"Fu—wait, what's your name again?"
Tony really wanted to start verbally attacking this guy and his entire family tree, but he suddenly realized he didn't even know the name of the person who had saved his life.
"Joey. Joey Joseph Kent."
"Good, got it—fuck you, Joey."
"Fuck you too, Tony."
While the two of them were trading fucks back and forth, a team of plainclothes agents rushed into the KFC, heading straight for Tony Stark.
Just like Joey had said earlier, Constantinople had not only a lot of cats—but also a lot of CIA.
"I'll come find you later. Remember to pay my bill."
That was the last thing Tony heard before a gust of wind swept past him and Joey vanished without a trace.
---
By the time Tony Stark had finished all the health and security checks under the heavy guard of a highly alert CIA detail, boarded a plane from Istanbul, transferred in Lisbon, and finally landed in New York, nearly 24 hours had passed.
Although it was already late at night in New York, he wasn't sleepy at all after having dozed on the plane. He declined a meeting request from his uncle Obadiah and canceled the medical exam Pepper had arranged in advance, heading straight for his lab.
The reason he had escaped the terrorists in the Middle East was embedded in his chest at that very moment—a small, improvised arc reactor he had built in desperation.
It could output nearly ten billion joules per second—enough electricity to dwarf the Hoover Dam, enough to keep his heart beating for five hundred thousand years, and enough to power an Iron Man suit to build a better future.
Right now, he needed to replicate his work, verify the feasibility of his earlier design, and pave the way for what came next.
"You really took the long way around, Tony. I probably should've just dropped you off directly in New York."
The sudden voice in the dark lab made Tony jump. "Fuck! How did you get in? Why didn't JARVIS call security and throw you out?"
The lights didn't automatically turn on as usual under JARVIS's control. Joey reached out and flipped the switch himself.
"JARVIS is rebooting right now. Tony, I need your help."
"What kind of help starts with breaking and entering? Are you about to pull out a gun and make me hand over my fortune so you can escape poverty?"
Tony grabbed a bottle of whiskey from the cabinet and poured himself a glass—only himself.
"Hunter Laing single malt. Not expensive, but good. Want one?"
"Alcohol is bad for your health. Whiskey is especially bad for the heart. Though for you, I guess it doesn't matter."
Joey didn't even need super-vision to know the state Tony's body was in.
"The catalyst inside that reactor in your chest is palladium. Heavy metal poisoning will kill you within two or three years. But if you stop using the reactor, the shrapnel floating near your heart will kill you in two or three days."
"How do you know that?"
The moment Tony asked, he remembered Joey had mentioned being able to see far distances.
"Oh—so you can see through things too? Does that ability have range limits? Material limits? Have you ever used it to look at naked women?"
"Probably no limits. For example, I can see right now that weapons manufactured by Stark Industries just killed thirteen innocent villagers in the country you escaped from."
"Jesus, Joey, I swear I—"
Tony was out of words. He just wanted Joey to stop bringing that up.
"Please. I rushed to the lab to fix this problem. Can you stop attacking me for five minutes? And what exactly do you want me to help you with?"
Tony had figured it out. This guy was here to give him grief. Whatever he needed, just give it to him and send him on his way.
Joey stared at Tony's chest. Red light flared in his eyes. "I won't let you help me for free."
Tony suddenly felt a sharp pain in his chest. He groaned and collapsed to the floor. The pain came fast—and faded just as quickly. He was about to call Pepper when he realized the pain was completely gone.
"What did you just do? Are you trying to kill me and take my inheritance?"
"Just performed a precise laser surgery."
Ignoring Tony's protests, Joey stepped forward, grabbed the arc reactor from his chest, and shoved it back into Tony's hands.
"The metal fragments in your body are completely gone. You don't need to carry that thing around anymore."
Tony was skeptical. Still, if Joey wanted him dead, he wouldn't need to go through all this trouble.
"How did you do that? Some kind of magic?"
"My eyes emit high-energy beams. I annihilated the metal fragments directly. Think of it like a Gamma Knife."
Tony Stark felt personally insulted on behalf of years of academic dedication. "That's not how a Gamma Knife works! That explanation is neither credible nor scientific!"
Joey pulled out the time watch and handed it to Tony. "Then take a look at something even less scientific."
He needed someone to fix the charging function and help him solve the problem of being lost between universes.
He had only meant to travel back one week. Instead, he was stranded outside his own universe.
"You don't exactly look like you're from around here, Joey. Don't tell me that watch can travel through time or jump through space or something..."
While JARVIS was coming back online, Tony discreetly scanned Joey. An unknown energy field surrounded him, blocking further analysis.
So he scanned the watch instead.
"WTF... I was joking! This is impossible!"
Tony's hands trembled. He quickly stuffed the arc reactor back into his pocket and held the watch with both hands, afraid of dropping it.
A device capable of creating a closed timelike curve. In other words—a genuine time machine.
Tony had fantasized about time travel before, especially after his parents died in a car accident. But he was a rational scientist. He knew how fantastical the idea was. He had studied Hank Pym's early papers and considered quantum tunneling as a possibility—but never managed to construct a viable model.
And in his view, time travel wasn't responsible. Without parallel universes, traveling to the past would turn your past into your future and your future into your past—an endless Mobius loop, like an ouroboros devouring itself.
Staring at the watch, Tony's thoughts drifted. What is this Terminator bullshit...
"You're completely insane... You used this to travel to your present—your past? That explains your abilities. You're from the future! Did you rescuing me also change history?"
Joey rolled his eyes. "You're overthinking it, Tony. Just figure out how to recharge this thing. It malfunctioned—it didn't just move me through time, it threw me across universes. I never even planned to meet you!"
"Recharge? Isn't it already charging?"
Tony flipped the watch around and showed him the lit screen.
"It says 'Charging.'"
Joey scanned it and realized it automatically absorbed nearby energy. In his earlier panic, he hadn't noticed.
It was currently siphoning enormous energy from the arc reactor in Tony's pocket. At this proximity, the charging efficiency was so high it would be full in moments.
Joey snatched the watch back—and borrowed the arc reactor too.
"I'll take your cold fusion core. You're going to build a new one anyway. Goodbye, Tony. See you later."
Setting the parameters to reverse his previous jump, Joey almost forgot something before pressing the button.
"Oh right—one more thank-you gift. Your uncle Obadiah? He tried to kill you. The attack in the Middle East was his doing. The evidence is on a USB drive on your desk. I already sent him on a vacation to the South American rainforest."
...
A flash of light.
Joey returned to the previous universe—the Kent farm.
After verifying the universal constants, he confirmed it was the same parallel universe as before.
He was greeted by a pitchfork—held by that universe's Jonathan Kent.
"You think I wouldn't recognize you just because you changed clothes? I'm not scared of you superpowered freaks. Get off my land, young man!"
"Of course. No need to get angry. Anger's bad for your health. This is the Kent Farm—you're in charge. I'm leaving."
Prodded in the waist by the pitchfork, Joey looked at this world's Jonathan—already gray at the temples—and Martha clearing the table inside the house. His heart twisted.
They weren't his parents. They had never known him. He had to find his way home.
Time travel was far more complicated than he had imagined. All he wanted now was to return to the world he had started from—the world that belonged to him, the world with Laurie in it.
He adjusted the watch again.
Flash—
He reappeared somewhere familiar—Tony Stark's office.
Tony had just finished his second glass of whiskey. Seeing Joey return so soon, he rubbed his eyes in disbelief.
"Uh... am I already drunk? You said goodbye like two minutes ago. And now you're back? Also... are you crying?"
"No, Tony! I'm not!"
Joey instantly evaporated the tears at the corner of his eyes with heat vision.
But his heart had sunk to the bottom.
Something was wrong.
He was trapped between these two universes—and he couldn't find his way home.