are calling.
* Hawkeye advises Stark to lead the Chitauri around tight corners to have them crash. He does so, taking out the aliens tailing him, then goes to help Thor.
* **Battle of Hong Kong:**
	+ War Machine battles more allies of the Ten Rings.
	+ Iron Man contacts him to request help in the Battle of New York, but Rhodes is attacked by a tank using Hammer Industries technology.
	+ Unable to call for back-up because most of the United States Armed Forces is fighting the Chitauri invasion, War Machine manages to defeat the attackers and immediately flies to New York to help Stark.
* **Battle of New York:**
	+ From the battle, enormous damage is caused to midtown New York City, and many lives are lost, but the Avengers save as many civilians as they can.
	+ Darcy Lewis shows Jane Foster live footage of Thor fighting Chitauri in New York.
	+ In Asgard, Sif asks Heimdall if Thor survived his travel to Earth. While he confirms Thor is safe, Heimdall worries Loki's forces may be too much for Thor to handle.
	+ Dave Griffith, a young boy from Harlem, records the Battle of New York, later selling the footage
* A Leviathan whale heads toward a building, but Hulk runs through the building and leaps at it, attacking it in the mouth and redirecting it.
* Black Widow uses a Chitauri weapon against one of the aliens. Captain America arrives and she says they need to do something about the portal. To get up to it, she decides to board an oncoming Chitauri vehicle, and Rogers boosts her on his shield to get her up.
* Black Widow rides the vehicle, and Iron Man flies past. He joins Captain America, firing a repulsor blast off his shield to help take out alien combatants, before continuing on. Hawkeye continues to fire at aliens, as Hulk continues to fight Chitauri on a Leviathan, joined by Thor, who helps him hammer a piece of the vehicle into the Leviathan's back, killing it. It falls into Grand Central Terminal, where Hulk also punches Thor as retaliation for earlier.
* Erik Selvig wakes, his mind control broken, and sees what is happening around him.
* The military enter the streets to do what they can.
* Hawkeye directs Captain America to a nearby bank, where he goes and stops a Chitauri attack from killing civilians, before being blasted out of the building.
* The World Security Council tell Fury that they have made the decision to make a nuclear strike on Manhattan so as to contain the threat only to the island, but Fury refuses.
* Black Widow finds herself fired at by Loki, on his own Chitauri vehicle. Hawkeye fires an arrow at him to help her. Loki catches it, but the arrow explodes in his face, blowing him onto Stark Tower, where his vehicle knocks the "S" and "T" off the logo.
* Hulk leaps onto Stark Tower and attacks Loki. Loki tries to intimidate him, but Hulk merely grabs hold of him and bashes him into the floor repeatedly, leaving him unable to move.
* Romanoff finds Selvig on the tower, who tells her that he believes Loki's Scepter, fallen on the floor below them, may be able to close the portal.
* Iron Man finds himself unable to break through the shell of a Leviathan whale, so instead tries flying directly into its mouth, managing to explode it from the inside. He falls to the ground and finds himself again battling Chitauri.
* Hawkeye runs out of arrows and has to kick an attacking alien off his perch. As his building is attacked, he leaps off, firing a grappling hook arrow to swing himself around, through a window below.
* Barton falls to an office floor, safe, but in pain.
* Meanwhile, the Ancient One helps fight the invading forces from the New York Sanctum.
* At the same time, Hulk is swarmed by Chitauri but keeps fighting them off.
* Hulk is blasted at from all sides.
* The World Security Council order a nuclear strike to Manhattan, and one pilot goes to take off. Fury arrives with a rocket launcher and manages to take out the jet, but another jet flies off to deliver the missile.
* The jet gets away with the missile. Fury calls Stark and lets him know that there is a missile heading for New York in the next 3 minutes.
* The jet pilot fires the nuke at New York on World Security Council orders.
* Thor and Captain America continue to fight Chitauri together.
* Having retrieved the Scepter, Black Widow and Selvig start to push through the Tesseract's defenses to shut down the portal. Stark orders Romanoff on comms to wait, telling them about the nuke, and having the idea to send it through the portal as he grabs the missile to redirect it.
* J.A.R.V.I.S. tries to call Pepper Potts for Stark in case he dies taking the missile through the portal. However, Potts, on a flight, is too concerned watching the news to see her phone ringing.
* S.H.I.E.L.D. watch the news intently on the Helicarrier.
* Stark starts to turn the missile.
* Hulk gets up from under the rubble left by the Chitauri's attack on him.
* Stark diverts the missile up into the air at Stark Tower, and through the portal.
* S.H.I.E.L.D. cheer in relief for New York, though Fury is concerned for Stark.
* Iron Man finds himself in deep space, and his suit begins to fail. He lets go of the missile and it continues flying, hitting the Chitauri mother ship and causing an enormous explosion.
* On Earth, the remaining Chitauri and Leviathan fleet fail and fall down dead without the power of the mother ship.
* Iron Man falls back toward the portal, but the explosion threatens to get through to Earth as well, so Rogers orders Black Widow to close it. Stark falls back into the New York sky just before its closure, but continues to fall, unconscious. Hulk leaps and catches Stark to slow his fall.
* Captain America, Thor, and Hulk crowd around the unconscious Iron Man, and Hulk manages to wake him. Rogers notes that they just won, and Stark jokes about wanting to try shawarma, though Thor points out they are not quite finished.
* The Avengers crowd around Loki to apprehend him.
* In Stark Tower, Loki crawls to get up following his injuries.
* Loki stops crawling, realizing he is not alone.
* Loki turns, only to find the Avengers all standing over him, Hawkeye with his bow drawn.
* Loki forlornly tells the Avengers he would like his previously offered drink now.
* Hulk grunts at Loki's request.
* Stark instructs the other Avengers to get Loki on his feet. The group wait for S.H.I.E.L.D.'s arrival.
* The STRIKE team arrive at the Avengers' floor in Stark Tower to retrieve the Scepter. Jasper Sitwell takes the Scepter from Romanoff and he and Brock Rumlow pack it away, secretly taking the Scepter with the hope of getting it into HYDRA research hands, as HYDRA sleeper agents themselves.
* As the team head to the Stark Tower elevator, Loki uses his powers to make himself look like Captain America and mock him. Thor takes a muzzle and places it on his brother to silence him.
* Stark closes the case containing the Tesseract.
* Iron Man, Thor, Loki, and several S.H.I.E.L.D. agents board the elevator. Hulk tries to get in himself, but Thor and Stark point out the elevator is full. Hulk angrily goes to take the stairs.
* The STRIKE team's elevator descends past the 80th floor.
* Sitwell talks to Alexander Pierce on the phone and tells him that there were no hitches in procuring the Scepter, and they are on route to Dr. List.
* Hulk continues to descend the staircase, enraged by how many stairs there are.
* Stark and Thor leave the elevator to the Stark Tower lobby with Loki.
* Alexander Pierce stops Thor and Stark. Thor says they are going to get lunch, then intend on taking Loki and the Tesseract to Asgard, but Pierce insists they turn Loki and the Tesseract over to him. An argument begins between them, which the Avengers eventually manage to win, keeping control over Loki and the Tesseract.
* Hulk comes bursting through the lobby door, furious at having had to take the stairs.
* Tired from the battle, the Avengers gather at a local shawarma restaurant recommended by Stark. While they have their lunch, War Machine arrives to help in the battle, only to discover they have already won.
* A Ten Rings agent reports to the Mandarin about their recent conflict with War Machine. Although their operatives did not manage to capture James Rhodes, they scanned his armor with every possible device, thus obtaining invaluable information about the technology.

#### 5th

* Thor returns to Asgard with Loki and the Tesseract, while the other Avengers go their separate ways.
* Tony Stark and Pepper Potts look at plans for reconstructing the damaged Stark Tower, which has lost the "S", "T", "R", and "K" on the outside from the battle. They choose to repurpose the remaining "A" to stand for the newly formed group, rebranding as "Avengers Tower".
* Meanwhile, the Toomes Salvage Company recovers Chitauri technology from the wreckage. They are interrupted when a woman leading a group of officials arrives and tells them that from now on, their Department of Damage Control will be overseeing the cleanup of major events such as this, as sanctioned by Tony Stark and the government. Toomes is angered for having lost his business with no compensation, and punches one official, before being forced to leave the site.
* The Other confers with his master about Loki's defeat, the loss of the Tesseract, and Earth's new protectors. He claims attacking Earth again would be an act of suicide. His master, Thanos simply turns and smiles, thinking of things to come.
* Odin sentences Loki to an eternity of imprisonment in the Asgardian Dungeons.
* Jane Foster and Darcy Lewis arrive in New York in search of Thor, but Erik Selvig, freed from Loki's mind control but still in shock from the battle, reveals Thor has already left.
* Heimdall tells Thor that Vanaheim has been attacked. He gives Heimdall the Tesseract so he can repair the Bifrost Bridge. They then spend the next year assembling an army.
* Foster is frustrated about spending two years of her life searching for Thor, and gives up her research of the Nine Realms.
* Toomes and his crew lament the loss of their company. When they realize they have a lot of equipment left, Toomes convinces them to turn to the black market and make weapons from the technology to sell, noting that the world is changing, and they need to change to match it.
* Tony Stark begins making the Iron Legion to keep himself occupied during periods of anxiety following his near-death experience in space.

#### 7th

* Stark shows James Rhodes the first suits of the Iron Legion.

#### 25th

* An alien criminal named Boris the Animal, a Boglodite, escapes from a maximum-security prison on the Moon to take revenge on Agent K, who shot off his left arm and captured him in 1969. He confronts K and his partner Agent J, and tells him he is "already dead". Back at MiB Headquarters, J discovers K was responsible not only for capturing Boris, but for deploying the "ArcNet", a shield that prevented the Boglodites from conquering Earth, leading to their extinction.
* Boris travels back in time to July 16, 1969, to kill the young Agent K, altering history. With only J's memory somehow unaffected, no one else at the Agency understands his inquiries and knowledge regarding K until Agent O, the new Chief of MIB following Zed's death, eventually pieces together J's erratic actions as signs that there has been a fracture in the space-time continuum. With K gone, the ArcNet was never deployed, and present-day Earth is defenseless from a Boglodite invasion.

### June

#### 1st

* To cover up the explosive nature of the Extremis virus, Aldrich Killian hires actor Trevor Slattery to pose as a terrorist leader called the Mandarin, so whenever Extremis causes a patient to explode, the media and government will assume they are suicide bombings.

#### 2nd

* NASA conducts a mission in Canada, in the same place that, one year later, *Scout Ship 0344* will be found.

#### 3rd

* Slattery gets plastic surgery so he is not recognized when he appears on television as the Mandarin.

#### 4th

* Following his return to the modern world as a renowned hero, Steve Rogers is snatched up to be the face of many campaigns. One of these, not long after the Battle of New York, includes a set of videos for students in schools. He records many videos, including a fitness challenge, a video for students in detention, and one on the importance of patience.

### July

#### 12th

* Scott Lang is fired from Vistacorp due to inadvertently fixing what he believed was a code mistake that was illegally overcharging customers.

#### 14th

* **Robbery of Vistacorp**: Scott Lang infiltrates the Vistacorp Headquarters to return about four million dollars to the customers who had been defrauded by the company. Lang then breaks into the mansion of his former boss, Geoff Zorick. He steals many of Zorick's belongings and drives Zorick's car into the mansion's pool.

#### 15th

* *Gangnam Style* by Psy is released.
* Scott Lang is arrested for stealing from both Vistacorp and Geoff Zorick. He is then given a five-year sentence at San Quentin State Prison.

#### 17th

* Scott Lang meets with 'Peachy' in San Quentin State Prison to talk about the Vista job. This conversation starts a prison fight.
* Scott Lang meets his cellmate Luis in prison, and explains that he is upset about his wife, Maggie, divorcing him.