30th March 1999
Novi Grad, Sokovia
Consciousness returned to Wanda Maximoff slowly, painfully, like someone dragging her upward through freezing water. At first there was only sound — a shrill ringing in her ears that drowned out everything else — and then came the smell of smoke and pulverized concrete thick enough to choke on.
Her eyes fluttered open to darkness and drifting dust. For several long seconds she could not understand what she was looking at. The apartment around her no longer resembled home. Half the ceiling had collapsed inward, exposing twisted steel beams and cracked concrete overhead. One entire wall facing the street had been blown apart, allowing cold night air to sweep through the ruined room alongside distant orange firelight. Somewhere outside, people were screaming.
Wanda pushed herself upright weakly, her entire body trembling. Her thoughts felt slow and disconnected. She looked behind her where her parents had been sitting happily only moments earlier, but all she saw now was rubble and broken furniture buried beneath gray dust. The dining table lay overturned against a shattered wall. Glass glittered across the floor. Smoke drifted through the apartment in thin curling trails.
"Mama?" she called weakly.
No answer came.
Her breathing quickened. "Papa?"
Still nothing.
Beside her, Pietro stirred with a groan. His blue eyes opened suddenly, confusion flashing across his face before terror replaced it almost instantly as he took in the destroyed apartment around them. Another explosion echoed through the city, close enough that the floor beneath them vibrated.
"Wanda!" Pietro grabbed her wrist hard enough to hurt. "Come on. Under the bed! Quickly!"
The building groaned around them as though the entire structure were slowly tearing itself apart. Dust rained from the ceiling in thick clouds. Pietro half-pulled, half-dragged her toward the bed just as another section of concrete cracked loose overhead. Wanda heard the sound a fraction too late.
A heavy chunk of debris came crashing down.
The edge of it struck Pietro across the side of the head with a sickening crack.
Pietro collapsed instantly.
"Pietro!"
Wanda dropped beside him in panic. Blood was already running through his silver-blond hair, spilling down his forehead and onto the floor in frightening amounts. Her brother's eyes were closed. He did not move.
"No, no, no…"
Another explosion thundered somewhere nearby. The apartment building shuddered violently.
Tears blurred Wanda's vision as she hooked her arms beneath Pietro's shoulders and pulled with all the strength her small body possessed. He was heavier than she expected. Her hands slipped on blood and dust. Every second felt impossibly loud — the screaming outside, the cracking walls, the pounding of her own heart.
Then the second mortar shell hit.
It tore through the floor above with a deafening shriek and smashed into the apartment barely a few feet away from them. The shell embedded itself nose-first into the cracked concrete floor, hissing with heat and smoke.
A red light on its side began blinking.
Beep.
Beep.
Beep.
Wanda stared at it in frozen horror.
In another universe, terror would have reached deep into the hidden well of ancient chaos sleeping inside her soul. Probability itself would have twisted unconsciously around her fear, preventing the shell from detonating.
But here, Wanda's entire world had narrowed to the blood soaking through her fingers as she cradled Pietro's unconscious head.
She could barely breathe.
"Please…" she whispered brokenly, tears streaming down her face. "Please... Someone help…"
The shell continued its steady mechanical beeping.
Beep.
Beep.
Then, impossibly, a door appeared in the middle of the ruined apartment.
Not falling from above. Not emerging from a wall.
It simply materialized into existence.
Wanda froze.
The handle turned slowly.
The door opened.
A young man stepped through.
He looked completely out of place amidst the devastation around him. Tall and dark-haired, dressed in clean clothes untouched by dust or blood. There was no panic in his expression, no fear. His eyes moved calmly across the ruined apartment, taking everything in within a single glance, until finally resting upon the mortar shell blinking only a few feet away.
The stranger raised one hand toward it.
The shell exploded.
Wanda screamed and threw herself across Pietro's body, curling over him protectively as she braced for fire and death.
Neither came.
No blast wave struck her.
No heat touched her skin.
After several seconds of stunned silence, Wanda slowly lifted her head and turned towards the bomb.
The mortar shell was gone.
In its place hovered a translucent sphere glowing with pale blue light. Smoke, dust, and fragments of twisted metal churned violently inside it as though trapped within invisible glass. The explosion itself appeared to have somehow been frozen in time.
The stranger stood before it with one hand still raised, his expression focused but utterly calm.
Then, with the smallest movement of his fingers, the glowing sphere vanished.
So did everything trapped inside it.
Wanda could only stare.
The young man walked toward them, stepping carefully over broken concrete. As he approached, several large chunks of rubble blocking the space around the bed suddenly lifted into the air and drifted aside weightlessly. Wanda's breath caught in her throat. The concrete moved as though gravity itself had simply stopped applying to it.
The stranger crouched in front of the bed, lowering himself to her eye level. When he spoke, his voice was soft and steady, carrying none of the panic filling the city outside.
"Are you okay?" he asked in English.
Before Wanda could answer, Pietro let out a weak groan beside her.
Immediately she turned toward him. "My brother," she said desperately, struggling through tears and accented English. "Please… help him…"
Something in the stranger's expression softened. He reached forward and gently placed one hand against Pietro's bleeding forehead. Then he spoke a few quiet words in a language Wanda did not recognize.
"Sanare Vulnera."
A warm golden glow spread beneath his palm.
Wanda stared in disbelief as the blood stopped flowing almost instantly. The torn flesh on Pietro's forehead slowly closed itself, the ugly gash knitting together until no trace of the injury remained. Even the blood staining his skin disappeared.
The stranger removed his hand.
Wanda looked at the man with growing disbelief and fear. He had stopped an exploding bomb with a gesture. He had moved concrete without touching it. He had healed Pietro as though injuries meant nothing to him.
The stranger waved one hand again, and the heavy bed above them lifted into the air effortlessly before floating aside. Beyond the shattered remains of the apartment came distant shouting and bursts of gunfire echoing through the streets of Novi Grad.
"It's dangerous here," the young man said quietly. "We need to leave."
Wanda shook her head immediately. "Mama and Papa," she said. "I need to find them."
The stranger was silent for a moment. Then he slowly turned and looked around the destroyed apartment. His gaze settled on one corner buried beneath collapsed debris.
He raised his hand.
The rubble began to move.
Large chunks of concrete lifted away one after another, exposing what had been hidden beneath them.
Wanda's breath caught painfully in her throat.
"No…"
Her parents lay there unmoving beneath the broken remains of the apartment.
Her mother's arm was twisted beneath her body. Her father's chest was crushed beneath a slab of concrete. Dust covered their faces like gray ash.
Wanda stumbled toward them with a broken cry and collapsed beside the bodies. She wrapped her arms around her father first and then her mother, shaking violently as reality finally crashed down upon her.
"Mama…" she sobbed. "Mama please…"
Neither moved.
She looked back toward the stranger through tear-filled eyes. "You helped Pietro," she begged desperately. "Please… please help them too…"
The young man looked at her silently for several long seconds, and Wanda understood the answer before he finally spoke.
"I'm sorry."
The words shattered something inside her.
She buried her face against her father's chest and cried as the apartment trembled around them. Another distant explosion rolled through the city. Dust drifted from the cracked ceiling overhead.
After a while, the stranger walked closer and gently rested a hand against her back.
"We have to go," he said quietly. "It isn't safe here."
"I can't leave them…" Wanda whispered.
"You need to think about your brother."
Wanda turned her head slowly.
Pietro still lay unconscious nearby, pale but breathing steadily now only because this stranger had appeared when he did.
Her hands tightened against her father's coat.
Then, with visible effort, she slowly nodded.
The stranger gave her a moment before raising his hand once more. Her parents' bodies vanished soundlessly, not violently or frighteningly, but gently, as though placed somewhere beyond the destruction surrounding them.
Wanda stared at the empty space where they had lain.
Then blue light suddenly burst into existence nearby, expanding in a widening circle until it formed a glowing portal in the middle of the ruined apartment. Through it Wanda could see a garden lit by overhead streetlights, impossibly peaceful compared to the nightmare around her.
The stranger bent down and carefully lifted Pietro onto his shoulder.
Wanda looked up at him with red, tear-filled eyes. "Who are you?" she asked softly.
The young man smiled gently.
"My name is Benjamin Carter," he said. "And I'm here to help."
Wanda swallowed hard before answering in a trembling voice.
"...I'm Wanda."
Benjamin extended his free hand toward her.
After a long moment, Wanda slowly reached out and took it.
Together, they stepped through the portal.
---
12:11 AM, 31st March 1999
Bloomsbury Hotel, London
The portal opened soundlessly into the quiet darkness of Bedford Square Garden.
Cold London air immediately replaced the smoke and burning dust of Novi Grad. After the chaos of Sokovia, the stillness here felt almost unreal. The garden was empty at this hour, its pathways silvered faintly beneath old lamplight, the bare branches of the trees swaying gently in the night breeze. Beyond the square rose rows of Georgian buildings with their pale facades and darkened windows, calm and untouched by war.
I stepped out first, Pietro still unconscious over my shoulder, followed a second later by Wanda. The girl paused the moment she crossed the portal, staring around with wide, disbelieving eyes. Even in the dim light I could see how exhausted she looked. Dust still clung to her hair and clothes. Tear tracks streaked her face. Her entire body seemed caught between shock and grief.
"Where are we?" she asked quietly.
"Bedford Square," I replied, glancing around the empty garden. "London. United Kingdom."
The words felt oddly nostalgic leaving my mouth. I looked briefly toward the surrounding buildings before continuing, "I came by this place a few years ago. There's a nice hotel nearby. We can stay there tonight."
Wanda said nothing after that. She simply nodded faintly and followed close beside me as we exited the square and walked southeast through the sleeping streets of Bloomsbury. London after midnight possessed a strange kind of silence. Not true silence — the distant hum of traffic still existed somewhere beyond the narrow streets — but compared to the artillery fire and collapsing buildings we had left behind only minutes ago, it felt almost peaceful.
We crossed toward Adeline Place before turning onto Great Russell Street. A few taxis rolled through the wet roads beneath glowing streetlamps, their tires hissing softly over the pavement. Most of the city was asleep. The occasional pedestrian passed us without more than a glance.
Ahead, the Bloomsbury Hotel came into view, its warmly lit windows standing out against the dark street. The polished brass outside reflected the lamplight softly. As we approached the entrance, the doorman immediately stepped forward and pulled open the glass door.
"Good evening, sir."
I gave him a brief nod and walked inside.
The warmth of the lobby hit us immediately. Soft golden lighting spilled across polished marble floors and dark wood paneling. Somewhere nearby, quiet piano music drifted through hidden speakers. Wanda slowed slightly as she looked around, clearly overwhelmed by the contrast between this place and the ruins she had just left behind.
We crossed the lobby toward the reception desk. The receptionist looked up as we approached, her professional smile already in place — though I did notice the brief flicker of confusion in her eyes as she took in the sight of a dusty little girl and an unconscious boy slung over my shoulder.
Still, to her credit, she recovered quickly.
"Good evening, sir," she said pleasantly. "Welcome to The Bloomsbury. Checking in?"
"Yes," I said easily. "Though I'm afraid we don't have a reservation."
"That shouldn't be a problem." She turned toward her computer and typed for several moments. The monitor looked noticeably more advanced than most late-90s systems I remembered from my original world. Then again, in a world where geniuses like Howard Stark and Hank Pym had existed for decades, technological development had clearly taken a few shortcuts.
The receptionist smiled again. "You're in luck. We have a luxury suite available, if you'd like it, Mr…?"
"Carter," I supplied with a small smile. "Benjamin Carter. And yes, we'll take the suite."
"Excellent, Mr. Carter." She clicked something on the screen before looking back up at me. "I'll just need some identification to complete the registration."
I raised my hand casually and performed a subtle wandless Confundus Charm. The magic slipped gently into her mind without resistance.
"You don't need to see my ID," I said calmly.
Her eyes unfocused for a fraction of a second.
"I don't need to see your ID," she repeated blankly.
Beside me, Wanda looked up curiously.
The receptionist blinked several times as if trying to clear away sudden fog from her thoughts. Then, without questioning anything further, she slid a registration card and pen across the marble counter toward me.
"If you could just sign here, please."
I signed the name Benjamin Carter in smooth practiced handwriting and handed it back.
She glanced over it briefly before reaching beneath the desk and retrieving a black keycard embossed with the hotel's insignia in gold.
"You're in Room 412," she said. "The lifts are just around the corner to your left."
"Thank you," I replied, taking the card. "One more thing — what time is breakfast?"
"Breakfast is served from seven until eleven in the Dalloway Terrace."
"Wonderful."
I turned away from the desk and headed toward the lifts with Wanda trailing silently behind me.
The elevator was empty when we entered. As the doors slid shut, Wanda finally looked up at me again.
"What did you do to the hotel lady?"
I leaned back slightly against the wall of the lift. "I cast a mild Confundus Charm on her. It makes people briefly confused and more open to simple suggestions."
Wanda frowned slightly as she tried to repeat the unfamiliar word. "Conf… confun…"
"Confundus," I corrected gently.
"Charm," she repeated carefully."Like magic?"
I smiled faintly. "Exactly like magic."
The elevator doors opened onto the fourth floor.
The corridor beyond was quiet and softly lit, lined with dark patterned carpet and framed paintings along the walls. Suite 412 stood slightly apart from the surrounding rooms near the far corner of the corridor, larger than the standard suites nearby.
I unlocked the door with the keycard and stepped inside.
Wanda stopped almost immediately upon entering.
Despite everything she had just endured — despite the grief still visible in her eyes — I heard a small involuntary gasp escape her.
The suite was spacious even by luxury hotel standards. Warm ambient lighting illuminated polished wooden furniture, cream-colored walls, velvet chairs, and large windows overlooking the sleeping streets of London. A sitting area occupied the outer room while open double doors led into the master bedroom beyond.
I walked through into the bedroom and gently lowered Pietro onto the enormous bed. The boy shifted slightly but remained asleep.
Wanda hovered near the doorway, clutching the cup-less sleeve of her oversized sweater tightly in one hand.
"Is Pietro going to be alright?" she asked quietly.
I turned toward her and smiled reassuringly. "He's going to be perfectly fine. He just needs rest."
I paused before adding softly, "And so do you."
"I'm not sleepy," she whispered immediately, though her exhaustion was obvious.
That answer pulled unexpectedly at an old memory.
"When I was your age," I said lightly, "and couldn't sleep, my mum used to make me hot cocoa with these tiny marshmallows."
Wanda looked at me uncertainly, as though she couldn't decide whether she was allowed to care about something so normal anymore.
I picked up the bedside phone and called room service.
"Good evening," came the polite voice on the other end.
"Evening. Could I get two hot cocoas sent up to Room 412, please?" I asked. "With marshmallows, if possible."
"Of course, sir."
I hung up.
For a few moments silence settled across the room again. Wanda stared down at the carpet before finally speaking.
"What happens to us now?"
The question carried far more weight than the words themselves.
I looked at her for several long seconds before answering honestly. "I'm not completely sure yet."
She lowered her eyes slightly.
"But," I continued quietly, "you and your brother are going to stay together. And you're going to be safe. I'll make sure of that."
Wanda looked at me silently, searching my face as though trying to determine whether promises still meant anything.
A knock came at the suite door.
I stepped out to answer it. A hotel employee wheeled in a silver tray carrying two steaming cups of cocoa topped with tiny marshmallows. I handed him a generous tip, earning an immediately grateful smile before he left again.
Carrying the cups back into the bedroom, I handed one carefully to Wanda.
She accepted it hesitantly and took a small sip.
For the first time since I had met her, some of the tension in her shoulders eased, if only slightly.
Then she looked back up at me, her expression fragile in a way no child should ever look.
"Mama… Papa…" Her voice trembled. "They are… gone?"
There it was.
The question she had been trying not to ask.
I nodded slowly.
"I'm afraid so."
Wanda sniffed sharply and lowered her gaze to the steaming cup in her hands. Tears began slipping silently down her cheeks again.
I set my own cup aside and moved closer before gently pulling her into an embrace.
The girl froze for only a second before the dam finally broke completely. She buried her face against me and began crying softly, exhausted little tremors running through her body.
"It's alright," I murmured quietly, resting one hand against the back of her head. "Everything's going to be okay, Wanda. You'll be okay. You and your brother. I promise."
After a few moments, once her breathing had finally begun slowing slightly, I quietly whispered a single word.
"Somnium."
The sleeping spell settled over her instantly.
Wanda's body relaxed almost at once as consciousness gently slipped away from her. The cup of cocoa tilted dangerously from her hand, but before it could fall, I caught it with telekinesis and floated it smoothly onto the nearby table.
Carefully, I lifted Wanda into my arms and laid her beside Pietro on the bed. The twins instinctively shifted slightly closer together even in sleep.
I pulled the blanket up over both of them and stood there silently for several moments, watching the two exhausted children sleeping beneath the soft bedside light.
Then I turned away.
As I stepped back through the open double doors into the outer suite, I flicked my fingers lightly. The main bedroom lights switched off at once, leaving only the warm glow of the bedside lamps illuminating the sleeping Maximoff twins in the darkness.
---
After leaving the bedroom, I quietly pulled the double doors nearly shut behind me and stood still for a moment in the dim outer suite. The silence felt strange after everything that had happened over the last hour. Beyond the tall windows, rain tapped softly against the glass while distant London traffic murmured faintly somewhere far below. Inside the suite itself, the only sound came from the quiet hum of the air conditioning and the muffled ticking of an ornate clock mounted near the minibar.
I walked over to the sofa and dropped onto it more heavily than I intended.
A long breath escaped me as I leaned back and rubbed both hands across my face.
Physically, I was perfectly fine. If anything, I had enough magical reserves and vitality enhancements running through me at this point that exhaustion barely touched my body anymore. Mentally, however, was another matter entirely.
Those poor kids.
The image of Wanda clinging to her parents' bodies replayed itself vividly in my mind. The way her voice had sounded when she asked me to save them. The desperate certainty in her eyes that if I could heal Pietro, surely I could fix this too.
Unfortunately, there were limits even to magic.
The Maximoffs had already been dead when I arrived. Buried beneath rubble with crushed organs and catastrophic internal injuries. Healing spells worked on living tissue. Not corpses.
I closed my eyes briefly.
At least I had gotten there in time for the twins.
Though honestly… that part still bothered me.
From what I remembered of WandaVision, the Stark shell wasn't supposed to explode at all. Wanda's chaos magic had unconsciously transformed it into a dud. Or altered probability around it. Or something along those lines. The details had always been intentionally vague.
But here?
The shell had detonated exactly as expected.
If I hadn't contained the blast inside a spatial compression shield, the explosion would have torn the apartment apart and vaporized both children instantly.
I frowned slightly.
Maybe Wanda's powers hadn't manifested yet in this universe. Maybe her attention had been too focused on Pietro. Or maybe this reality simply worked differently from the MCU timeline I remembered.
Alternate universe. Alternate variables.
That was becoming a recurring theme in my life.
Either way, the outcome remained the same.
The twins were alive now, and that responsibility had effectively landed on me.
I exhaled slowly and let my head rest against the back of the sofa.
Maybe I could locate some surviving relatives for them. Aunts. Uncles. Grandparents.
But even as the thought crossed my mind, I already doubted it.
If Wanda and Pietro had possessed stable, dependable family connections, they likely would never have ended up volunteering for HYDRA experimentation later on. Children with support systems generally didn't let Nazi-adjacent death cults expose them to alien energy rocks.
Which meant that for the foreseeable future…
I was probably it.
The thought should have been daunting.
Oddly enough, it wasn't.
After everything I had seen and done, taking responsibility for two traumatized superpowered children somehow didn't even crack the top ten of my strangest life experiences anymore.
Another tired sigh escaped me.
Then my thoughts shifted toward the larger issue.
Marvel.
I was actually in a Marvel universe.
Hopefully one reasonably adjacent to the MCU and not some horrifying comic timeline where Galactus ate planets every other Thursday.
In my previous life, I had never been the kind of obsessive comic-book fan who memorized every storyline and alternate continuity. Most of my knowledge came from the movies, a handful of shows, internet discussions, and random wiki dives at two in the morning.
Which meant there were probably thousands of things in this universe capable of killing me horribly that I knew absolutely nothing about.
Still…
There was opportunity here too.
Massive opportunity.
I had originally planned to leave Marvel for much later after accumulating significantly more resources and abilities. The power scaling in this multiverse could get genuinely absurd if you wandered into the wrong cosmic neighborhood.
But since I was already here…
There were certain things I absolutely intended to acquire.
Certain people worth meeting.
And certain disasters worth preventing.
I straightened slightly on the sofa and closed my eyes.
Alright.
Step one: organize what I actually remembered.
Taking a slow breath, I began running through the Occlumency exercises I had started practicing recently. The mental discipline techniques helped enormously when sorting through decades' worth of memories spanning multiple lives and worlds.
One by one, I pushed irrelevant memories aside.
Hogwarts.
Westeros.
Middle-earth.
School lessons.
Random conversations.
Slowly, I isolated every memory connected to Marvel and began arranging them mentally into something resembling chronological order.
Captain America.
Howard Stark.
Peggy Carter.
HYDRA infiltration.
Carol Danvers.
The Tesseract.
SHIELD.
Tony Stark.
Thor.
Loki.
The Chitauri invasion.
Ultron.
Infinity Stones.
Thanos.
Blip.
Endgame.
The memories drifted and rearranged themselves like pieces on an enormous multidimensional chessboard. I spent several minutes simply sitting there in silence, mentally reviewing timelines, events, factions, technologies, magical systems, cosmic entities, and potential threats.
Eventually I opened my eyes again.
I stood from the sofa and headed toward the suite entrance before abruptly stopping halfway there.
Right.
The children.
Leaving two traumatized future-enhanced individuals completely unprotected inside a luxury London hotel would be irresponsible even by my standards.
I turned around and headed back toward the bedroom.
The twins were still asleep exactly where I had left them. Wanda had unconsciously shifted closer to Pietro during sleep, one hand lightly clutching the blanket near him as though reassuring herself he was still there.
For a moment, they simply looked like normal children. Not future Avengers. Just two exhausted kids who had lost everything in a single night.
Quietly, I raised my hand and layered several protective enchantments around the bed. A reactive shield ward settled invisibly over the sleeping twins, designed to activate instantly if anyone approached with hostile intent. Then I added an alarm ward linked directly to my senses.
Subtle golden runes flickered briefly in the air before fading from sight.
Satisfied, I checked the suite itself more carefully. Windows locked. Balcony secured. Main door reinforced.
Finally, I stepped back outside and sealed the suite entrance with a silent Colloportus charm for good measure.
The elevator ride down to the lobby passed quietly.
By the time I exited the hotel, it was well past midnight. A light drizzle had begun falling over London, turning the streets glossy beneath the lamps. There weren't many people out anymore. A few taxis moved through the wet roads while the occasional pedestrian hurried beneath umbrellas.
I shoved my hands into my coat pockets and walked along Great Russell Street completely unconcerned by the rain.
A few minutes later, the museum came into view.
In my original universe, this building had been the British Museum.
Here, however, things were slightly different.
The sign outside identified it as the Museum of Great Britain.
And hidden somewhere inside was one of the single most valuable objects on the planet.
Not that anyone currently realized it.
I crossed the street calmly and made my way toward a side entrance. The mundane lock lasted approximately half a second against Alohomora before clicking open obediently.
To avoid unnecessary complications, I cast a Disillusionment Charm over myself before slipping inside.
The museum interior was dark and cavernous, illuminated only by sparse security lighting that cast long shadows across polished floors and towering exhibits. My footsteps made almost no sound as I moved deeper into the building.
Eventually I reached the African exhibit wing.
And there it was.
Mounted inside a glass showcase sat a dull-looking iron ax labeled as an artifact recovered from the Fula tribe in Benin. To anyone else, it looked entirely unremarkable.
But I knew exactly what it really was.
A Wakandan vibranium ax hidden beneath layers of concealment treatments and age.
With a simple spatial distortion spell, I rendered the glass intangible and reached directly through it. The moment my fingers wrapped around the ax head, I felt it immediately.
The subtle vibration.
The impossible density.
The energy absorption properties humming beneath the surface.
Definitely vibranium.
I withdrew the ax and cast a basic cleaning charm over it.
The false iron corrosion vanished instantly.
Dark silver metal gleamed beneath the museum lights.
Beautiful.
Closing my eyes briefly, I focused on the molecular structure of the metal in my hand. Vibranium's atomic lattice was unlike anything I had ever seen — absurdly efficient energy distribution, self-stabilizing molecular bonds, exotic quantum properties bordering on outright physics violations. Not even Mithril could beat it.
Which was exactly why I wanted it.
After several moments of study, I reached into my storage ring and withdrew a high-quality steel ingot.
Holding the vibranium ax in one hand and the steel in the other, I focused carefully on transmutation.
The steel began changing almost immediately.
Color shifted first.
Then density.
Then structure.
The transformation spread slowly through the ingot until the entire thing had become processed vibranium.
A wide grin spread across my face.
Oh, this was going to be useful.
Very useful.
Satisfied, I restored the ax's concealment appearance with a quick restoration spell, returning it to its old dull iron facade before placing it carefully back inside the display case. The glass solidified once more without leaving so much as a fingerprint behind.
Then I simply retraced my steps and exited the museum exactly as quietly as I had entered it.
As I walked back through the wet London streets beneath the drizzle, I found myself whistling a cheerful little tune under my breath.
The night had improved considerably.
By the time I returned to the Bloomsbury Hotel, the streets were nearly empty. I rode the elevator back up to the fourth floor, walked down the silent corridor, and unlocked Suite 412.
The sealing spell on the door remained intact.
Good.
I stepped inside and closed the door behind me.
"Hello there."
I froze.
The voice came from behind me. It was calm, refined and oddly, quite familiar.
In one brief second my mind immediately registered several important details simultaneously.
The Colloportus spell on the suite door had remained untouched, meaning whoever it was, had not used the hallway entrance.
My alarm wards around the twins had not activated.
And I could feel absolutely no hostile intent whatsoever.
Slowly, I turned around.
The Ancient One sat comfortably on the sofa I had occupied earlier, a delicate porcelain teacup resting in one hand. Steam curled lazily upward from the drink as though this were a perfectly ordinary late-night social visit rather than a deeply alarming magical security breach.
She looked exactly like I remembered from the films — bald head, yellow robes, ageless expression, and eyes carrying the unsettling calm of someone who had seen far too much of existence to be surprised by anything anymore.
A faint smile touched her lips.
"Long night?" she asked pleasantly.
---
37 Minutes after Ben's Departure
The Maximoff Apartment, Novi Grad
A circular golden portal spiraled open inside the ruined remains of the Maximoff apartment.
The Ancient One stepped through soundlessly.
The cold Sokovian wind drifted through the shattered walls around her, carrying smoke, dust, and the distant echoes of artillery fire from other parts of Novi Grad. The apartment itself remained exactly as Ben had left it — broken furniture buried beneath rubble, cracked walls hanging precariously overhead, the smell of burned concrete still lingering thickly in the air.
Yet the Sorcerer Supreme barely spared the physical destruction more than a passing glance.
Instead, her pale eyes narrowed toward the invisible residue saturating the room.
Magic.
Powerful magic.
The Ancient One stood silently amidst the rubble, her hands folded within the sleeves of her robes as she studied the magical impressions left behind. Her expression remained calm, but her mind was moving rapidly.
Less than an hour earlier, she had been in Kamar-Taj overseeing the quiet rhythm of the sanctum while most of her students slept. Or attempted to sleep, at least.
Sleep itself had long since become something foreign to her.
The connection to the Dark Dimension granted immense benefits — inexhaustible extradimensional energy, agelessness, and centuries of continued existence far beyond natural human limitations. But every gift carried a price. The greatest cost of all was vulnerability. True sleep required surrender. A completely unguarded mind invited whispers from beyond reality itself, and the whispers of Dormammu were patient beyond mortal comprehension.
For centuries she had endured them.
Every moment of silence.
Every lapse in focus.
Every instant of weakness.
It was only through sheer force of will that she had resisted corruption for so long when countless others would have fallen long ago.
As a result, for centuries she had never truly rested.
Only endured.
But that burden would not remain hers forever.
Stephen Strange was coming.
Even now the threads of fate slowly converged toward him. In only a few short years he would arrive at Kamar-Taj arrogant, broken, and desperate — and eventually become the greatest sorcerer Earth had seen in generations.
When that day finally came…
Perhaps she would finally be allowed to rest.
It had been while contemplating those familiar future possibilities that the Orb of Agamotto suddenly reacted.
An extradimensional anomaly had entered Earth.
The realization had instantly sharpened her focus. Within seconds she had opened a portal directly into the Narthex, the central command chamber of Kamar-Taj where the Orb rested alongside the linked gateways to the three Sanctums guarding Earth's mystical shield.
The Orb had pulsed violently upon her arrival.
She had attempted immediately to locate the anomaly through conventional magical tracking methods.
Nothing.
No coordinates.
No signature trail.
No breach in the planetary shield.
That alone had been deeply unusual.
The Sanctums existed for a reason. Agamotto himself had constructed them specifically to shield Earth from malignant extradimensional forces. Any sufficiently powerful entity entering the planet through conventional means inevitably disturbed the mystical barrier surrounding the world.
This anomaly had not.
Which suggested something important.
The entity had either bypassed the planetary shield entirely — which was unlikely.
Or the shield itself had not recognized it as hostile.
But benevolence meant little on its own.
Over the course of her long centuries as Sorcerer Supreme, the Ancient One had witnessed countless beings arrive with noble intentions only to unleash catastrophe through ignorance, arrogance, or sheer carelessness. Good intentions did not prevent devastation.
Unable to locate the anomaly directly, she had turned toward her final option.
The Eye of Agamotto.
Lifting the relic carefully from its pedestal, she had opened the Eye and invoked the Time Stone within, allowing its green light to illuminate the chamber around her.
Then she began searching for divergences along the familiar timeline.
At first she found almost nothing unusual. Days passed within her vision. Then weeks. Then months.
Minor fluctuations only.
Insignificant alterations.
Until she reached September 11th, 2001.
There the timeline fractured sharply.
The Ancient One watched silently as the familiar New York skyline remained untouched.
No planes struck the World Trade Center.
No towers collapsed.
No fire consumed Manhattan.
Instead, SHIELD agents intercepted and arrested the terrorists before they ever boarded their flights.
For the first time in centuries, genuine surprise crossed the Ancient One's face.
In all the futures she had observed through the Time Stone, this had never once occurred.
The anomaly had interfered.
And the ripple effects only intensified from there.
The invasion of Afghanistan never occurred. Instead, covert SHIELD operations neutralized the terrorist leadership directly under the authority of Nick Fury. Years later, the planned invasion of Iraq also failed to materialize despite intense pressure from Alexander Pierce and Gideon Mallick within the World Security Council. Fury successfully argued against military intervention after proving Iraq possessed no weapons of mass destruction.
The Ancient One immediately understood the implication.
The anomaly had likely contacted SHIELD directly.
And through SHIELD, history itself had begun changing.
She continued further down the timeline until she arrived at May 4th, 2012.
The Battle of New York.
One of Earth's most important nexus points.
The familiar invasion unfolded much as expected at first. Loki opened the portal above Stark Tower. Chitauri forces flooded into Manhattan. The Avengers assembled in defense of the city.
But then the differences became impossible to ignore.
Additional combatants filled the battlefield.
Young men and women wielding elemental powers moved through the streets like living weapons. Firestorms tore apart Chitauri formations. Ice froze entire aerial squadrons from the sky. Lightning and gravity manipulation pulverized Leviathans in seconds.
And among them moved armored super soldiers unlike anything she had ever seen before.
Gigantic silver-gray suits nearly seven feet tall soared through the skies over Manhattan using gravimetric propulsion systems. Energy shields flared around them as pulse rifles ripped effortlessly through Chitauri ranks. The invaders — who in countless timelines pushed Earth to the brink of annihilation — were being systematically overwhelmed.
Steamrolled.
The Ancient One's attention shifted upward toward Stark Tower itself.
There, standing near the portal generator, was a young man in his twenties calmly speaking with an enraged Loki.
Handsome.
Dark-haired.
Confident.
The anomaly.
She watched as the young man casually formed a miniature singularity within one hand — a perfectly stabilized black hole condensed to impossible scale.
Then he launched it through the portal.
The Chitauri mothership vanished into gravitational collapse moments later.
The invasion ended almost instantly.
The Ancient One stared silently at the timeline.
Power on that scale should not have existed on Earth.
Yet the anomaly wielded it effortlessly.
She studied him carefully, attempting to trace his existence backward through the timeline, but his presence remained strangely obscured, like a stone dropped suddenly into still water without ever passing through the air above.
Then she noticed something else.
Someone else.
Wanda Maximoff.
The young Sokovian woman flew high above Manhattan amidst the battle, crimson energy exploding from her hands as she tore apart Chitauri chariots and Leviathans alike.
That should have been impossible.
In the original timeline, Wanda's story only truly began after HYDRA experimentation with the Mind Stone hidden inside Loki's scepter.
Yet here she already stood as one of Earth's defenders years earlier.
The Ancient One immediately understood.
The anomaly had intervened in the twins' lives.
Which meant the Maximoffs were the key to finding him.
Closing the Eye of Agamotto slowly, she recalled the present date.
March 30th, 1999.
The night the Maximoff apartment was destroyed.
After centuries spent witnessing wars, massacres, invasions, and extinctions across countless timelines, the deaths of two Sokovian civilians no longer shocked her. The tragedy barely stirred even a sigh from her weary soul.
And yet…
A faint heaviness still lingered within her chest as she opened a portal to Novi Grad.
Now she stood amidst the ruins themselves.
Her gaze settled upon the air near the center of the apartment where microscopic fissures in space-time still lingered faintly from the anomaly's portal magic. The tears were already healing, but traces remained visible to trained mystical sight.
The Ancient One stepped closer and lightly touched the fractured space with two fingers. Then, following the lingering extradimensional threads left behind, she opened another portal.
Beyond it lay a rain-soaked garden illuminated by overhead streetlights.
---
1:17 AM, 31st March 1999
Suite 412, Bloomsbury Hotel, London
As the Sorcerer Supreme stepped out of the rain-soaked garden, she immediately recognized the surrounding district. Bloomsbury. Central London. Barely a few minutes away from the London Sanctum.
The drizzle continued falling softly through the empty streets as she stood still for several moments, allowing her senses to expand outward.
And there it was.
The anomaly's magical signature.
Even now, with its owner no longer actively casting spells, the residual presence remained staggeringly powerful. It did not resemble the energy patterns of Kamar-Taj sorcery, nor Asgardian magic, nor any extradimensional force she had previously encountered.
More importantly, it utterly dwarfed the aura of any sorcerer she had ever known.
The Ancient One followed the fading trail quietly through the sleeping streets of London. Only a handful of minutes passed before it led her directly to the front steps of the Bloomsbury Hotel.
With no desire to draw unnecessary attention, the Sorcerer Supreme made a single practiced gesture and slipped seamlessly into the Mirror Dimension.
The world shifted instantly.
The movements of the hotel continued normally around her, but muted now, separated by an invisible barrier. The doorman remained motionless as she passed directly beside him. Inside the lobby, the few guests and staff moved about their business entirely unaware of the robed figure crossing polished marble floors only inches away.
The magical signature led toward the lifts.
She followed.
Moments later the elevator doors opened onto the fourth floor corridor. The hallway stretched quiet and empty before her, dimly illuminated by elegant wall sconces and soft golden ceiling lights.
Room 412.
The Ancient One stopped outside the suite and examined the door carefully.
A sealing spell covered it.
The spellwork itself was basic — a straightforward locking enchantment — but the sheer amount of magical power reinforcing it elevated the charm far beyond what its simplicity suggested. Most sorcerers relied on complexity to strengthen spells. This young man apparently compensated with raw magical output bordering on absurdity.
Interesting.
The Ancient One could have dismantled the enchantment effortlessly if she wished. But breaking the spell outright would alert its creator immediately, and she preferred to observe before revealing herself.
Instead, she turned toward the adjoining suite.
Passing through its door within the Mirror Dimension, she entered unnoticed. The sleeping guests inside remained blissfully unaware as she crossed the room silently toward the shared wall connecting both suites.
Raising one hand, she cast a scrying spell.
The wall became translucent before her eyes.
The living room beyond appeared empty.
No immediate signs of the anomaly.
After a moment's consideration, the Ancient One opened a circular portal directly into Suite 412's sitting area and stepped through.
The moment she exited the Mirror Dimension, sound returned fully around her — the faint hum of the suite's ventilation, distant rain against the windows, the muffled ticking of a decorative clock somewhere nearby.
She paused briefly and extended her senses again. There were two life signs nearby.
Children.
She followed them toward the partially closed double doors leading into the bedroom.
Inside, the Maximoff twins slept peacefully beneath soft bedside lighting. Wanda lay curled slightly toward her brother even in sleep, while Pietro remained motionless beside her, his breathing deep and steady.
The Ancient One studied them silently.
So this was where the timeline had changed.
She noticed the wards immediately.
Protective enchantments layered carefully around the bed. A reactive shield ward woven together with an alarm spell linked to the caster's senses. Compared to the refined dimensional sorcery the anomaly had displayed elsewhere, these wards were relatively rudimentary.
But they were thoughtful.
And more importantly, they had been cast with genuine concern for the children's safety.
The Ancient One examined the spell matrices for another few seconds before stepping quietly back into the living room.
It appeared the anomaly had gone elsewhere.
No matter.
She seated herself comfortably upon the sofa, crossing one leg over the other with the ease of someone entirely accustomed to waiting out centuries. A tiny portal opened beside her hand, connecting briefly to her study back in Kamar-Taj. Through it she retrieved a porcelain teacup and a thin magazine before allowing the portal to vanish once more.
Then she waited.
Several minutes passed before she sensed someone approaching the suite.
The outer ward unravelled.
The door unlocked.
The young man entered.
He closed the door behind himself casually, apparently unaware at first that he was no longer alone.
"Hello there," the Ancient One said calmly.
The reaction was immediate.
He froze for a fraction of a second.
Then he turned around slowly.
For the first time, the Ancient One observed the anomaly directly.
Young.
Far younger than she had expected considering the scale of power surrounding him.
Dark-haired. Calm-eyed. Composed.
And yes — recognition flashed across his expression the moment he saw her.
He knew exactly who she was.
Interesting.
"Long night?" she asked.
A faint smile touched his lips.
"You could say that." He loosened his jacket slightly before adding, "Would you believe me if I said that just a few hours ago I was dancing with my girlfriend at the school prom?"
The Ancient One regarded him quietly for a moment.
"And yet here you are."
"Indeed."
The young man walked calmly toward the nearby table and picked up a cold cup of cocoa resting there. With a casual gesture and a faint shimmer of heat magic, steam began rising from the drink once more.
Then he sat down on the sofa opposite her and took a sip.
The Ancient One observed him carefully.
"You don't seem surprised to see me," she noted.
"I'm not," he admitted easily. "I figured if anyone would notice my arrival here so quickly, it would be the leader of the mystical organization responsible for protecting this world from extradimensional threats."
The Ancient One tilted her head slightly.
"And are you?" she asked softly. "A threat?"
The young man looked at her over the rim of his cup. Then a slight smile appeared on his face.
"Depends on who's asking."
"How so?"
"If your goal is protecting innocent lives," he said calmly, "then I'm a friend. But if you're only interested in maintaining the status quo — allowing people to suffer unnecessarily because you believe their suffering leads to some preferable outcome — then yes."
His eyes met hers steadily.
"I'm absolutely a threat."
Silence settled briefly between them.
The two sorcerers studied one another across the softly lit suite, each quietly measuring the other.
The Ancient One saw intelligence in him. Confidence. Weariness far older than his apparent age. But beneath all of that, she also sensed conviction. Genuine conviction.
Then suddenly the young man smiled again, lighter this time.
"Where are my manners?" he said. He inclined his head slightly. "Benjamin Carter. Student of magical arts, craftsman, adventurer extraordinaire. At your service."
A faint smile touched the Ancient One's lips in return.
"You may call me either Sorcerer Supreme or Ancient One," she replied. "Whichever you prefer."
Benjamin lifted his cup slightly in acknowledgment.
And then, over tea and cocoa in the quiet early hours of a rainy London morning, the two of them began what would prove to be a very productive conversation indeed.