Chapter 332: Captain America — "The Director Wouldn't Let Us"
Truth was, Ethan had already known the broad strokes of their plan before he even arrived. Strange had a rough idea too, but the finer details still escaped him.
"So — you're planning to snap your fingers, is that it? The Stone's right here waiting on you." Ethan pressed the point.
Steve — the man behind the plan, its main architect — rose to his feet and took it on himself to walk the two of them through it. "Our plan is to go back into the past, collect all six Infinity Stones, and use their combined power to bring back everyone Thanos erased."
"Keep going. We already know that much. Banner already covered it." Ethan nodded.
Steve sighed. Ending up in Ethan's universe had been a complete accident — none of them fully understood how it had even happened.
Something like that would leave anyone reeling, sure. But looking back, Steve found himself grateful the mission had gone sideways the way it did.
If it hadn't, Natasha never would have come back. Maybe fate had steered them into that other universe for a reason.
Once all of this was over, he'd make sure to properly thank Ethan.
Steve pressed on, laying out the plan in full. In their setup, he was responsible for the Scepter housing the Mind Stone. Iron Man and Ant-Man were tasked with the Tesseract. Dr. Banner had the Power Stone. Clint and Natasha had the Soul Stone.
Nebula and War Machine were assigned the Power Stone as backup. Thor and Rocket Raccoon were on the Reality Stone.
But the moment they'd landed in Ethan's world instead, the whole plan had stalled out entirely — Steve hadn't recognized Banner there, and had ended up taking a beating in the middle of it.
The Mind Stone — which should have been sitting safely in S.H.I.E.L.D.'s custody — had turned out to already be in Ethan's possession the entire time. On top of that, Steve had run headlong into a Captain Carter he'd never seen before in his life.
After some fighting, the whole mess only settled down once they'd literally ended up brawling on a bed.
Then there was the Pym Particle shortage. Tony had originally floated the idea of jumping back to World War II to grab more, but Steve had shut that idea down flat.
They'd already ended up in the wrong timeline once. If they missed again, there was a real chance they'd never make it home at all.
He wanted to save the people they'd lost as much as anyone — but he wasn't willing to gamble another teammate's life on top of it.
Pym Particles were the kind of thing they could probably still track down back home, if they went looking hard enough.
And with Banner reporting he'd already secured the rest of the Stones on his end, the group had decided to head back first and regroup.
Strange listened to the whole plan and sank into quiet thought — wondering what his own world would have done, faced with something like this. Would they have handled it the same clumsy way this world's Avengers had?
Ethan, meanwhile, glanced sideways at Tony. So this world's Tony had never gotten the chance to see his own father, Howard — a scene that, in the film, had actually managed to get to Ethan, of all people.
"That's it? That's the whole plan?" Ethan asked.
"That's right," Steve nodded — then caught the unmistakable look on Ethan's face and felt his mood sour instantly. "Is there a problem?"
Ethan's expression alone was enough to tell anyone, even a total idiot, exactly how unimpressed he was.
That set off Scott, the guy who'd actually come up with the plan in the first place — he bristled visibly at being looked down on.
After all, it was his concept — the Quantum Realm idea — that had gotten them all six Stones in the first place.
Strange, meanwhile, was genuinely curious whether there was actually a better plan than this one.
"I know you're powerful and everything, but we already got the Stones we came for. What exactly is wrong with how we did it?" Scott said, voicing what everyone on the team had clearly been thinking. When they'd first come up with this plan, after all, they'd been thrilled.
Five straight years of trying, and this was the best they'd managed to come up with. As far as they were concerned, it was the best plan available, full stop.
They were more than curious to hear whatever brilliant counter-proposal Ethan apparently had in mind.
Ethan, naturally, wasn't about to go easy on any of them. "There's nothing wrong with the plan itself. Your timing, though — that's a mess. Whichever idiot came up with that part, seriously?"
The comment landed hard — Steve and Tony's faces both went sour instantly. It was obvious enough that this part of the plan had been theirs.
Whatever goodwill they'd built up toward Ethan for saving Natasha evaporated on the spot.
Before Scott and the others could even fire back, Ethan continued, expression flat. "Your whole goal was collecting the Infinity Stones, right? So why split it across three completely different points in time? You already knew there was exactly one moment when all six Stones existed in the same place at the same time. Why not just go grab them then?"
The whole group, primed to argue with Ethan a second ago, went completely quiet instead.
Had they honestly never thought of that? Of course they had — but Thanos's sheer power had made that particular window feel unthinkable. They hadn't even let themselves seriously consider it.
"You wouldn't say that if you'd actually seen what Thanos is capable of," Banner said quietly, head down.
The rest of the Avengers all flinched at the mere mention of the name. Clearly, the psychological damage Thanos had inflicted on this team went deep.
Strange, watching all of their faces, was already mentally plotting his exit strategy.
He still didn't fully know who Thanos even was — but between the Avengers' reactions and the number of times he'd already heard Ethan casually drop that name, Strange had a strong suspicion he was about to be personally involved in whatever came next.
Nope. I need an excuse to slip out of here. This world is way too dangerous. Priority one: hide my actual body somewhere safe. Strange was already scheming.
Ethan, for his part, answered the room's unspoken challenge directly. "Why wouldn't I know how strong Thanos is? Nobody on this planet knows him better than I do."
That silenced the Avengers all over again. Given Ethan's own power level, it did track that he'd have real firsthand insight into Thanos. Their fear of the man was well-earned.
Steve stepped forward to defend the team's decision. "We just chose the safer, more reliable option for retrieving the Stones. If we'd gone for a different point in time, there was no guarantee we could've protected everyone. We still got the Stones without anyone getting hurt, didn't we?"
Ethan laughed — genuinely, if bitterly. "Didn't you all already kill Thanos once before? If you're this scared of him at full strength, why not just go hit him at that little cabin of his, back when he's already worn down? Let's be honest — you're just afraid of him.
And another thing — who told you 'without anyone getting hurt'? If it weren't for me, you'd have lost a lot more than one teammate on this trip."
The whole group went instantly, visibly awkward. What Ethan was saying made a disturbing amount of sense.
Think about it: right after the snap, a weakened, exhausted Thanos retreats to his cabin — and suddenly a squad of superpowered brawlers ambushes him there. The odds of success would've been sky-high.
And it wasn't even the first time Thor had taken an axe to Thanos, either. Second time's the charm and all that.
As for Ethan's comment about losing more than one teammate — Tony and the others assumed he simply meant getting stranded in his universe by accident; if Ethan hadn't been generous enough to help, they'd never have made it home at all.
Since, as far as they knew, everyone had made it out fine this time around, nobody thought too hard about the deeper implication.
Nobody noticed, though, that Nebula — still standing at the back of the group — had gone rigid the instant Ethan said that last line.
Ethan looked over the whole assembled group of not-particularly-sharp heroes and decided there wasn't much more to say. He got to his feet and headed for the door. "The three Infinity Stones are yours to use. Get everything ready — the sooner you're done with them, the sooner we can all head home."
Privately, Ethan understood none of this was really their fault. It was just that the director wouldn't allow it — Natasha's salary demands had simply gotten too high. She had to go.
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