Wanda's voice was soft, but it cut through the residual tension in the hall like a shard of glass. "Here on the panel," she said, her finger hovering over a softly glowing icon, "it says you can view your future."
"Yes," Aryan replied, his gaze steady. "It's the original timeline."
Wanda's fingers tightened against the cold stone of the table. "If I remember correctly, you said you've seen the future. Is that why you helped me? Is that why you offered Pietro and me a way out of Sokovia?"
Tony and T'Challa went still, their attention snapping to Aryan with the sharp focus of predators.
"I tried seeing my future," Aryan said quietly, his voice resonating with a weariness that seemed far older than his years, "but for some reason, I can only see yours, Wanda. I saw timelines branching and pulling against each other like threads in a fraying tapestry. And in far too many of them, you were alone. You survived, you always survive. But survival isn't the same as living."
Wanda's breath caught in her throat, a small sound.
"In the future where someone reached out to you early," he continued, a sad smile touching his lips, "where you weren't forced to carry the world's grief on your own... you were stronger. Not just in power, but in the freedom to choose who you wanted to be, rather than what the world's pain made you."
"So you helped me because I might help you someday?" Wanda asked slowly, her voice thick with a lifetime of suspicion.
"No," Aryan said firmly, his gaze unwavering. "I helped you because you mattered, even in the future where no one treated you that way."
A profound silence followed, heavy with the weight of that simple statement. Tony exhaled quietly, the usual sarcasm completely gone from his face. T'Challa inclined his head, a gesture of deep respect, recognizing that this was not the action of a chess master moving a pawn, but of someone altering probability itself for the sake of a better world.
"And your future?" Wanda asked softly, her voice barely a whisper. "What did you see that made you choose this path?"
Aryan looked toward the throne. "That's the thing," he admitted, his gaze heavy. "I wasn't able to see mine. No matter how hard I tried, I could only see yours."
"So," Tony said, breaking the spell, his voice rough. "This thing can show us our future? The 'original timeline,' as you called it."
Aryan nodded. "You can. It is the path you would have walked had you never been plucked from your reality and brought before the Fog."
Tony tapped the panel before him. The word FUTURE branched into shimmering threads of light that looked like the neural pathways of a god.
Wanda studied the display with a deep curiosity. "If the path isn't fixed anymore... why look back? Why see a tragedy that might not happen?"
"Because," Aryan replied, his voice taking on a more strategic edge, "foreknowledge turns inevitability into preparation. To know the shape of the trap is the first step toward dismantling it."
Tony's jaw tightened. "Afghanistan," he muttered, the word a curse.
T'Challa turned toward him, his brow furrowing. "You speak as if the sand is already in your boots, Stark."
"I've been digging," Tony admitted, his gaze hard. "Ever since our first meeting. Stark weapons showing up in sectors they shouldn't be. Someone is moving the pieces to have me erased out there. I know I'm walking into an ambush. But preparation isn't the same as certainty."
He looked up at the silhouette of The Fool on the throne, then back to Aryan. "I want to see the path I was supposed to walk. I want to know exactly how I lose."
The panel before him shifted, the threads of light coalescing into a single query.
PRICE: $200,000,000
Tony blinked. "Two hundred million? For a movie? That's highway robbery, even by my standards."
"For an uncensored viewing of the original timeline," Aryan said evenly. "Every thought, every sensation, every moment of pain and every choice. The truth is never cheap, Tony."
"Emotionally, this hurts more than physically," Tony grumbled, but he didn't pull back. He looked at the glowing CONFIRM button, his finger hovering over it.
"Wait," Aryan interjected. "There is an option to share the projection. You can view it alone, a private hell... or you can externalize the vision. Everyone here can witness the forging of the man you were meant to be."
T'Challa raised an eyebrow. "Your most private moments, Stark? Your failures and fears laid bare before a Prince and strangers?"
Tony didn't hesitate. A wild grin spread across his face. "Oh, come on. If I'm going to watch myself nearly die, I'd at least like an audience. Besides, if future me looks cooler than current-me, you're all legally obligated to be impressed."
He jabbed the button.
DISPLAY MODE: SHARED
The gray fog in the center of the hall thickened, rising like a grand theater curtain.
The desert appeared first. Blinding sun. The raucous roar of AC/DC over the low hum of a Humvee. They watched Tony on the screen, a brilliant merchant of death who didn't care where his products landed as long as the check cleared.
Then, the explosion.
Wanda flinched as if she'd been struck, a phantom pain echoing in her own past as the convoy vanished in a cloud of fire and shrapnel.
T'Challa's jaw tightened as he saw the Stark Industries logo clearly stenciled on the missile that shredded Tony's chest.
Then came the cave.
The smell of oil and blood and damp earth was so real they could almost taste it. The car battery is wired to a genius's dying heart. They watched the introduction of Ho Yinsen. A kind man who became the conscience Tony didn't know he needed. Together, they built the impossible. The first Arc Reactor bloomed in the gloom like a captive blue star.
They watched the brutal birth of the Mark I armor. The frantic welding of scrap metal. The heroic sacrifice of Yinsen.
"He saved you," Wanda whispered, her eyes wet with unshed tears.
"He gave his life for a man who didn't deserve it yet," Tony added quietly, his own voice trembling with an emotion he rarely showed.
The fiery escape. The dramatic rescue. The stunning press conference and the dismantling of the Stark Industries weapons division. The chilling betrayal of Obadiah Stane. The final battle atop the Stark Industries building, a clash of gods made of metal and ambition.
When the vision faded back into grey fog, Tony leaned back, exhaling a breath he seemed to have been holding for a lifetime. "So that's how close I came," he said quietly, his voice hollow.
Wanda looked at him with a newfound respect. "You didn't just survive that cave, Tony."
T'Challa stood, inclining his head toward the billionaire, a gesture of honor between warriors. "You were forged in it. That man on the screen... he became a protector."
"One week," Tony said, his voice hard as iron. "One week until I land in Afghanistan. And this time, Obadiah is getting a reckoning."
Tony stretched his arms behind his head with an exaggerated sigh, trying to shake off the phantom weight of the vision. "Well, I've officially watched myself almost die in high definition. Twice. Ten out of ten experiences would not be recommended."
"You looked very heroic," Aryan noted, a hint of amusement in his voice.
Tony shot him a look of playful suspicion. "You say that, like you weren't enjoying the explosions a little too much."
T'Challa raised an eyebrow. "The armor was crude at first. And yet, a man in a cave built something that rivaled nations."
"Careful, Your Highness," Tony quipped, a flash of his old self returning. "Keep talking like that and I'll start charging Wakanda licensing fees for my trauma."
Wanda had grown quiet. Aryan noticed her gaze lingering on the spot where the projection of the Ten Rings' cave had been.
"You're thinking about something," he said gently.
Wanda hesitated, her voice coming out steady but tight with emotion. "The missiles. The ones in Sokovia. They weren't just random collateral damage, were they?" She looked at Tony. "They were Obadiah's. He did that everywhere, didn't he? Backroom profits. Under the table deals. Death… all signed in your name."
"Yes," Tony said firmly, his voice devoid of any defensiveness. "And in my world, he doesn't walk away from that. If he tries… I'll stop him."
Wanda studied him for a long moment, then nodded once, a gesture of closure. "That's enough," she said.
"Truth sharpens resolve," T'Challa observed, his voice a low rumble. "But it also sharpens hatred."
"Anger without knowledge is chaos," Aryan added, grounding the conversation in the pragmatism of their new reality. "Anger with clarity becomes a choice. You now all have the clarity to ensure that history doesn't repeat itself."
Tony exhaled, looking at Aryan with a mix of amusement and genuine bafflement. "You know, for a guy who looks like he should be worrying about his college midterms, you talk like a therapist. This definitely didn't come with the user manual." He leaned forward, his tone shifting back to the rapid-fire cadence of a man who had found a new set of variables.
"Okay, let's talk shop," Tony said. "I've seen the armor. I've seen the 'Metaphysical' upgrades. It's all very... comic book. Very 'larger than life.'" He gestured vaguely toward the endless void where a ceiling should be. "But I'm an engineer. I like to know the specs of the machine I'm working in. So, I have to ask, purely as a hypothetical stress test, what are we actually dealing with out there? If there are beings who play with reality like it's a game of LEGOs... can they be hit? Can a man made system, given enough juice, eventually punch something that claims to be a 'God'?"
He continued. "I mean, if the universe is big enough to have a place like this, it's big enough to have things that think they're divine. And I've never liked people who think they're above the law."
"There are categories to the power in this world," he explained, becoming the teacher once more. "Most things mortals call 'Gods' are simply Trans Human Entities. Think of them as beings of flesh and blood who happen to have a much higher energy output and a longer warranty. Asgardians, for instance."
Tony raised an eyebrow. "Asgardians? Like the Norse myths? Thunder and hammers and guys with excellent hair?"
"Precisely," Aryan nodded. "They are long-lived, incredibly strong and possess technology so advanced that it appears to be magic to the uninitiated. But they have bodies. They have nervous systems. They can bleed, and they can be killed."
Tony's grin widened into a predatory smirk. "So... if I build a big enough battery and a dense enough alloy, I can knock the crown off a 'King of Gods'?"
"With enough preparation, strategy, and a very, very expensive repair budget," Aryan confirmed, "yes. You could fight them. They are players on the board, just like you, only they've been playing much longer."
"But," he raised a single finger, "there is a second category: Conceptual Entities. And Tony, don't even think about punching those."
Tony's grin faltered. "That bad?"
"Much worse," Aryan replied, his voice serious. "Conceptual entities don't have bodies. They aren't 'beings' in the way we understand them. They are fundamental ideas given form. Time, Fate, Death, Luck, etc. You don't fight them. You don't even touch them. Challenging a conceptual god is like trying to punch the law of gravity because you tripped on the stairs."
T'Challa, who had been listening with a grim intensity, nodded. "A warrior can challenge a king. But no blade can cut the rules that govern the world."
Tony leaned back, feigning disappointment. "So my 'Anti-Deity' protocols have a ceiling. I can take on the guy with the lightning, but I can't take on Time itself. That's deeply offensive to my ego, Aryan."
"Against a conceptual force, strength is irrelevant," Aryan said. "The moment you act against it, you are already inside its domain. You are using its rules to try and break it."
Tony sighed dramatically. "There goes my 'Anti Chronology Punch.' Guess I'll stick to the guys I can actually see."
Wanda, who had been quiet, looked up at Aryan, her gaze flicking nervously toward the throne where The Fool sat in silent shadow. "And what about him?"
Every eye in the room followed her gaze.
"That question," Aryan said softly, "answers itself. Some powers aren't meant to be challenged. They are the reason the challenge exists in the first place."
Tony nodded, the humor draining from his face. "Yeah. Message received. Know your limits, don't pick a fight with the guy who owns the building." He smirked, but it was a thoughtful expression now. "Still gonna try my luck with the thunder guy, though."