The armor blasted up from the crater, carrying the group with it. With a resounding clang, it landed solidly on the surface, leaving two shallow footprints in the cracked earth.
More than a decade later in the main timeline, an aged Star-Lord would come to this very place—triggering a hidden Vibranium Gate in order to escape pursuit from the brainwashed Shi'ar Imperial Guard.
The others leapt down from the Hulkbuster as Ethan turned to Herbie, who was floating nearby with obvious excitement. "Scan for the location of the Vibranium Gate beneath the Baxter Building ruins."
It had been decades since Herbie last left that abandoned underground lab. After the attack on the Baxter Building—led jointly by the Juggernaut, Rhino, and Loki—the little robot had gone dormant and remained so ever since.
Now, finally seeing daylight again, it could hardly contain its excitement.
Even so, duty came first. Its square display flickered rapidly, bringing up several holographic windows. Lines of code and sensor data rolled across the screen.
Moments later, Herbie's synthesized voice sounded:
"Scan complete. Vibranium Gate located sixty meters below the Baxter Building ruins—consistent with current depth."
Ethan nodded in acknowledgment. Immediately afterward, Herbie projected a red scanning beam that spread through the rubble-strewn area, making the fractured ruins shimmer under the crimson light.
After several seconds, Herbie pivoted toward a section of collapsed debris. "Fifty meters ahead."
The Hulkbuster began to move, each step echoing with the grinding whir of powerful actuators. It started clearing the rubble piece by piece.
Chunks of concrete, twisted rebar, shattered tiles—all were easily lifted aside by the armor's tremendous strength, revealing remnants of furniture, broken electronics, and scattered papers. Most were unrecognizable from age and decay, though some still faintly reflected the brilliance of a bygone era.
Suddenly, Pietro raised his hand. "Hey… what happened to Reed's kids—Franklin and Valeria? Back then, I mean."
He'd spotted a small, tattered blue teddy bear rolling out from beneath a pile of debris.
Herbie hovered silently, its pixel eyes dimming slightly at the question.
Clint stepped forward and gently picked up the bear. He brushed off the dust with his fingertips.
One of the bear's plastic eyes had fallen out, and its once-bright fur had faded to a dull grayish blue. The fabric was frayed and full of holes, as if it might fall apart with one more touch.
He had a child too.
Ethan paused the armor's movement, thinking for a moment before speaking. "Forty-three years ago, Johnny and Ben died in battle. Reed and Susan were thrown into the temporal vortex—never seen again. The Baxter Building self-destructed soon after."
"But before the self-destruct sequence activated, the Invisible Woman—Susan—created a pocket dimension to hide Franklin and Valeria, protecting them from harm."
He resumed manipulating the armor, the machine's advanced sensors ensuring every movement was measured—careful enough not to trigger another collapse.
Pocket dimensions, Ethan mused, were like miniature universes—similar to the small cosmos at the end of The Three-Body Problem. Some were the size of a closet; others were vast beyond comprehension.
After all, if Dormammu's Dark Dimension or one of the Nine Realms of Asgard could be considered such, then "pocket" was a relative term.
"So you're saying… they might still be alive?" Clint suddenly lifted his head. He'd been cradling the worn-out bear, planning to bury it later as a symbolic grave for the two children.
Before the war, the Fantastic Four often brought their kids along when visiting friends. He remembered those two—bright, kind, and curious.
If they could be found, that would be something worth doing—for Reed and Susan's sake.
Ethan tossed aside a rotted plank and replied, "It's possible."
The light returned briefly to Clint's eyes.
"But the chances are slim."
Ignoring the older man's fading expression,Ethan kept working, voice steady as the armor lifted another chunk of debris.
"Best case? The pocket dimension is stored in some physical vessel—a containment capsule, or maybe a small object."
"If we dig up every ton of rubble here and sift through it cube by cube, we might find it."
"Worst case… if the dimension's tether to this reality has already collapsed—"
"—then they're either dead within a decayed pocket world, or trapped between the folds of dimensions themselves."
Silence followed—long and heavy. For ten full minutes, no one spoke.
Finally, the last of the debris was cleared. The Hulkbuster's strength—Stark's engineering genius—had never been more evident.
And there it was.
In the center of the ruins stood a heavy metal gate, gleaming silver-white even after four decades. Its intricate surface patterns reflected faint light—clearly forged from some extraordinary material.
"AI, scan the gate and the surrounding wall composition,"Ethan ordered from within the cockpit.
The onboard AI responded instantly. Data charts and 3D schematics flooded the holographic interface as it analyzed the molecular structure.
"Scan complete. The gate is constructed from high-density Vibranium, providing exceptional durability and impact resistance."
"Surrounding walls are composed of a specialized alloy with anti-corrosion properties. Structural integrity: moderate. Destruction difficulty: low."
"Good."Ethan nodded once.
On the control display, he switched the left arm cannon from particle discharge mode to industrial cutting mode, aiming it not at the gate itself—but at the adjoining wall.
The wall looked solid, but against a Stark Industries–grade plasma cutter mounted on a Hulkbuster, it was nothing.
He lightly squeezed the trigger. A thin blue beam lanced out, tracing a perfect circle around the gate's edge—clean and silent, like a surgeon's scalpel cutting through steel.
Sparks flickered like fireflies in the dark, and a faint smell of molten metal filled the air as the armor's precision cutting expanded the breach.
Then came a resounding CLANG!
The massive Vibranium Gate tore free from its frame and crashed to the ground, sending up a cloud of dust and shattered fragments.
The armor held its ground firmly against the shockwave. Inside the cockpit,Ethan gazed at the fallen gate, a glimmer of satisfaction in his eyes.
So this was what harvest felt like.
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