Upstairs, Luca naturally didn't hear the departing group's conversation—nor did he care to. His mind was elsewhere, fixed on a far more pressing concern.
Even though those individuals radiated a faint white light—what he'd come to recognize as the signature of "core components" in his perception—
Captain America's shield, Iron Man's arc reactor and nanotech core, Ant-Man's suit, even the Hulk's pants—all pointed to a pattern: items tied directly to pivotal characters in the narrative were more likely to manifest as such.
But none of that mattered right now. His expression darkened. Because he'd just realized something horrifying:
This was that timeline—the one Tony Stark and the Avengers had visited in Avengers: Endgame.
Why was that so dire?
It traced back to the show Luca had just finished watching before his own time travel: Loki.
In Endgame, the Avengers traveled to 2012 New York to retrieve the Infinity Stones. But something went wrong—the Tesseract slipped from their grasp and into Loki's hands. He used it to escape, fracturing the timeline. That deviation triggered the attention of the Time Variance Authority (TVA), an organization dedicated to pruning "unauthorized" branches from the so-called Sacred Timeline.
Loki's capture and his later adventures inside the TVA weren't what worried Luca. What haunted him was a single, chilling moment from the series:
After Loki was taken, the TVA planted a Temporal Loom bomb—or as he remembered it, a "time-cutting bomb"—and erased the entire branched timeline. Not just altered it. Deleted it. Every person, every event, every atom—gone.
Luca had ranted about this with his friends while watching the show:
Bruce Banner swore to the Ancient One that returning the Time Stone would preserve the timeline. But Loki stole the Space Stone, and Tony and Steve later went back to 1970 to retrieve more Pym particles and a new Tesseract. That 2012 branch—this branch—was never restored. It was pruned.
And that raised the one question Luca couldn't ignore:
Was he part of a pruned timeline?
If the TVA considered this reality a deviation… then his very existence might already be doomed. Maybe they hadn't come for him yet—but that didn't mean they wouldn't. Or worse, maybe the bomb was already ticking, and he just didn't know it.
Marvel's time rules were a mess. Parallel universes, branched timelines, quantum tunnels—it all blurred together. Luca and his friends had debated it for hours and still couldn't agree on what was "real" and what wasn't.
But he couldn't afford to gamble.
Should he bet that this timeline was the one where the Avengers succeeded without Loki escaping?
Or that his presence marked a unique, TVA-proof universe?
The more he thought about it, the more his stomach twisted.
"If my existence counts as a deviation… does that mean I'm already on their list? I haven't been pruned yet—so does that mean the TVA doesn't exist here?"
His breath hitched.
"No. I have to check. No—I have to stop Loki."
He remembered clearly: the moment Loki grabbed the Tesseract, he vanished—teleported straight to the Gobi Desert in Mongolia, where the TVA apprehended him. And right after that? They dropped the bomb.
If that sequence had already happened… then it was too late. He'd never get a chance to intervene. He'd just wait—helpless—as reality unraveled around him.
So rather than roll the dice on fate, he'd act.
Stop Loki before he ever touches the Tesseract.
Cut the branch at the root.
With this in mind, Luca immediately abandoned his plan to stay home and wait out the Battle of New York. He gave his gear a quick once-over—holster tight, med-kit sealed, prosthetic arm synced—and bolted out the door.
After a moment's hesitation, he'd already moved his mother, Gina, into the storage room, left a note taped to the fridge, and hit the streets, heading straight for Stark Tower.
To his surprise, the city wasn't the warzone he'd braced for.
The National Guard had flooded the avenues—armed pickups rolling in convoy, soldiers in full tactical gear drawing Chitauri fire away from civilian zones. The fight was still brutal, but their presence carved out breathing room for NYPD and firefighters to shepherd crowds toward safety.
If not for the endless stream of Chitauri spilling from the sky-portal, New York's defenders might've actually held the line. Then again, most of the heavy hitters—the armored skiffs, the serpentine Leviathans—were fixated on the Avengers. That left the streets strangely… navigable.
At least for now.
As an unarmored civilian, Luca was practically invisible—so much so that evacuation squads nearly dragged him into a subway shelter twice. He slipped free both times, ducking into alleys and side streets, always angling toward Stark Tower.
But luck had an expiration date.
The closer he got, the thicker the Chitauri presence became—patrols crawling up fire escapes, sentries perched on lampposts, their eerie chatter crackling through the smoke.
Luca pressed on. If it weren't for the fear of unraveling the entire timeline—of blinking out of existence the second he messed with causality—he might've turned back.
Whoosh—
A rectangular grenade—sleek, boxy, almost like a walkie-talkie—sailed overhead and clinked against the pavement in front of an armored SUV.
BOOM.
An unnatural blue flash tore through the intersection. The SUV and a dozen soldiers around it vanished in a silent, searing pulse.
Luca didn't even flinch. Crouched behind an overturned bus, his eyes stayed locked on Stark Tower.
Wait… that grenade had a synthetic white glow around the seams? he thought. Too bad it blew before I could get a closer look. Maybe I imagined it.
He was about to wait out the next patrol—let them pass before slipping forward—when a thunderous explosion ripped through the sky above.
Debris rained down in jagged sheets, dragging Chitauri soldiers off the rooftops with it. Their screeches were cut short as bodies slammed into the street.
Luca's [Strength-Enhancing Shoes]—dialed to max—reacted before his brain did. The second the shockwave hit, he kicked off hard, launching himself sideways through the plate-glass window of a corner shop.
Crash!
Shards exploded inward. His prosthetic arm scraped concrete as he rolled—once, twice—before slamming into a toppled shelf.
Thud. Thud. Thud.
The fallen Chitauri hit the pavement outside, motionless.
Luca exhaled. Lucky I dodged in time~
But then—a low, trembling growl sounded behind him. More bluster than bite, but urgent all the same.
"Kid! Get outta here!"