And just like that, the five of them boarded the Quin jet: Steve and Natasha up front.
Tony stood near Loki.
Luke settled into a seat, calm as always.
Loki sat restrained on the bench — upright, arms bound tightly with the glowing blue rope, frustration simmering behind his eyes.
Tony, being Tony, immediately drifted toward the glowing rope binding Loki — blue, translucent, and giving off readings JARVIS clearly didn't understand.
He ran a quick scan.
The display flickered, distorted, then spat out nonsense values.
Tony frowned. "Okay… that's weird."
He leaned closer, helmet open, eyes narrowing with scientific interest.
"So how do these ropes work?" he asked, tapping the glowing strands lightly. "This isn't nanotech. Not adaptive. No power source. No field signature.And nothing mechanical. It's not tech, at least not in any way we classify it."
He wasn't being sarcastic — he genuinely wanted to know.
Before Tony could launch into another barrage of questions, Luke lifted a hand lazily.
"Before you ask how something works, basic courtesy says you ask the guy's name first."
Tony blinked once.
Then sighed.
"…Right. Fine." He straightened a bit. "So what's your name?"
"Luke Haken."
Tony nodded, like he'd expected something more dramatic but accepted it. "Well, I'm obviously Tony Stark — so I'm going to skip the introduction part."
He pointed his thumb back at the ropes.
"Now that we've covered the formalities… how do those work?"
Tony said it with that familiar Stark mix of curiosity and subtle challenge — the tone he used whenever he ran into tech he couldn't immediately dissect but refused to admit it.
Luke didn't even sit up. "It's mana."
Tony looked up as if he misheard. "…A what now?"
"Mana," Luke repeated, completely serious.
Tony stared at him for a long second. "Is that supposed to mean something? "
"Magic," Luke clarified. "I used magic."
Tony blinked.
Once.
Twice.
Then a small grin tugged at the corner of his mouth. "Nice joke. Really. For a second you almost had me."
Luke pointed at Loki — bound in glowing blue ropes, gagged by a spell.
"That look like a joke to you?"
Tony opened his mouth… then shut it. His suit pinged again — and once again, the readings came back blank. No composition. No origin. Not even an energy signature.
"…Okay," Tony muttered, frowning. "But scientifically speaking, magic is just advanced—"
"Magic," Luke interrupted, blunt.
Tony narrowed his eyes. "You're doing this on purpose, aren't you?"
"No," Luke said. "Magic is real. And think about it — ten years ago, if someone told you about a metal suit that flies, fires missiles, tanks explosions, and lets one guy take on an entire army… what would people say?"
Luke kept going. "They'd call it impossible. Sci-fi nonsense."
Tony tried — really tried — not to look pleased. But his chin lifted just a bit, and that smug Stark expression appeared like a reflex. Compliments did wonders on his ego.
"Hmmm… good point," Tony said, acting casual in that not-at-all-casual Stark way.
Up front, Natasha rolled her eyes without turning around.
Tony folded his arms. "Yeah… if someone described my suit a decade ago, they'd have said it belonged in a Hollywood blockbuster. Nobody would've believed it could be real."
"Exactly," Luke said. "Same thing here. People don't believe in magic until it's right in front of them."
Tony looked at the rope one more time, running the scanner again. Another error. Another "unidentified anomaly."
"…So magic is real," Tony concluded, quieter, processing. "Okay. That's… new."
"So… can I learn it? If it's something teachable, I want to understand it. And I can pay for private lessons if that's what it takes."
He wasn't joking. Not fishing for amusement.
Tony hated unknowns. If something existed outside his knowledge, he wanted to master it — or at least understand the rules.
Natasha didn't even bother turning around — money was the last thing Luke needed.
"No , magic isn't something you can learn just because you have money" said Luke
There were countless forms of magic across the omniverse—each with its own rules, sources, and limitations.
But humans in the Marvel universe simply weren't built for the kind Luke used. Their world's entire mystic system functioned differently.
In Marvel, magic wasn't something you generated from within; it was something you borrowed. Sorcerers didn't cast spells through their own power—they drew energy from higher-dimensional beings and cosmic entities.
The Vishanti, Cytorrak, Agamotto, Hoggoth, and a dozen others acted as the true power sources. A sorcerer's skill lay not in raw strength, but in channeling those external forces without losing control.
Marvel magic was a contract, a negotiation, a request for power from something far above human existence. Luke's magic, however, came from neither bargain nor borrowed energy.
And because of that fundamental difference, no human in this universe could ever wield it the way he did. As his body generates it own mana so nope he can't teach Tony.
Tony finally sighed. "So… what can magic do?"
"It can do many things," Luke said, leaning back. "But I'm not in a mood to explain all that."
Tony stared at him. "…Seriously?"
Luke shrugged. "What? You want me to start a whole class right now?"
In truth, he only bothered answering this much because it was Tony.
If it were anyone else asking what magic could do, he would've just shown them a middle finger and moved on without a second thought.
*****
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