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Then they were falling through open air.
FURY had dove straight off the Helicarrier, taking her with it into freefall, and wind screamed past them as they plummeted from five thousand feet with the Atlantic rushing up at terminal velocity, water looking like concrete from this height.
Domino's vision blurred from lack of oxygen, the grip on her throat crushing her windpipe faster than she could heal while she clawed desperately at metal fingers that wouldn't budge, that felt like they were made of solid titanium.
Her healing factor worked overtime with consciousness fading, snapping back, nearly dying and reviving in rapid succession where each breath was a struggle and each heartbeat labored and painful. The experience left her thoughts fragmenting and scattering, terror creeping in at the edges of her awareness despite years of training to suppress fear.
This was bad, really bad, worse than Savage Land or that clusterfuck in London where she'd almost died twice.
Then crimson strings erupted from every inch of her body without conscious thought.
The cocoon formed instantly, wrapping around her as the quantum manipulation responded to desperation and survival instinct, creating something she'd only theorized about during practice sessions with Jay watching and offering suggestions.
The strings expanded, solidified, transformed into something massive, and in seconds Domino found herself in the cockpit of a forty-foot translucent crimson mecha with a design pulled straight from Jay's memories that she'd glimpsed during their most intimate moments, when their minds had touched.
A Gundam, proper and beautiful.
She gasped for air, throat finally free from that crushing grip, blood clinging to her face from the beating while her healing factor was already working overtime on the damage, knitting broken bones and torn tissue.
"My man was right." Her grin returned, wild and bloody and completely unhinged. "Gundam really is a man's first love. God, this feels good."
FURY had released her when the cocoon formed, falling separately now through the sky, but Domino didn't give it a chance to recover as the mecha's hand formed into a massive crimson cannon that hummed with power and she opened fire without hesitation.
The beam struck FURY mid-fall, carrying it sideways with tremendous force, and they were still thousands of feet up with plenty of room to maneuver and fight.
The aerial battle began in earnest.
Domino pulled the fight away from the Helicarrier with deliberate intent, leading FURY over empty Atlantic waters where nothing below could be hurt, where civilians wouldn't die from falling debris, and the mecha moved with her thoughts like an extension of her body as energy cannons formed and fired in rapid succession, blades materialized for close combat, shield generators blocked incoming attacks with shimmering barriers.
But FURY adapted to everything she threw at it.
At first damage stuck with burns from energy weapons and tears from blade strikes that left the cyborg sparking and leaking, but with each passing minute effectiveness decreased until the same attack that had obliterated its arm now barely scratched the plating, until beam weapons that had melted through steel did nothing. Within half an hour her energy weapons did nothing but create light shows. By the hour mark even her most creative combinations, even switching damage types and attack vectors on the fly, failed completely against plating that had learned every trick.
FURY had adapted to reality warping itself, had evolved past the fundamental nature of her powers.
"You've gotta be kidding me." Domino's breathing was labored, sweat pouring from sustained effort and exhaustion creeping into her bones. "What kind of bullshit is this?"
"PERFECTION." FURY's voice carried satisfaction that was almost sexual. "ADAPTIVE. LEARNING. IMMORTAL. EVERYTHING JAY STOLE FROM ME. EVERYTHING HE TOOK AND PERVERTED FOR HIS OWN USE. I WAS SUPPOSED TO BE ETERNAL."
It punched through the mecha's head with a single strike and the crimson construct shattered like glass, fragments dissipating into energy, and metal fingers closed around Domino again with crushing force, pulling her free from the cockpit.
She tried everything in her arsenal, summoned weapons, bent probability to impossible degrees, manipulated quantum strings in patterns that should have worked, but all of it slid off FURY with complete immunity, with adaptation so perfect it was like her powers didn't exist.
"THIS IS IT, NEENA." FURY held her suspended thousands of feet above the Atlantic, wind howling around them. "THIS IS WHERE YOU DIE. WHERE JAY'S HEART BREAKS AS EVERYTHING HE LOVES TURNS TO ASH AND DUST. WHERE HE LEARNS WHAT I LEARNED, THAT DEATH COMES FOR EVERYONE. EVEN HIM. EVENTUALLY."
Domino met that single yellow eye with her own scarlet-touched gaze, defiant even now, blood running from her nose, her ears, her mouth from sustained internal damage while the taste of copper filled her mouth and her thoughts were getting fuzzy around the edges, consciousness slipping.
But she smiled anyway, teeth stained red with her own blood.
"He's gonna rip you apart, you know that right?" Her voice was hoarse but steady. "Whatever you are, whatever you think you've become, Jay's gonna unmake you so completely that reality itself will forget you existed."
"PERHAPS. BUT YOU WON'T LIVE TO SEE IT."
FURY's weapon arm charged with yellow energy coiling brighter than ever, building to critical mass, ready to vaporize her.
Then rainbow light materialized across the sky.
The Bifrost descended from the heavens like the hand of God himself, a pillar of pure cosmic power that turned the sky into a kaleidoscope of impossible colors, and the beam struck not just Domino but locations all across the globe simultaneously with thousands of connection points visible from space, each one marked by that distinctive rainbow glow that meant Asgardian intervention.
Domino felt warmth spread through her chest, not burning or painful, just warm and familiar and safe in ways that made her want to cry.
She knew this feeling, had felt it during their most intimate moments when Jay held her close and made promises he fully intended to keep.
A blue lighted thread descended from heaven itself and touched her chest.
The ring. The tether. The band forged in Nidavellir by dwarven hands, bound by a vow of protection and love that transcended space and time.
"Jay." Her voice was barely a whisper, choked with emotion and relief. "You beautiful, crazy bastard. You actually did it."
The Bifrost intensified around her and Domino felt herself being pulled gently, like loving hands guiding her home.
FURY's grip tightened desperately, trying to hold her, but this was cosmic power channeled through dwarven craftsmanship and bound by love stronger than death itself, and the adaptive plating that had evolved to counter reality warping couldn't adapt to this fast enough, couldn't learn to resist the will of Asgard.
Domino was torn free from FURY's grasp like tissue paper.
All across the world the same thing happened as rainbow aurora formed across the sky in impossible beauty.
Golden motes of light descended like falling stars, drifting down slowly and gracefully, beautiful against the backdrop of destruction and chaos, and each mote carried warmth and comfort and the promise of salvation to those who needed it most.
The contrast was stark and striking with beauty and hope above while death and mechanical slaughter raged below in streets filled with screaming.
FURY hung suspended in mid-air, its single eye tracking where Domino now rested safe in a man's arms, and its head tilted at that unnatural angle while processing what had just happened, while its systems tried to understand how it had failed.
Then that eye brightened to painful intensity, glowing like a small sun.
The golden motes continued their descent, beautiful and impossible, promising that hope wasn't dead yet, that someone somewhere had succeeded in something incredible, that salvation was real.
And as the rainbow light faded and the rescue concluded across every continent simultaneously, one truth became clear to everyone watching in shelters and streets and battlefields.
Jay had kept his promise to his people.
The tether had held against impossible odds.
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