"What are you even complaining about?" Tony asked as soon as he walked into the villa. "You know I'm technically the acting director of the FBI's Washington branch now. I'm busy."
Locke immediately pointed a finger at him with exaggerated outrage. "Busy? Seriously? I know exactly how many times you've visited the FBI headquarters this month. Five times. Maybe six."
Tony rolled his eyes so hard it looked painful. "That's still more than you."
"Slander," Locke declared with absolute confidence. "Complete slander. I've been investigating major criminal organizations every single day. I've practically sacrificed my entire social life for work. Half the time I don't even go home."
Tony stared at him for two seconds before giving up. "Sure. Whatever helps you sleep at night."
He turned and pointed toward the glowing portal floating in the center of the room. Orange sparks drifted from the spinning edges while heat rippled faintly through the air.
"I didn't call you here to argue," Tony said. "I wanted you to look at this."
Two months earlier, Locke had brought Tony to Kamar-Taj. Ever since meeting Ancient One, Tony had become borderline obsessed with magic. Most weeks, he spent five or six days training there instead of working at Stark Industries.
Locke looked through the portal. On the other side was a dense forest overflowing with greenery. Tall trees stretched into the distance beneath a pale sky.
After staring for several seconds, Locke shrugged dismissively. "That's it? Honestly, your magical talent really is nowhere near Wanda's."
When Wanda Maximoff first trained under the Ancient One, she had learned portal magic on the very first day. By the third day, she had already mastered the Mirror Dimension, completely shattering Kamar-Taj's historical learning records.
Tony's expression darkened immediately.
"Damn it, Locke. I know Wanda's a monster, but learning portals in three days is already insane for normal people." He jabbed a finger toward the opening. "And stop acting smug before you even understand what you're looking at."
Locke rubbed his chin thoughtfully while examining the forest again. Nothing seemed unusual.
"So where's the problem?" he asked.
As he spoke, he casually stepped toward the portal.
Tony grabbed him by the shoulder so fast it almost looked panicked. "Don't."
Locke turned to him with confusion.
Tony took a breath before speaking seriously. "Do you remember the teleportation belt you gave me?"
Locke blinked. "Barely. Honestly, I figured you would've reverse-engineered it months ago. You're telling me the great Tony Stark still hasn't managed to build a second one?"
"You say that like it's easy." Tony looked personally offended. "Do you have any idea how ridiculous the technology inside that thing is? The materials alone are centuries ahead of modern science. Space manipulation, dimensional stabilization, quantum compression—none of it should even exist yet."
Locke nodded thoughtfully. "So... you failed."
Tony nearly choked.
For a second, it looked like he wanted to throw something directly at Locke's head.
Instead, he forced himself to calm down and continued. "While analyzing the belt, I discovered a strange material reaction. Every time the belt activates, it releases a very specific spatial fluctuation. I tried integrating those fluctuations into portal magic."
He pointed toward the glowing gateway again.
"And this happened."
Locke raised an eyebrow. "So where does it lead? Another planet?"
"That's what I thought at first," Tony admitted. "So I sent a quantum entanglement detector through the portal."
His expression slowly became serious.
"But I never received a signal back."
Locke frowned slightly. "And that means what exactly?"
Tony stared at him.
"You seriously don't know?"
"I know quantum fluctuation reading methods," Locke replied honestly. "That's about it."
Tony inhaled slowly through his nose like a man desperately fighting for patience.
"Quantum entanglement communication ignores normal spatial distance," he explained. "As long as two devices exist within the same universe, information transfer should be instantaneous regardless of location."
That explanation finally clicked for Locke.
It was basically the same principle behind the emergency pager Nick Fury had used to contact Captain Marvel. Without that kind of technology, interstellar communication would be absurdly impractical.
The Milky Way galaxy alone was over eighty thousand light-years wide. Even light itself needed eighty thousand years to cross it completely. Traditional communication methods would be useless on that scale.
Locke's eyes narrowed slightly.
If Tony's detector truly received no response whatsoever...
Then there was only one logical explanation.
Tony spoke slowly, emphasizing every word.
"I think the other side of this portal isn't in our universe."
Silence filled the room.
A moment later, Locke's mind immediately jumped to one possibility.
"You think this connects to Deadpool's original universe?"
Tony spread his hands. "That seems like the most likely answer."
Locke rubbed his jaw thoughtfully.
The teleportation belt originally came from Earth-616, after all. If the portal's fluctuations were based on the belt's spatial signature, then a connection to that universe actually made sense.
Of course, there was another problem.
Deadpool's teleportation devices malfunctioned constantly.
The lunatic practically treated parallel universes like public transportation. At one point, he had even assembled an entire Deadpool Corps made entirely of alternate versions of himself.
Female Deadpool. Kid Deadpool. Dog Deadpool. Zombie head Deadpool.
The multiverse around that man was pure chaos.
Tony looked visibly excited now. "So what do you think? Should we go take a look?"
Locke gave him an odd stare. "Then why were you stopping me earlier?"
Tony immediately answered, "Because I opened the portal. Obviously I should be the first one through."
Locke burst out laughing.
Without another word, he stepped sideways into the portal.
One second later, he stepped right back out again.
Then he simply stood there grinning at Tony.
Tony's face darkened instantly. "You are genuinely the worst friend I've ever had."
Locke shrugged innocently.
Tony muttered several extremely unfriendly things under his breath before raising his voice again.
"J.A.R.V.I.S., deploy armor."
Mechanical parts flew toward him from hidden compartments around the room. Within seconds, the red-and-gold armor sealed around his body with metallic clicks.
The glowing eye-slits lit up.
"Alright," Tony said. "Let's go."
Before entering, Locke glanced at the portal again. "One question first. Is this thing stable?"
Tony frowned. "What do you mean?"
"I mean," Locke said slowly, "what happens if we cross over and the portal collapses behind us? I can get myself back eventually. But you?" He pointed at Tony's armor. "I'm not carrying you across universes if you get stranded."
....
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