With her centuries of insight, the Ancient One identified F-boy's nature in roughly two seconds.
Not Jordan's soul entity. Something closer to a specialized spiritual projection — a high-fidelity stand-in, extremely polished, not quite the real article.
She had, after all, one rather immediate piece of evidence.
That brat's eyes are still moving.
Jordan was right there — frozen mid-air, supposedly soul-struck — blinking once, very slowly, with the studied nonchalance of someone trying hard not to look caught.
The Ancient One allowed herself a long, quiet breath.
She concluded, after due consideration: this young man with no past and no future was not, in practice, going to threaten the stability of the multiverse. She had assessed the gap between their respective power levels. She had also assessed the likelihood of him listening to anything she said.
These two assessments were related.
She issued her perfunctory warning. He received it with profound solemnity and zero intention of acting on it.
And then she left.
Jordan exhaled.
And that, he thought, dusting off his jacket, is the power of the local dragon. The Ancient One, in her capacity as Sorcerer Supreme, had been quietly anchoring Earth's fortune for five hundred years. Odin — Odin, king of the Norse pantheon — treated her with genuine respect. Thanos himself had waited for her death before daring to come for Earth in person. His entire Infinity Stone acquisition plan had been structured around not being in the same room as this woman.
That was what five hundred years of protecting one small planet looked like.
The power of the bald. Jordan adjusted his collar. A lesson for the ages.
He snapped his fingers once. Tony's private bar reset itself to its previous level, glasses spotless, bottles corked, nothing touched. Then Jordan stepped off the balcony and dropped into the sky below.
He found his teammates on the streets below Stark Tower, in what could only be described as a very good mood.
"Hey, guys — look what this is."
Tony Stark brandished the Tesseract's reinforced case like a man who had just pulled off the greatest arms deal in history, his mustache practically forming its own victory symbol.
Steve Rogers, for his part, held the Loki's Scepter case at his side with the restrained dignity of a team captain. But when he saw Tony, something broke loose, and he raised it above his head with an undisguised grin.
Jordan and Banner dropped out of the sky to join them.
Jordan held up the Soul Stone's containment box. Banner held up the Time Stone's.
Four sets of eyes went around the group. Four slow smiles followed.
"At this rate," Tony said, looking at the four stones' worth of cosmic power distributed between four sets of hands, "we're basically collecting the Dragon Balls."
"Alright." Steve clapped both hands together, surveying his teammates with visible satisfaction. "I think it's fair to say our group came out ahead. Anything we've forgotten? If not—" He pressed his quantum bracelet. The red-and-white suit unfolded up over his frame. "Let's head home."
The others followed suit. Banner sighed, pulling his hood up. "I hope the other two groups made out okay."
Steve nodded — thoughts clearly there too.
Jordan spent ten seconds creating a reinforced magical containment box, transferred the Soul Stone into it, and held it out to Steve.
"Captain — you three go back first. I have a couple things left to deal with." He pressed the box into Steve's hands. "I've set my return timestamp to sync with yours. See you at the base."
Steve took it and gave a short nod. "Then we'll take this back first. Don't be late."
Jordan watched the three of them step into the quantum corridor and fold away.
He put on his own quantum suit.
The situation, as he'd considered it on the way back: thanks to Jordan and Hulk's early intercept work, Loki had been too concussed to take the Tesseract and vanish. Which meant the whole secondary time-travel excursion — Tony and Steve's original round trip to the 1970s for replacement Pym Particles and the Space Stone — wasn't strictly necessary for them anymore.
Jordan was going anyway.
Banner and Steve had both voiced concern about the other gem-retrieval teams. Jordan shared it. The specific concern: there was a data link between the two Nebulas, same neural architecture, able to read each other's memories given the right conditions. In the original timeline, that link had been Thanos's back door into the entire time heist. Jordan had no intention of sitting back and watching that unfold on his watch.
What's the point of a nanny if you don't show up?
He calibrated his quantum timestamp to match the arrival window of the team he was going to join.
First stop, however: Camp Lehigh, New Jersey. 1970.
Heavily guarded US military installations, Jordan had long since concluded, were nothing in practice to anyone operating above a certain power threshold. Which was not a comforting thought for general civilization, but was quite useful right now.
The base was thick with SHIELD personnel — and, invisible beneath that layer, a corresponding density of HYDRA operatives. Jordan walked past all of them. He located Dr. Hank Pym's secured lab in about forty-five seconds, opened the storage cabinet, and counted twelve tubes of Pym Particles inside.
He took all twelve.
Somewhere in the building, a voice went up:
"All of you are THIEVES!!"
Deep Space.
Natasha Romanoff studied the new arrival with a mildly baffled expression.
"Jordan. Didn't you take a wrong turn somewhere?"
Jordan looked at her hair color. Made a mental note: ask Tatsumaki if she'd ever considered something like that when I get back. Then shrugged.
"Believe it or not, I just saved the world."
"Very cool!" James Rhodes — War Machine armor standing down to conversation mode — clapped once, sincerely. "So — you helped us hold the Chitauri back in 2012?"
"Among other things. Also killed Thanos. The 2012 version."
Everyone looked at each other.
"..."
"OMG." Rhodes's voice had gone a little strange. "If you killed Thanos — why are you here? Each person's Pym Particles are supposed to cover exactly one round trip. Did you blow your allocation?"
"Two tubes per person," Scott Lang interjected quickly, raising one hand. "I can personally confirm. I have zero left. Not a drop."
"Don't worry about it." Jordan smiled, hands behind his back. "I sourced extra Pym Particles from elsewhere. And — believe me — if I hadn't made the trip out here, you would've had some problems."
"Oh, I believe you, I absolutely believe you—" Scott's hand shot straight up. He also half-reached toward Jordan's chest, thought better of it, and pointed instead. "Because look at this man. The muscles. The outfit. I feel extremely safe right now." He squinted. "Wait — are you cosplaying? Are you doing Superman? You're doing Superman."
"Yes and no," Jordan said. "You can call me One-Punch Man."
"I think," Scott said, looking him over, "that might actually be more accurate."
"I have something to add."
The group turned. Nebula, who had been standing at the edge of the conversation in her usual silence, spoke in a flat and measured tone.
"At this point in time, we are not the only ones looking for the Stones. Thanos is searching. Gamora is with him." A pause. "And — so am I."
Rhodes's expression sharpened. "He started this early? That's not good." He looked at her. "Where would the other you be, right now?"
Nebula's blue eyes were thoughtful.
"On the road. Helping him conquer and kill."
A moment of rearranged priorities settled across the group.
Scott raised his hand.
"Okay, I have a question." He looked around at the serious faces. "Now that we have Jordan — why don't we just send him to take down that Thanos too?"
Everyone looked at each other again. Version 2.0 of the same look.
Jordan pointed at Scott with one finger and gave him a slow thumbs up.
Scott grinned — the particular grin of a man who has just been validated by someone significantly more competent than himself and is now absolutely insufferable about it.
"Happy to," Jordan said. "If he comes here to die."