After explaining everything, Esdeath looked at Tony with the particular expression she reserved for things she found underwhelming.
"This thing caused you that much trouble?" she asked, because in her honest assessment Tony was just a fancy man in a flying suit of armor.
One punch and it was scrap metal. The idea that a version of him had managed to trap Luke in another universe and cause this much disruption was genuinely surprising to her.
"Thing?" Variant Tony said, sitting up and looking at her. "Excuse me?"
"Don't take it to heart," Tony said quickly, leaning toward his variant with the tone of someone passing on genuinely important survival information.
"That's the highest regard you're going to get from her. And trust me, you do not want to make her look at you differently. She doesn't operate on normal human morality."
Variant Tony looked at Esdeath, then at Tony, then back at Esdeath who was still looking at him the way someone looks at a mildly interesting rock.
He decided not to pursue the thing comment any further.
"It's really Baffling," Natasha said, looking at her variant standing right beside her. "It's like looking into a mirror."
Variant Natasha looked back at her with the same measured expression.
"You get used to it," she said.
"I should head back," Tony said, already mentally moving toward the next thing. "Pepper must be worried sick by now." He stood up, dusted himself off, then stopped completely.
He looked around at the mountains, the monastery, the distinct absence of anything resembling a recognizable landmark.
"Ummm, Luke," he said slowly. "Where exactly are we?"
"Nepal," Luke said. "Asia. Near the Himalayas. If you want I can teleport you to Everest, from there you can gain what you call..." he paused, searching for the word.
"Wisdom," the Ancient One said from the doorway, appearing without any particular announcement. "Liberation."
"Yes," Luke said, pointing at her. "That."
"And Ancient One, thank you for helping me," Luke said.
"There's no need," the Ancient One replied. "You can repay me by protecting this world when a greater danger arrives."
Tony stared at him.
"I just want to get home."
"You can go home anytime," Luke said, "but you won't always get to stand on Everest."
"I don't want to stand on Everest," Tony said flatly. "I want to see Pepper."
"Fair enough," Luke said, and teleported him directly.
Variant Tony asked Luke to teleport him to Avengers tower, and Luke obliged without comment.
Steve and Variant Natasha left shortly after, they still had their own world to worry about and a dimensional travel device that needed rebuilding before anything else went wrong on their end.
Then it was just them.
Luke and all the women made their way back home, and the first thing they saw when they walked through the door was Pietro spread across the sofa in the most aggressively relaxed position a human body could achieve, completely absorbed in whatever series he was watching, entirely unbothered by the fact that he had had been missing for days.
He didn't look up immediately.
"You're back," he said to the television.
Wanda walked straight across the floor the moment she saw him and threw her arms around him before he could even register what was happening, a few tears escaping before she could stop them.
Pietro who had been halfway through standing up to greet everyone got his arms pinned to his sides by the force of the hug and stood there completely frozen, the television still playing behind him.
"Ummm," he said, looking over her head at Luke with the expression of a man desperately requesting an explanation. "What did I do? Why is she crying? I was just watching tv."
"Long story," Luke said.
"Did someone hurt you?" Pietro asked, trying to look at Wanda's face. "Tell me who and I will—"
Then he saw the doorway.
Another Wanda walked in with the rest of the group.
Pietro looked at the Wanda hugging him.
Then at the Wanda walking through the door.
Then back at the one hugging him.
He took one very slow careful step backward, gently detaching himself from the hug, his eyes moving between the two of them with the focused attention of someone doing extremely important math.
"There are two of you," he said.
Pietro's eyes immediately went to Luke.
"What did you do to my sister," he said, already pointing. "Turn her back right now."
Luke just looked at him.
The kind of look that didn't need words. The kind that said why in the world would I split your sister into two people and what exactly do you think I do with my free time.
Pietro held the eye contact for three seconds.
"Okay fine," he said. "Not that."
"She's a different version of me," Wanda said, wiping her eyes quickly. "From another universe."
Pietro processed that for a moment then immediately turned back to Luke with a new and very important question forming on his face.
"So if there's another her," he said slowly, "is there another me in that universe?"
Luke looked at him.
"He's dead," Luke said simply.
Pietro stared at him.
"How dead?"
"Very."
Pietro looked at the other Wanda, then back at Luke, then sat back down on the sofa with the expression of a man who needed a moment.
"Okay," he said quietly. "I'm going to keep watching my show."
*****
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