A single hit on their mortal bodies almost killed them.
Suddenly, Tony Stark understood the terror ordinary people must feel when facing the Hulk.
"What do we do now?" Tony Stark said. "This timeline feels too wrong. I suspect we've ended up in the wrong place—this definitely isn't our parallel universe! There are too many unknowns, the progress is too far ahead, and two people who shouldn't be here have suddenly appeared: Spider-Woman, Wonder Woman, and Homelander. These are all huge problems!"
"What then? Should we try to steal it from them?" Ant-Man Scott asked.
"Are you kidding? We don't stand a chance against them," Tony Stark said, exasperated. "That Homelander—I suspect he could kill us with a single breath!"
Captain Rogers said, "Given our current state, we might be able to trick them, but fighting them is out of the question. Especially Thor's strength—he's not much weaker than our Thor. And the Hulk... he's the biggest problem. Banner, are you sure you can take on the Hulk?"
Dr. Bruce Banner was a little dumbfounded. *What kind of joke is this?* Although he was the result of his own consciousness merging with the Hulk's body, he still couldn't defeat the Hulk. One reason was his own personality, and the other was that the Hulk's strength grew exponentially with his rage.
But Banner wasn't angry. His emotions were perfectly stable, his core unshakeable.
If they really fought, the beginning might be even, but the longer the battle raged, the more outmatched he would become.
He quickly protested, "I can't win. Not at all! I haven't trained in combat, and I don't have the Hulk's savage, destructive instincts. His power can increase without limit, but mine can't. With just my current strength, I wouldn't last long against him."
Captain Rogers, hearing this, replied, "You see? If you can't beat the Hulk, we certainly can't. And didn't we agree on our plan and principles before we came? We must avoid drawing attention from people in this timeline and refrain from altering the history of parallel universes. If we show ourselves, even if we get the item, we'll likely change history."
"But Captain, I'm not trying to argue, but based on the history of this timeline alone, there's no need for us to interfere!" Tony Stark interrupted Captain Rogers. "This space-time is completely different from the one we know. It's likely we've arrived in a similar but not identical timeline—one that's already been altered by the butterfly effect. The key is the presence of three people who don't exist in our reality: Homelander, Spider-Woman, and Wonder Woman!"
"Is there a possibility that this is actually the correct history, and our history is the one that's been altered and influenced?" Ant-Man Scott chimed in.
Without any reference point, no one knew which version of history was the right one.
Scott even thought it was possible that this timeline was the true history, and theirs was the altered one.
"Why do you think that?" Captain Rogers asked.
He seemed to have never considered the question of whose history was the "correct" one.
Tony Stark's eyes lit up. This bizarre timeline felt utterly strange to him. Many superheroes who shouldn't have existed had appeared, and many things had been completely altered.
There was also technology that shouldn't exist, like the robot legions and the Extremis Virus.
At first, he thought this timeline had been tampered with, that it had gone astray. But now, he wondered if perhaps it wasn't this timeline that had gone astray, but they themselves.
"I don't know, it just suddenly occurred to me!" Ant-Man Scott shrugged. "We don't have enough data, and we've never been to other parallel universes. So we can't compare and determine whose development path is the 'correct' one. But one thing is certain: our power in this timeline is far greater than our original power. Many things that shouldn't have happened have already occurred!"
"That makes sense," Tony Stark said. "For example, I could have avoided being kidnapped in Afghanistan in the first place. Or maybe there was supposed to be a Homelander, but he never made it. Or maybe it should have been Spider-Woman instead of Spider-Man. We have no reference point, so who knows what's right and wrong? Maybe they'd find our timeline just as strange."
"Tony, you're right," Ant-Man Scott said, "but the problem is, how do we fix this? We're running low on Pym Particles. Should we steal some more?"
Tony Stark's analysis made perfect sense to Ant-Man Scott, but it was utterly useless.
It didn't solve their actual problem!
When it came to practical solutions, the group was stumped and frustrated, at a loss for what to do.
"But we only have one chance left! We don't have any more Pym Particles!" Ant-Man Scott said anxiously.
His in-laws, wife, and entire family were gone. There were no spare Pym Particles left to use.
Among the people present, Scott was the only one who had lost so many loved ones, so it was natural for him to be extremely anxious.
"Calm down, calm down, Scott," Tony Stark said, patting his chest. His ribs were indeed cracked and aching faintly. After a moment's thought, he added, "Panicking won't help. Let me think of a way."
"Are there any other places we can get the Cosmic Cube? And the Mind Stone Scepter? Where will we get those?" Captain Rogers asked, equally anxious.
"No, there aren't! We have no other chances, no do-overs!" Ant-Man Scott's anxiety grew, and his temper flared. "We only have one vial of Pym Particle. Once it's used up, we can never go home! Do you understand? I'll never see my daughter again! We had only one chance, and we blew it! Do you get it? I'm so tired!"
"But if we don't try, we'll never get home. We'll never fix anything!" Captain Rogers was also exhausted. Continuing to argue like this wouldn't solve anything.
"I've thought of a place where we can get the Cosmic Cube and replenish our Pym Particles!" Tony Stark suddenly exclaimed. "The military base in New Jersey!"
"Were both of those things there at the time?" Captain Rogers asked.
"For a while, yes!" The more Tony thought about it, the more certain he became. "I remember it very clearly!"
"You *seem* to remember it very clearly?" Captain Rogers raised an eyebrow. "What does 'seem to remember' mean? What the hell is that?"
"What are you guys talking about? Where are we going?" Ant-Man Scott asked urgently.
"I know the time, and I'm sure they're there!" Tony said. "And I know why I know!"
Tony knew because that was the place his father had worked.
"What are you two talking about?" Ant-Man Scott looked utterly bewildered, and Dr. Bruce Banner beside him was equally confused.
What on earth were they talking about?
They genuinely didn't understand a word.
"Our original plan has failed, so we have to come up with another strategy," Captain Rogers explained. "Scott, we're going to travel to a different time period—one where both the Cosmic Cube and the Pym Particle exist. Tony's idea is that your father-in-law, Hank Pym, was the original Ant-Man and the inventor of the Pym Particle. He developed it back in his era. Damn it, that's some seriously advanced technology!"
"Exactly. Even I have to admit, he was a true genius in that era. In those times, with the technology available, developing the Pym Particle was an unimaginable miracle. Even now, I can't replicate it!" Tony Stark added.
Even someone as brilliant and proud as Tony Stark had to acknowledge that Hank Pym was a formidable rival to his father. The technological complexity of the Pym Particle was so advanced that it seemed impossible not just for that era, but even for the present day.
"Okay, that sounds like a plan, but what about the Mind Stone?" Ant-Man Scott asked.
"The Mind Stone is actually quite simple to solve!" Tony Stark replied. "With enough Pym Particles, the limitations of time travel disappear. We can find a timeline where Hydra possesses the Mind Stone Scepter, retrieve it from them—that would be far easier than getting it from these monsters! The key is replenishing the Pym Particles; everything else is manageable."
Hearing this, everyone immediately understood. Once they solved the problem of replenishing the Pym Particles, many other issues would become non-issues.
They had easily seized the Mind Stone Scepter from Hydra in the past, a move that later led to the Ultron incident.
Now, they could simply repeat the same tactic, perhaps even stealing the Scepter without anyone noticing. At worst, they could return it later.
After all, theoretically, in that timeline, the entire operation would take only a second.
They wouldn't even alert Hydra in that timeline.
-----------------------
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