Thor scrambled off his brother.
"Wake up!" He shook Loki's shoulders. "Come on, wake up!"
Words clearly weren't going to cut it this time. Loki was out cold, his face looking like he'd gone ten rounds with the Hulk.
That's when Tony did something completely unexpected, he stepped out of his armor, and started walking toward Mario.
"I don't know what your endgame is. I don't know where you came from. We don't even know anything about you at all."
He stopped a few feet away.
"But I've got a theory brewing in this beautiful brain of mine. Whatever you're trying to accomplish here... I need to know, did I build that armor?"
He gestured toward Kaecilius, who was still standing in the magical battle suit.
Mario couldn't help but smile. Even in the middle of a battlefield littered with corpses and craters, Tony's ego and intellect were working overtime.
"You're still the smartest guy in any room."
He turned to Kaecilius. "Come on out of there."
The magical armor opened with a hiss of released pressure, and Kaecilius stepped out.
Mario gestured to the suit like a salesman showing off his premium product. "The Arcane War Suit, the ultimate fusion of technology and sorcery. Powered by four second-generation arc reactors, the same model you're currently using. You're right, this is your creation. Well, not exactly yours. The Tony Stark from my universe built this with Ivan Vanko and Kaecilius."
When he mentioned Ivan, Tony's expression flickered. That wild-eyed, brilliant madman who'd tried to kill him at the Monaco Grand Prix. In another universe, they were apparently colleagues.
"Thank you," he said quietly, and for once, there wasn't a trace of irony in his voice. "I'm guessing the 'me' from your world must have gotten along with you pretty well. Otherwise, I'd never build a suit for someone else, especially another dude."
Mario chuckled. "We got along fine. Though that Tony was always trying to hit on my secretary."
He pulled the Tesseract from his inventory. "This thing clearly won't help me get home, but I do like collecting rare artifacts. So I'm keeping it. Time for me to find another way back."
He looked at Tony, then nodded toward the fallen heroes scattered across the battlefield.
"I hope after this, all of you become stronger. Learn from this."
Then he pulled out a staff that radiated pure, holy light. The kind of glow that made you think of churches and guardian angels and other things that definitely didn't belong on a Siberian battlefield.
He pointed it at the dead Avengers.
"Heroes Never Die!"
Beams of golden light pierced the dark sky, striking down like pillars. They hit the bodies of Hawkeye, Natasha, and Rogers, enveloping them in radiant energy.
He started walking toward the portal Kaecilius had opened, then paused and turned back.
"Oh, one more thing, tell Black Widow her body should be completely healed now."
The resurrection spell restored people to their most perfect physical state. If it could regrow Bucky's missing arm in another timeline, it could certainly repair whatever damage S.H.I.E.L.D.'s experiments and decades of espionage had done to Natasha's body.
With that message delivered, he stepped through the portal and disappeared, leaving behind a devastated battlefield and two very confused gods... well, one god and one billionaire playboy philanthropist.
Thor and Tony stood in silence, watching as the supposedly dead Avengers began to stir. Rogers groaned and pushed himself upright, looking down at his torn uniform with confusion. Hawkeye sat up, patting his chest where a Wither skull had blown a hole clean through him.
Natasha climbed out of the crashed Quinjet's wreckage, her face smudged with soot but otherwise looking completely unharmed.
Tony stared at Rogers, who was walking toward them, and couldn't resist turning to Thor.
"Hey, Point Break, you gods have that kind of power too, right? The whole resurrection thing?"
"No. We... we don't."
Resurrection. Thor couldn't do it. His father, the All-Father Odin, couldn't do it. None of the Asgardians he knew possessed that kind of power. And yet this stranger from another universe had just brought three people back from death like it was nothing more complicated than making coffee.
Tony's response was pure Stark. "Then what kind of half-assed gods are you people? Can't even bring someone back to life. That's literally God 101."
Rogers reached them. "What happened? Just now I could have sworn I was—"
"Dead!" Tony cut him off. "You were dead, Cap. Just like our mysterious friend said, you all got to enjoy a unique experience today."
He looked around at the landscape.
"Mission failed, Cap. Let's go home."
Then, with a self-mocking smile, he added, "From beginning to end, everything was under that guy's control. We were nothing more than actors in his show. Maybe if we're lucky, he'll give us a thumbs-up review on his way out."
Rogers looked confused. But what surprised him more was Thor's reaction. Normally, the God of Thunder would have exploded at Tony's sarcastic words, especially after yesterday when he'd been ready to fight at the slightest provocation. But now? Nothing. Just silence and what looked like humility.
Tony didn't bother explaining further. He walked back to his armor, the suit opening to receive him. "J.A.R.V.I.S., run a full diagnostic on everyone. And someone needs to check on Natasha, apparently she got an upgrade."
As he lifted off toward the crashed Quinjet, he thought, And I thought my week couldn't get any weirder.
---
Back in New York, Mario sprawled on a wooden plank like it was a luxury couch, missing his furniture with an intensity that bordered on pathetic.
"Looks like the Tesseract's a bust for getting us home. But there's still another option, Pym Particles. If we can get our hands on those, we could use the Quantum Realm to slip back to our own universe. It'll be tricky, though."
Kaecilius didn't respond.
Mario glanced over and frowned. The sorcerer had that strange stare going on, like his mind was somewhere else entirely.
What's wrong with him? He was fine five minutes ago.
"Kaecilius!" Mario waved a hand in front of his face. "You having a stroke or something?"
Kaecilius snapped back to awareness, his eyes suddenly burning with desperate hope. "Can you help me bring my family back?"
It was the first time he'd realized Mario possessed resurrection magic, and for the first time since their deaths, he felt close to seeing his wife and child again.
Mario's smile faded immediately. He let out a long, heavy sigh.
"I've always known what you wanted. But there's nothing I can do. My resurrection magic has strict limitations, the target can't have been dead for more than twenty-four hours."
He put a hand on Kaecilius' shoulder, feeling helpless. "If you want to bring your family back, you'll have to do it yourself. Grow stronger. Master new magic. Follow this path far enough, and maybe one day you'll achieve what you're looking for."
As he spoke, a thought flickered through his mind, What if I used the Time Stone to restore someone to the day they died... and then used resurrection magic? Would that work?
He filed that idea away for later. Something to experiment with if they ever got their hands on the Time Stone.
After a moment, Kaecilius steadied himself. The hope hadn't died, it had just shifted focus.
Mario didn't really know how to comfort him, so he kept it simple. "Let's rest for a couple days. After that, we'll track down Pym and see if he can help send us home."
He stood up, pulling obsidian blocks from his inventory and walking to the corner of the room.
I need to hit the Nether for supplies. That whole alternate universe disaster left me running low on materials.
He quickly constructed a portal frame, activated it with flint and steel, and stepped through before Kaecilius could ask any questions.
The familiar hellscape of the Nether greeted him. He looked around, surprised by how recognizable everything was. He could even see one of his old shortcut tunnels in the distance.
Then he turned and froze.
Two identical Nether portals stood side by side.
"What the hell... did I just come back?"
Confused but curious, he walked through the second portal. The familiar disorientation hit him, and when his vision cleared... He was back. Actually back. In his own universe.
"I really came back?"
He stared around the familiar underground base beneath Central Park.
"I'm home."
He dove onto the couch face-first, sinking into the cushions with a groan of relief. "I missed this. A week of sleeping on the ground and eating whatever crap I could find. Never again."
After a moment of blissful comfort, he grabbed his phone and tried calling Ivan. The call wouldn't connect, no signal.
Don't tell me time flows differently between universes. Seven days there could be seven years here...
With no other choice, he dialed Skye's number.
Beep… beep…
The phone rang twice before connecting.
"Hey, what's up, Mario?"
BANG. BANG.
Skye's voice came through clearly, followed by sharp gunfire in the background. But she sounded exactly the same.
"Hey, do you know where Ivan and Tony went? Can't get through to them."
BANG.
"No clue. I've been learning computer stuff from Oracle and hunting vampires with Blade. Speaking of which, I'm kind of busy right now. Can I call you back?"
"Be careful out there."
"Will do. Wait, you're home? I'll come see you as soon as I'm done here."
She hung up before he could respond.
Mario tossed the phone aside and lay back on the couch. Ivan and Tony were probably fine, if something serious had happened, Skye wouldn't be so calm about it.
Still feel like I'm forgetting something though...
He thought about it for several minutes, but nothing came to mind.
Eh, I'll remember eventually.
About ten minutes later, Skye called back.
"Mario, I'm here. But why are there two portals?"
"Wait there, I'll come get you."
Mario jumped up and headed toward the Nether portal. Then he stopped.
"Oh right, I forgot to put up signs!"
He grabbed some wood from a nearby chest and crafted three signs, then stepped through into the Nether.
"Why didn't you contact me for so long? I've been trying to reach you for days, your communicator doesn't work either!"
"I was on a trip. Far from home."
"You could have at least told me you were leaving!" Skye punched his shoulder.
"I will next time. Come on. Let's get back to civilization. I need to find Kaecilius, pretty sure I left him in the other universe."
Skye pulled back, eyes wide. "You left him in another universe?!"
"It's been a weird week."
Mario quickly crafted signs for both portals:
[PORTAL 1 - CENTRAL PARK]
[PORTAL 2 - ALTERNATE UNIVERSE - AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY]
"You can stay in the basement if you want," he told Skye. "I need to go grab Kaecilius before he thinks I abandoned him."
He stepped through Portal 2 and emerged back in Universe 2, where Kaecilius was exactly where he'd left him, sitting in meditation.
The sorcerer's eyes opened immediately when Mario appeared. "I've found a way to get home"
"What way?"
"Remember that Nether dimension I showed you? Turns out both universes connect to the same Nether. We just need to use the right portals."
Kaecilius looked surprised. "I thought that was just a pocket dimension attached to our universe."
"Yeah, me too."
They stepped back through the portal together.
Back in Universe 1, with Kaecilius' portal magic helping them travel quickly, Mario and his companions arrived at the African base within minutes.
But something was very wrong.
The abandoned spacecraft that had been parked there was gone. The busy scientists and robots that had filled the facility, also gone. The place looked like it had been stripped clean, with only strange instruments and machines left behind.
Actually, there was one person still there.
Selvig sat hunched over a computer terminal, staring at data streams with the kind of intensity that suggested he hadn't slept in days. Occasionally he'd scribble notes on paper, muttering to himself.