Chapter 358: Let's Watch a Movie About Loki
Ugh, my head is killing me... Young Tony rubbed his temples, stumbling slowly down the stairs, each step feeling like he was walking on clouds — unsteady, heavy, faintly unreal.
Morning light poured through the floor-to-ceiling windows, catching his tired but still-handsome face and edging it in soft gold.
The living room buzzed with a warm, easy energy.
Ethan stood in the open kitchen, spatula in hand, flipping a golden-brown egg with practiced ease, the smell of breakfast already filling the whole space.
He glanced up at Tony coming down the stairs, a warm smile tugging at his mouth. "Up already? Perfect timing, breakfast's almost done."
The night before, they'd all gone to a party — the Avengers had thrown a celebration to mark their plan's success.
Basically everyone had gotten thoroughly drunk, except Ethan and Thor, whose bodies could burn off alcohol almost instantly, and Strange, who'd simply had a duplicate drink on his behalf.
Tony — the one normal human in the room — had gotten absolutely wasted.
Ethan just smiled faintly and went back to cooking while Wanda and the others caught up with their own universe's counterparts.
Thor had learned everything about this world's tragic history from Fat Thor and had spent the entire night in a sour mood. He swore, then and there, that he'd never let that same tragedy unfold in his own timeline.
He resolved to go home and train harder to master his own godly power, and to have a real talk with Odin — and, if possible, free his sister Hela from wherever she'd been sealed away.
Not this time. Not on his watch.
Strange and Doctor Strange had spent the night trading spells — Strange sharing the new Harry Potter magic he'd picked up, while Doctor Strange taught him how to actually wield the Time Stone.
When Doctor Strange learned that this timeline's own Strange had never gone through the car crash and all the suffering that had originally shaped him into a sorcerer, something like quiet reflection settled over him. "You really should thank Ethan properly," he told Strange.
Without Ethan, Strange would have had to endure a great deal of pain to get where he was now. Doctor Strange understood clearly: Ethan's presence hadn't just changed the arc of Strange's life — it had softened him, made him kinder and more open than Doctor Strange had ever managed to become himself.
By the end of the night, Doctor Strange also understood something else: over in that other world, he'd apparently had a college classmate of four years named Ethan — and that explained, tidily enough, exactly why this world's Strange had turned out the personality he had.
If Doctor Strange himself had ever crossed paths with someone like Ethan back in his own youth, maybe he wouldn't have grown into someone quite so insufferably arrogant either.
Toward the end of the conversation, the two of them had gotten around to talking about their girlfriends, with Doctor Strange urging Strange to treat his well.
Wanda, for her part, had noticed Scarlet Witch looking down through the party and gone over to talk to her — earlier, on the battlefield, Wanda's entire focus had been on Ethan, leaving little room for curiosity about her counterpart.
But at the party, she'd finally had the time to actually see how her other-universe self was doing.
Scarlet Witch, still gloomy over never getting her revenge for Vision, hadn't taken it out on Wanda at all.
By the end of their conversation, a smile had started returning to Scarlet Witch's face.
She learned that in this other universe, she and her brother had never been taken in and trained by HYDRA as assassins as children — instead, Ethan had taken them in, given them a family who treated them like real daughters, and a genuinely happy childhood.
Scarlet Witch was thrilled for her counterpart, hearing all of it — especially that Pietro had never died, that Wanda had found love of her own, had a whole family and circle of friends, and work of her own to be proud of.
Watching her happiness, something bittersweet stirred in her — a flicker of envy, too. If her own world had had an Ethan, would her life have turned out just as full?
Where Scarlet Witch's face had brightened, Wanda's eyes had gone red, her expression full of aching sympathy.
Learning that this world's version of her and Pietro had been raised as child assassins by HYDRA, that her own love and her brother had both died, that she had no family left at all — Wanda's face crumpled with sorrow. She hadn't imagined the other-universe version of herself could have had it this bad.
At the same time, she'd felt a fresh wave of gratitude toward Ethan. Without him, her own childhood might have gone exactly the same way.
If anything, the whole exchange had only deepened how much she loved him.
Learning that Pietro had died from something as mundane as a gunshot wound left Wanda genuinely stunned — she thought immediately of her own brother back home, always so carefree and reckless.
Right then and there, Wanda decided: the second she got home, she was training Pietro within an inch of his life.
A mutant, dying to a bullet? Absolutely humiliating. She wasn't about to let that stand — and she certainly wasn't about to lose her brother.
The two women had ended up crying in each other's arms before the night was through. Emotional creatures, the both of them.
Before they parted ways, Wanda had invited Scarlet Witch to visit Hell's Kitchen — or better yet, to just stay there — and had claimed her as an older sister.
Scarlet Witch had accepted Wanda as a little sister in turn — two versions of the same woman, from two different universes, sworn as sisters now.
Still, Scarlet Witch had turned down the offer to stay, wanting to remain close to Vision. She promised, though, that whenever she had the chance, she'd visit Hell's Kitchen to see Wanda and her brother.
As for Young Tony — he hadn't spent much time actually talking with Old Tony at all. His attention had been entirely stolen by Morgan, Old Tony's daughter.
For Morgan, having two identical fathers show up out of nowhere — one young, one considerably older — had been genuinely disorienting at first.
But once Old Tony explained that Young Tony was his younger brother — Morgan's uncle, effectively — she'd warmed up to him almost instantly.
Young Tony wasn't thrilled about suddenly being cast as "the uncle," but seeing how adorable Morgan was, he decided not to make an issue of it.
He'd already made up his mind: the second he got home, he was proposing. And having a kid of his own, sooner rather than later.
He was completely, hopelessly smitten with the idea of that child already.
As for the rest of the Avengers' broader trajectory — nothing much had changed. All things considered, this outcome counted as a genuinely good one for most of them.
After all, Natasha and Old Tony were both still alive.
Loki, unfortunately, was beyond saving — he'd died at Thanos's own hand directly, not to the Infinity Stones' snap, so there was no bringing him back that way.
Vision, similarly, remained unrevivable — he'd been fused inseparably with the Mind Stone itself. Even with the Stone back in hand, Ethan doubted Vision could actually be restored. If anyone ever built something from it again down the line, it probably wouldn't come back as Vision — might end up as some entirely different construct instead.
All told, aside from skipping Tony's own funeral, almost nothing in the timeline had actually changed.
Once breakfast was ready, Thor — never one for patience — finally turned to Ethan. "So what exactly did you want us here for? All this secrecy."
"No rush. We're waiting on the other Thor and Stephen. As for what we're doing — we're going to watch a movie. A movie about Loki."
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