The city never slept, but tonight it screamed. New York's skyline burned with the afterglow of chaos—buildings scarred, streets cracked, the air thick with the acrid tang of smoke. Zane Vance stood on the rooftop's edge, his breath fogging in the cold. Below, sirens wailed, their red and blue lights pulsing like a heartbeat.
He's gone. The thought clawed at Zane's mind, sharp and unyielding. Tony's gone.
Iron Man was dead. The world knew it. The news had spread faster than the fires, plastered across every screen, every post on X: Tony Stark Sacrifices Himself to Save Universe. Hero. Legend. Martyr. Zane's fists clenched, his gloves creaking. He didn't know Stark like the Avengers did. He wasn't a friend or a teammate. But Tony had been the spark—the one who'd made Zane believe he could be more than a kid with a knack for fixing broken tech.
Now that spark was gone, and the world felt dimmer for it.
Zane's earpiece crackled. "You still brooding up there, Vance?" The voice was sharp, teasing, but laced with concern. Shuri. She was half a world away in Wakanda, but her tech kept them tethered. "You know staring at the skyline won't bring him back."
"I'm not brooding," Zane muttered, though his voice betrayed him. It was rough, heavy with the weight of the last seventy-two hours. "Just… thinking."
"Uh-huh. Sounds like brooding to me." Shuri's tone softened. "You've got five minutes before the signal hits. You ready?"
Zane's hand drifted to the device strapped to his chest—a sleek, palm-sized disc pulsing with faint blue light. Stark tech, modified by Shuri's genius and Zane's own reckless tinkering. It was untested, unstable, and probably insane. But it was his only shot.
"Ready as I'll ever be," he said, forcing a grin she couldn't see. His heart pounded, not from fear but from something sharper. Hope, maybe. Or desperation.
The disc hummed, its light flaring. Zane's eyes flicked to the horizon, where a faint shimmer rippled across the sky. A tear in reality. A wound left by the Snap, the Blip, and everything that came after. The Avengers had closed the big ones, but smaller rifts kept appearing, spitting out fragments of other worlds—other realities.
And Zane was about to jump into one.
You built this, Stark, he thought, his fingers brushing the disc. Don't let me screw it up.
The rooftop trembled. A low hum grew into a roar, and the shimmer in the sky cracked open, spilling violet light. Zane's stomach twisted. This was it. His chance to prove he wasn't just another kid with a dream. His chance to find what—or who—lay on the other side.
He took a step forward. Then another. The edge was close, the void closer.
"Vance," Shuri's voice cut through, urgent now. "The rift's unstable. You've got thirty seconds before it collapses. Move!"
Zane didn't think. He didn't run. He couldn't run. He wouldn't. Instead, he leaped.
The world exploded into light.
The rift swallowed Zane whole, spitting him out into a place that wasn't New York. Not anymore. The air was wrong—too clean, too sharp, like breathing glass. He landed hard, knees buckling on a surface that gleamed like polished obsidian. Above him, stars burned too bright, too close, arranged in patterns he didn't recognize.
Where the hell am I?
His HUD flickered to life, projected across his visor. Shuri's tech was still online, barely. Data scrolled: Atmospheric composition: 78% nitrogen, 21% oxygen, trace anomalies. Spatial distortion detected. Temporal signature… unknown.
"Great," Zane muttered, pushing himself up. His suit—cobbled together from scavenged Stark tech and his own designs—groaned but held. The disc on his chest pulsed erratically, its light dimming. "Shuri, you reading this?"
Static. Then: "—barely—signal's weak. You're… somewhere else. Rift's closed behind you." Her voice was faint, like she was shouting across a canyon. "Stay sharp, Vance. You're on your own."
"Not my first rodeo," he said, but the words felt hollow. He was alone. No Avengers. No backup. Just him, his suit, and a disc that might blow him to atoms if he pushed it too hard.
The ground trembled. A low, guttural roar echoed in the distance, shaking the air. Zane froze. His HUD pinged, highlighting a shape moving through the dark—a massive silhouette, all jagged edges and glowing eyes.
Not alone after all.
He crouched, his suit's thrusters humming softly. The disc pulsed again, brighter now, as if it sensed something. Zane's heart raced. He didn't know what was out there, but he'd built this suit for a reason. He'd jumped into this rift for a reason.
Tony believed in second chances, Zane thought. Time to make mine count.
The silhouette lunged.
Zane dove to the side, the ground cracking where he'd stood. The thing was fast—too fast. It was humanoid, maybe, but wrong. Its limbs were too long, its movements jerky, like a puppet with half its strings cut. Its eyes glowed a sickly green, and its mouth opened to reveal rows of needle-sharp teeth.
"Shuri, any chance you've got a monster manual for this place?" Zane quipped, rolling to his feet. His suit's repulsors powered up, glowing blue.
No answer. The signal was gone.
The creature charged again, its claws raking the air. Zane fired, the repulsor blast hitting it square in the chest. It staggered but didn't fall. Instead, it laughed—a sound like metal grinding on bone.
"Okay, that's new," Zane muttered. His HUD flashed a warning: Energy output critical. Disc stability at 62%.
He needed a plan. Fast.
The creature lunged again, but this time Zane was ready. He activated the suit's thrusters, launching himself upward. The disc flared, and for a split second, he felt something—someone—else. A presence in his mind, faint but familiar. Stark? No. Couldn't be.
The creature roared, leaping after him. Zane twisted midair, firing another blast. This one hit its mark, sending the thing crashing into the obsidian ground. It didn't get up.
Zane landed, panting. His HUD flickered, then stabilized. The disc was still glowing, but its rhythm was off, like a heartbeat out of sync. He scanned the horizon. More shapes were moving in the dark, their eyes glinting like stars.
He was in deep. Too deep.
But then he saw it—a faint glow, not far off. Another rift? A signal? Whatever it was, it felt like a lifeline. Zane took a step toward it, then stopped. The disc on his chest buzzed, and a voice—not Shuri's—crackled through his comms.
"Kid," it said, rough and tired but unmistakable. "You're a long way from home."