After a brief one-day rest at the new base, the mission to travel through time and collect the Stones was finally about to begin.

Clad in red-and-white Quantum Suits, the few tasked with the jump stood before the time-travel machine with solemn faces, poised and ready.

The hall was empty. Given that the base in the movie had been blown to rubble by a single shot from Thanos arriving through time, every Avenger not in the traveling party had deployed outside, fully armed, waiting in tense silence for the final moment to arrive.

Wizards with wands raised. Sorcerers with sling rings. Well-equipped Asgardian soldiers. Wakandan warriors gripping spears. Aliens of every strange shape imaginable.

Combat forces from across nearly the entire universe had converged on this small island. Seen from above, it was a dense, dark mass, enormous in number, utterly silent, the air thick with a suffocating pressure.

"We will succeed, won't we?"

Hermione had never fought in a battle of this scale before. Clutching a wand tight in one hand and holding Ron's sweaty palm in the other, Hermione turned to Yang Luoluo beside her. At the question, everyone gathered nearby looked over at once, waiting, hoping to hear Yang Luoluo give them the ending they needed.

Yang Luoluo pressed her lips together. She tightened her grip on the staff Frigga had given her. Fine beads of sweat had gathered at her forehead, her heart hammering so hard it felt like it might punch straight through her ribs.

Honestly, she had no idea whether the butterfly effect she'd set in motion would change the outcome of this battle. But this was not the moment for honesty.

"We will. We're going to win."

She said it.

Whether Hermione truly believed her, she couldn't tell. But the knot of tension wound through the people nearby loosened, just a little.

Yang Luoluo's hands and feet were ice-cold. She looked up at the towering, grand building in the distance, eyes filled with worry.

You have to succeed. All of you.

...

Inside the base.

"All right. Proceed according to the original plan."

Tony, Steve, and Scott exchanged a look. Something resolute settled in their eyes. All three pressed the wrist devices on their left hands at the same time, and in the blink of an eye, all three were gone.

The rest of them waited. Normally a minute went by in nothing. Right now, every second dragged like grains of sand scraping through an hourglass, and the anxiety was almost unbearable.

Banner paced back and forth, pulling out a phone to check the time over and over, before finally just planting both feet next to the machine and refusing to move. Even the smallest miscalculation could mean something going wrong for the three of them, and Banner was not going to be the one who missed it.

According to the original plot, four people should have traveled to 2012 New York: Tony, Steve, Scott, and Smart Hulk.

But Banner and Hulk had been completely and permanently separated. Sending Banner alone was too dangerous. Sending Hulk risked losing control. Sending both of them meant there weren't enough Pym Particles to cover the round trip.

So in the end, Banner had no choice but to stand here beside the machine, burning with restless energy.

"I wonder if they can stop that universe's Loki from escaping. Luoluo said he'd get taken away..."

Thor was worrying about the teammates, yes, but also about a version of a brother from another universe. Stormbreaker cradled in both arms, face grim.

Fortunately, the waiting didn't last long. One minute later, precise to the second, Tony's trio reappeared exactly where they had vanished.

Hair disheveled, a few small cuts on the face, Tony took one look at the two companions who had made the jump, brushed some dust off the suit, and turned to the others with an expression that sat somewhere between tired and resigned.

"Good news and bad news. Which do you want first?"

"This is really not the moment for suspense." Natasha pulled out a few tissues and held them out, nodding at the dirt and sweat on all three faces.

"Fair enough." Tony waved the tissues off, declining Natasha's offer, and wiped a face on a sleeve instead.

"Good news: all three Stones are back."

"Bad news—"

A sigh. Something rare crossed Tony's face: a look of genuine, helpless defeat. "I'm afraid our theory was right. There are certain things that were always going to happen. We can't change them."

The base went quiet.

...

"Oh God, this is the Battle of New York? The news reports really weren't exaggerating."

Scott craned back to look at the Chitauri sweeping across the sky, explosions rumbling in the distance, and let out a low whistle.

The Battle of New York had happened six years ago. Back then, Scott had just been thrown in prison for breaking into Vistacorp. Everything known about it came from the daily news block during lockup, a tiny screen, bad speakers, and a whole lot of secondhand awe.

"Live long enough and you really do see everything. I even get to experience the Battle of New York I missed the first time around."

"Oh — that's Cap from the past, right? I can see the shield!"

"This is unreal. I genuinely never thought I'd see any of this in person. You guys feel that too, right?"

Scott was still marveling at the sky full of Chitauri. One hand was already halfway to a pocket, ready to pull out a phone and record something to bring back for Cassie, and then Scott turned around and both Tony and Steve were already gone.

Scott quickly pressed the earpiece. Tony's voice came through immediately, dry as ever.

"I'd bet good money you and the baby spider have a lot to say to each other. You're both exactly the same kind of chatterbox."

"Do all insect-themed superheroes talk this much? Natasha never seemed like this."

"All right, Scott." Steve's voice cut in, patient and steady. "Your mission is to go to 177A Bleecker Street and find the Ancient One. Borrow the Time Stone. Just tell the truth, explain everything directly."

Scott swallowed the excitement back down and shrugged. "Copy that, Cap."

Honestly, Scott had the easiest assignment by far. All that was needed was to find the Ancient One, explain the situation, traveling here from six years in the future to borrow the Time Stone, and if that wasn't enough, pull out the video Stephen Strange had prerecorded on the phone. Straightforward.

The ones with the genuinely difficult tasks were Tony and Steve.

Tony slipped carefully into the former Stark Tower. Everything was unfolding exactly the way it had in the movie.

Having gotten into position early, disguised as a security guard, stationed in the ground-floor lobby, Tony waited quietly for the past Avengers to arrive with Loki via elevator.

It didn't take long. The elevator doors opened, and the familiar scene played out all over again. Tony watched Pierce and Thor argue over the Tesseract and what to do with Loki, then twitched a finger, quietly releasing a single nanobot.

Under Tony's watch, the imperceptible nanobot scurried nimbly up onto the past self's shoulder, slipped under the collar, and burrowed straight into the arc reactor.

Ant-Man Scott had been sent off to borrow the Time Stone. This was the only way left to take a past self out of the picture.

Sorry, past me.

That guilt lasted approximately one second. Then Tony gave the command.

The next moment, in front of everyone present, the past Tony seized the chest with both hands, face draining to a sickly purple-blue, and went down, collapsing to the floor, twitching, visibly unable to draw breath. Shouts of "Stark!" broke out from every direction.

Tony seized the opening, walked forward at a brisk pace, bent down as if just passing by, picked up the case holding the Tesseract, and turned to leave.

Bound in handcuffs and a muzzle, Loki tilted his head. Looked at the Tony on the floor. Looked at the suspiciously shifty security guard. Frowned.

Was it just an imagination? Because there seemed to be two entirely distinct traces of Stark's cologne in the air.

Tony had absolutely no idea what was running through the past Loki's head. The only thing on the mind right now was getting out of here cleanly with the Tesseract, linking back up with the others, and returning to the base to deal with that insufferable purple menace once and for all.

Wait, wasn't Hulk supposed to come smashing through that door?

Better stay well away from the door, then.

Tony looked at the door destined to be punched off its hinges and changed course with a shudder, drifting until practically pressed against the floor-to-ceiling windows. Nearby, Loki watched all this with an expression of complete and total bafflement.

Almost there. Almost clear. This has gone almost perfectly. Wonder how Cap and Scott are doing, probably fine, no reason anything should go wrong now,

"AAAH—!"

A piercing scream tore in from outside. It hit Tony's ears like a drill. Tony spun toward the window, the crowd on the street below had scattered in every direction, every face upturned in raw terror.

A sick feeling of dread settled in. Tony looked up,

A massive green shape launched itself from the upper floors and was hurtling downward at full speed, headed straight for Tony.

"Holy shit—" Despair. Pure despair.

...

Even though Banner hadn't been the one to do it, seeing Tony in that state still dredged up a distinct twinge of guilt.

"I was so far from that door! Who in the world could have predicted Hulk would skip the stairs and just jump straight out the window?!"

"And the Tesseract, completely ridiculous! That universe's Loki must have had a magnet installed somewhere. I was nowhere near him, and it still flew right over and landed at those feet!"

The more Tony talked, the angrier it got.

➤ Next: Asgard, 2013 — Face to Face

Chapter 110 - Asgard, 2013 — Face to Face

Tony had intended to avoid Hulk by hugging the floor-to-ceiling windows, but who could have predicted getting hit dead-on by a leaping Hulk? If Tony hadn't summoned the armor in time, the injuries would have been far worse.

In the end, no Tesseract. Tony slightly injured. And that universe's Loki had slipped away entirely. A complete waste of effort.

Banner guiltily looked away.

Thor patted Tony's shoulder in comfort, expressing wordless resignation over the other brother's escape, then turned to ask:

"And you, Cap? Nothing unexpected on your end, right?"

Steve let out a long sigh.

After posing as Hydra in the elevator and successfully securing the case containing Loki's scepter, Steve had immediately taken a different route to avoid running into the original Steve. The original Steve, as if guided by some cruel irony, had taken that exact same alternate route. Two Captain Americas, face to face.

"I have eyes on Loki." The past Steve pressed the earpiece with a confident smile, reporting to the teammates on the other end.

The future Steve slowly set the case down and spoke earnestly to that identical face, trying to reason with a counterpart who shared every feature.

"First — I'm not Loki. I'm you. From six years in the future."

"Second — Bucky is alive. You should go find Bucky. Now."

The past Steve went still.

"...And then?" Natasha couldn't help pressing for what came next. "Don't tell me it was like in the movie, where you two actually fought."

Steve scratched the back of his head, looking genuinely embarrassed by what had apparently happened, and smiled awkwardly.

"And then... while that past Steve was still stunned by what I'd said, I quietly reached over and poked him with Loki's scepter. He went down."

"So we didn't fight," Steve added.

"..."

Everyone stared.

Who would have thought someone with that face, so earnest, so upright, would pull a sneak attack?

There had been complications along the way, enough to force Tony and Steve to travel back several decades just to retrieve the Tesseract. But the outcome was good. Three Infinity Stones, secured.

"My turn!"

Thor lunged forward, scooped Rocket up, and gave him a vigorous rubdown against his stomach. Rocket put up a token struggle for about three seconds before going limp.

"Come on, little rabbit! I want to see if Mother in that universe recognizes me this time!"

Amid Thor's cheerful rambling and Rocket's long-suffering complaints, the two vanished.

"Ha, so this is the legendary Asgard? Wait, is that palace made of gold? Can I pry off a couple bricks? I swear, just two!"

The moment Rocket laid eyes on the gleaming Asgardian palace, both eyes went wide. If Thor hadn't grabbed the raccoon in time, Rocket would already have sprinted over to start prying.

"All right, all right, little rabbit." Thor kept one hand firmly on Rocket while swapping out of the Quantum Suit into his own Asgardian armor. "When we get back, I'll give you two bricks."

"God, that line just made you about ten times more attractive than usual!" Rocket pressed both hands to cheeks, feigning infatuation. Then turned around and actually was struck speechless.

"Now that's what I'm talking about. Noble and wild, exactly what I knew I saw in you."

Standing there before Rocket, Thor looked every inch the Asgardian Crown Prince he'd once been. Confident, sharp, full of fight. Like none of it had ever happened yet.

Thor skillfully braided his newly grown-out blond hair and patted Rocket on the head. "Let's move. We're here for the Aether."

They hadn't taken two steps before voices reached their ears. Thor and Rocket darted behind a nearby pillar simultaneously, each sneaking a head out to look.

Sure enough, Frigga, walking this way with a retinue of handmaidens. Thor could even make out her instructions to one of them: have several books sent down to Loki in the dungeon.

"We moving, Thor?"

Rocket glanced up. Thor didn't answer, staring fixedly toward Frigga, waving a hand to signal Rocket to go ahead without him.

Rocket shook his head, put exactly zero faith in that promise, dropped onto all fours, and scurried off in the other direction, toward where Jane Foster, currently host to the Aether in this timeline, should be.

Thor stayed behind the pillar. He smoothed his hair back and forth several times, tugged at his clothes, turned this way and that, trying to settle himself into the shape of this timeline's Thor.

Right. That ought to do it,

"What are you doing? Sneaking around isn't exactly your style."

"Ah —!"

Thor stumbled backward at the sudden voice, backpedaling until he hit another wall. Only then did he see clearly who had startled him.

Frigga stood where she'd stopped, wearing a small, guilty smile, watching her eldest son in wide-eyed panic.

"You really ought to take lessons from your brother. At the very least, Loki doesn't look like this when he gets caught preparing to cause trouble."

Frigga twisted the knife with a pleasant smile, then tilted her head.

"By the way, didn't you go hunting with Fandral and the others? How did you come back so soon?"

"I wasn't planning on doing anything bad..." Thor muttered. Then both eyes lit up.

Wait. She asked. Which meant she didn't know. Which meant the disguise had worked.

Thor's confidence came back all at once.

In the movie, Thor had let everything fall apart entirely. Of course past-Frigga had seen through that wreck. But now? A brother back. A mother restored. New Asgard rising. The worst threat imaginable with a real chance of being stopped.

Passing as past-self was trivial. Practically nothing.

"Ah, yes, the hunt went very well this time, so I came back a bit early. Yes. Exactly."

Thor pushed the lie out with some effort. Frigga, having no idea why her eldest had suddenly become so pleased with himself, simply stood there listening, her expression warm.

"Is that so? How wonderful." She nodded along.

Then, without warning, she stepped forward. Her hand rose gently to Thor's right eye. The faint ticklish touch made Thor blink.

A beat of silence.

"It looks so much like your original eye," she said quietly.

!

She knew. She had to know. She'd figured out he wasn't this timeline's Thor.

But how? Thor had been so convincing,

Thor's face drained. One hand jerked up to cover that eye, the gesture blindingly obvious even as it happened, and so the hand hastily converted mid-motion into scratching the back of his head instead. An awkward grin forced its way out.

"Wh, what eye? Mother, my eyes have always looked like this, haven't they?"

Frigga watched her ridiculous son go on earnestly patching the lie and couldn't help but sigh.

"I was raised by witches, my child."

The implication was clear enough: there was no point continuing.

All remaining doubt collapsed. Thor dropped his head. "I really thought I could fool you, Mother."

"Loki said it would definitely work," he added under his breath, stubborn to the last, which pulled a genuine laugh from Frigga.

Had it been Loki standing here in person, she might truly have been fooled.

But Thor...

Well. Being caught was only natural.

"Knowing you two are still this close in the future," Frigga said, "brings me great comfort."

Thor thought back over the pranks, nearly two a day on average, lately, and nodded along with tears in his eyes.

Frigga knew her sons. She always had. She reached up and patted his head.

Then Rocket came barreling around the corner, failed to stop in time, and slammed straight into Thor's leg. Scrambling upright, still talking.

"Move, move! Damn it, I definitely dodged them, how did those guards come around the other side?!"

Frigga looked down at Rocket with undisguised curiosity. Thor wrapped an awkward arm around the raccoon. "This is... my friend. Little rabbit. His name is Rocket."

Frigga's expression warmed. She leaned down slightly to greet Rocket. Only then did Rocket register, from the sound of Thor's voice, the way she looked, that Thor's mother was standing right here. The test tube of Aether was quietly shifted behind Rocket's back, and a well-behaved wave went up in Frigga's direction.

The guards' shouts were getting closer. Rocket grabbed a fistful of Thor's clothes. Thor thrust out his left hand.

Under Frigga's puzzled gaze, Mjolnir came sailing in, fashionably late.

Thor bounced it in one palm with obvious satisfaction. Once they got back, there was absolutely going to be a reckoning over who else could lift it.

The second before Rocket and Thor pressed their wrist devices, Frigga's voice reached Thor's ears. Thor looked over, startled.

But the finger had already come down. The last thing visible was Frigga smiling, raising one hand in a gentle wave.

Then they were gone.

➤ Next: Vormir, 2014