Wenwu was quiet for a moment after Pietro disappeared back inside the building, the four-star Dragon Ball tucked under his arm.
He turned to Ying Li and they walked together toward the garden path that looped the eastern side of the compound, the one they used on evenings when neither of them wanted to talk to anyone but didn't want to be inside either.
"He didn't hesitate," Ying Li said, after they'd covered some distance.
"No."
"He found it in the middle of his first real test run. Didn't know what it was when he picked it up. Read the information, understood what he was holding—" She looked at Wenwu. "And gave it to Smith."
Wenwu nodded slowly. "That's Dragon Ball. That's the thing that every powerful person on this planet is currently trying to locate, and the young man handed it over without being asked." He considered this. "His path inside this organization just got significantly wider."
"Smith looked pleased."
"Smith patted him on the shoulder. For Smith, that's a standing ovation."
Ying Li smiled. "The super divine water really did something extraordinary."
"More than tenfold improvement," Wenwu said. "That number is still settling for me. I keep calculating what it means in application." He thought of the vibranium T'Challa wore, the adamantium composite in Tony's more advanced armor. "There are materials that could theoretically withstand contact at that velocity. But the targeting window to use them is essentially zero."
"You're thinking about how to fight him."
"I'm thinking about how someone would have to fight him if they needed to. It's a reflex." He paused. "I'm also thinking about Shang-Chi."
Ying Li turned to look at him.
"The super divine water has a specific interaction profile with the Dragon Heart," Wenwu said carefully. "Pietro's enhancement was this extreme partly because his ability is purely physical — speed is what his body does. Shang-Chi's ability is something different, something that was still new when I last assessed it. The potential interaction could be significant, or it could be volatile." He glanced at her. "I want him back at headquarters before we decide anything. I want to see where he is."
Ying Li nodded. "I'll send for him."
"Don't make it urgent. Just — bring him back."
They walked another circuit in comfortable silence. The city noise was a distant, steady hum behind the compound walls.
Pietro and Wanda sat on the floor of their shared common room with the Dragon Ball on the table between them and the full briefing that had come through the moment Pietro touched it laid out in conversation.
Pietro did not believe in editing with his sister. He told her everything — the Dragon Ball mechanics, the wish system, the tournament structure, the fact that all of it was organized by Smith.
Wanda listened with her knees drawn up to her chest, her expression moving through several stages of recalibration.
"Any wish," she said finally.
"Within the review process. Smith has to approve it."
She absorbed this. Looked at the orange sphere. Looked at Pietro.
"And Smith released these into the world himself. He designed this whole competition."
"Apparently."
Wanda let out a slow breath. "So we're — what, staff? We work for the organization that runs the Dragon Ball War?"
"We live here, so yes, essentially."
She picked up the Dragon Ball and turned it over in her hands. Pietro watched her. He knew what she was thinking — he'd seen her face when he described the wish mechanics, the particular stillness that she used as a container for large feelings. What wish did Wanda Maximoff hold in the deepest part of herself?
He didn't ask. He knew she'd tell him when she was ready.
"Pietro," she said, still looking at the ball, "you just gave Smith something worth four million dollars without flinching."
"He built this thing. It felt wrong to keep it."
Wanda set the ball back on the table and looked at her brother with an expression he recognized from when they were very young — the one that meant she was proud of him and would never say so in those exact words.
"Also," Pietro added, "he's my idol and I panicked a little."
Wanda laughed, genuinely, the way she didn't often anymore.
After a moment, she said: "When you say Smith — you know that's the leader of the Fraternity. You probably shouldn't call him by his first name to his face."
Pietro blinked. "I call him boss to his face. Idol is internal."
"You literally just said 'he's my idol' out loud to me. That is external."
"You're my sister. You don't count."
"I absolutely count." She tilted her head. "Also, you've been correcting me for calling him Smith and here you are—"
"That's different."
"How."
Pietro opened his mouth and then didn't have an immediate answer, which Wanda recorded with visible satisfaction.
Outside the window, the compound lights were coming on against the early evening sky. Somewhere in the building, Smith was arranging a meeting that would introduce the Dragon Ball to people who hadn't yet heard the full story.
Pietro looked at the four-star ball one more time, then stood up.
"Come on," he said. "Let's go find out what the meeting is actually going to cover."