2012

This is a timeline of events that occurred in **2012**.

	+ 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.

#### 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

* Phil Coulson flies Steve 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.
* **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.
* 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.
	+ 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.
	+ 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.
	+ 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.
* **Battle of New York**:
	+ 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.
	+ 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.
	+ 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.
* 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.
* Tired from the battle, the Avengers gather at a local shawarma restaurant recommended by Stark.

#### 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".
* 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.

#### 6th

* Maria Hill is interviewed by the World Security Council regarding Nick Fury, the Avengers, and their involvement in the Chitauri's invasion.

## References

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