Heisenberg smiled, picked up his glass, and clinked it against Iron Man's.
After draining the drink, he looked at Iron Man, Captain America, and the others with a mysterious air.
"You think I have a way to help you?
Of course I do!
You want to take this Stone back to your universe?
Of course that's possible!
But I don't trust anyone except myself!"
As he spoke, he suddenly reached out, and the Mind Scepter flew into his palm in an instant.
Holding it in his hand, he gently ran his fingers over the mysterious patterns carved into its surface.
"You want to walk away with my spoils of war just by talking pretty? Impossible.
But for the sake of the half of all life in your universe, I can personally go to your universe and offer a little help of my own!"
"You mean... you're taking your Stone with you to our universe?"
Captain America shot to his feet, and his expression immediately turned ugly.
Heisenberg paid no attention to his face at all and continued speaking to Iron Man on his own.
"We're the same kind of people, Iron Man. We only trust ourselves.
So I'm going back with you."
...
The moment those words fell, Iron Man lowered his head and began thinking.
He had to admit that Heisenberg's demand did not sound especially difficult.
It was just bringing him into their universe.
Given enough time, he could absolutely build a time-travel suit and temporal beacon in 2008.
Hand that stuff over to Heisenberg, and they could all go back together.
Simple.
But in the mind of someone as intelligent as Iron Man, the kind of intelligence only mystic frauds like Strange could barely surpass, countless possibilities flashed through his head in an instant.
To them, Heisenberg was clearly a lion as vicious as Thanos, perhaps even more vicious.
And right after cutting off one lion's head, they were now supposed to go find an even fiercer lion from another grassland and bring it into their own home.
After crossing over, would Heisenberg refuse to return to his own universe and instead create an irreparable impact on the future of theirs?
That was the question Iron Man thought about the most.
But after turning it over in his mind again and again, he finally let out a helpless sigh.
Because as things stood, they had no other choice.
Iron Man had calculated countless possibilities in his mind, especially the possibility of gathering the Infinity Stones.
But the Mind Stone, before it fell into Heisenberg's hands, had always been under Thanos's watchful eye.
Iron Man truly felt they had hit a wall.
The Mind Stone was their biggest obstacle.
That mythical piece of equipment could only be dropped in one of two ways, either by overthrowing Thanos or by overthrowing Heisenberg.
There was no third option.
As for Loki, who had held it for a time in between?
After Iron Man watched the footage of Loki's battle with Heisenberg and saw how absurdly well Loki used the Space Stone to escape, he actually felt that dealing with Loki holding both the Space Stone and Mind Stone might, in some ways, be even harder than dealing with Heisenberg.
So, under the worried gazes of Captain America and Banner, Iron Man nodded decisively.
"Fine!"
"Mm-hmm."
Heisenberg patted Tony's shoulder in satisfaction.
"The right to use one Infinity Stone in exchange for a round-trip ticket to your universe. For you people, that's a ridiculous bargain."
"Indeed. Thank you for your generosity, Your Lordship. So, may we know what kind of food you like best?
We'll prepare the same thing for you in our universe ahead of time. After all, you'll be our most important guest."
Now that the decision had been made, Iron Man smiled and teased Heisenberg.
Hearing that, Heisenberg laughed as well.
"Tony, my friend, it seems our visitors from another world are already hungry.
But I have no intention of wasting your newlywed time with them, so we're heading back to New York."
The moment he finished speaking, there was no need for him to say anything more.
The Ancient One had already stood up and pushed out with one hand, instantly opening a portal.
Heisenberg walked through it with perfect calm.
The Ancient One and Captain America's group of four followed close behind.
Once all of them had stepped through, the portal quietly vanished.
...
After they left, Hill and Captain America looked at each other blankly.
"Shouldn't we have gone back with them too?" Captain America asked in a daze.
Hill nodded absentmindedly.
"Yeah, why didn't we go with them... no, wait, it's not that. It's that they never planned to take me in the first place...?"
Before she could finish, Tony's irritated voice rang out.
"What would we take you two for? Did you forget Peggy Carter's niece?"
"Uh..."
"Well..."
Hill and Captain America exchanged helpless looks, then left the villa on the mountainside with heavy thoughts in their hearts.
Now that they knew the truth, they had no reason to stop Heisenberg from going to another universe to save half the life in that world.
But they could not help feeling worried.
And they could not help imagining certain possibilities.
For example, just for example.
What if Heisenberg never returned to their universe?
Then what were they supposed to do?
Especially with Thanos still out there in the cosmos, and with the knowledge that one day he would wipe out half the living beings in the universe?
They had no choice but to admit it.
The Heisenberg they had feared and guarded against in every possible way had, in just two short months, already become a support they could no longer afford to lose.
...
After the two Caps left, Tony and Pepper finally had their own time and space again.
But things still did not immediately begin.
Pepper looked at Tony thoughtfully, then asked in confusion,
"This isn't like you, Tony!
If it were the old you, you'd definitely have followed them!
Whether it was to dig into the secrets behind time travel, or to exchange science and technology with the other you, the old you would never have just sat here and watched them leave like this!"
At that point, Pepper reached out and gently caressed Tony's face.
"You've changed."
"Yeah, I have changed, sweetheart."
Tony held Pepper's small hand in his own while letting the robotic arms remove their armor.
"Meeting the future me taught me one truth, Pepper.
No matter how smart I am, I still can't change the fate of the world.
The future me completely mastered nanotechnology, and he also made enormous breakthroughs in the quantum field and the field of time itself.
Those are things I can barely imagine.
But all he gained from them was tragedy.
And me, the me right now?
I have a happiness he could never imagine."
By the time he said that, both of their suits were already gone. Tony carried Pepper straight toward the bedroom.
As he walked, he kept grinning and teasing her.
"And future me also let me know that we're going to have an adorable daughter, so what exactly are we still waiting for?"
...
Meanwhile, Heisenberg and the Ancient One brought Captain America's group of four back to his territory.
That was right.
Present-day New York had completely become his territory.
When Loki attacked New York, he killed the mayor.
At the same time, around twenty percent of New York's wealthy elite died with him.
The moment they vanished, the foundation that had held New York together for years was completely thrown into chaos.
Whether in politics or business, everyone was scrambling for the empty spaces left behind by the dead.
And amid that struggle, Heisenberg's people naturally gained the greatest benefits.
Now, even if he spent every day doing nothing but sunbathing, his net worth was still rising by at least three times over.
And during this forced mayoral transition, the tentacles of the Nuclear Gang had finally reached all the way into the New York city government.
More than that, the mayoral candidate currently leading in votes was actually Heisenberg's own man, Daredevil Matthew Murdock!
Don't think that was impossible.
Matthew himself was an outstanding law student from the University of California, and his mentor was a giant in the federal legal world who also had close ties to a senator from Mississippi.
Because of that, Matthew had joined the Democratic Party even before graduation.
And the recently deceased mayor of New York had also been a Democrat.
During his time in office, that mayor had not made any major mistakes, so the citizens' overall impression of him had been fairly decent.
And once he was killed by aliens, that previous impression of decent and acceptable instantly turned into excellent and unforgettable.
In just the past few days, New York had already held more than one memorial event for him.
And since Matthew belonged to the same Democratic Party, he naturally rode that wave of momentum and became a relatively well-accepted mayoral candidate among New York's citizens.
Of course, behind Matthew stood countless money-and-power deals, but there was no need for the public to know about that.
After Captain America's group arrived at Heisenberg's home, they all had a meal of Chinese food that Heisenberg had strongly recommended.
After dinner, the Ancient One floated away with an air so ethereal she looked like some European version of Little Dragon Girl, or maybe a European version of the Tomb Sect's yellow-robed maiden.
She was absolutely immortal-looking.
Once she left, Captain America's group of four immediately started discussing all sorts of new plans for gathering the Infinity Stones.
Of course, Heisenberg had no interest in participating in that discussion.
So the scene became this.
He lay in the reclining chair at the center of the courtyard, enjoying a massage from maids who were putting their whole bodies into the effort, while drinking bourbon and basking in the sun.
Meanwhile, Captain America and Iron Man huddled together over the bar counter inside, constantly approving and rejecting different ideas.
"Tony, we don't have enough Pym Particles!"
The moment Captain America raised the issue, Scott immediately gave an answer.
"We can go to Hank Pym's house in 2008 and get them there. He definitely has a stockpile!"
"Okay, then, little bug, you're handling the Pym Particle problem. After that, Cap and I are heading back to... mm."
Iron Man paused to think for a few seconds.
"Back to 1970, when S.H.I.E.L.D. was still in possession of the Tesseract!"
After laying out that part of the plan, Scott looked confused.
"Why go back? Isn't the Tesseract already in Loki's hands? I saw the recent news. Loki even showed up briefly in Los Angeles yesterday!"
"Mm-hmm? Then why don't you go personally and have a chat with Elder Sea over there?"
Iron Man jerked his thumb toward the reclining Heisenberg.
"Ask him to deal with Loki for us!
After all, he had the ability to snatch the Mind Stone away from a Loki who could just blink out of existence with a biu, while we can't even find a way to locate him!"
When Iron Man got to that point, he gave Heisenberg a long look.
And Scott, after hearing the suggestion, immediately shivered twice.
"Yeah, let's not do that."
He muttered gloomily, "That guy feels like the Godfather or something. I don't even dare meet his eyes, so I definitely don't want to be alone with him!"
"Mm-hmm. He's basically Superman, so he can hear you talking about how much you dislike him. Don't believe me? Look."
Tony teased Scott, and not far away, Heisenberg cooperatively raised a hand in their direction.
The instant he heard that, Scott snapped upright and shouted,
"Holy crap, Tony, that's not dislike! That's a form of respect toward the Godfather!"
After saying that, he quickly turned around and gave Heisenberg a foolish grin.
Heisenberg just smiled, rolled onto his side, and continued tanning the other half of himself.
At the same time, Banner spoke in a low and muffled voice.
"Okay, you've all got jobs to do. But with the way I look, it's not exactly suitable for me to show my face around, especially in the seventies.
So I plan to take some time to go see the other me.
Don't complain about me trying to change the future. We've already confirmed it. This universe isn't our past. It's a parallel universe.
I don't know whether any of you have regrets about the past, but if you do, then you'd better make up for them now.
Even if our actions won't create any real change in our own future, at least we'll have made up for them.
Of course, that first depends on getting Your Lordship Heisenberg's permission."
As he said that, Banner waved from a distance toward Heisenberg.
"What do you think, Your Lordship? Can I make contact with the me from this universe?"
"Of course. But you absolutely have to bring me with you, because the you of this era is still the irritable you. So New York will end up with two Hulks fighting each other in the middle of the city!
I'm really looking forward to that, hahaha!"
/-\
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