The moment Harry's face turned serious, Steve immediately realized how serious this was. He gritted his teeth, chose to trust Harry, and asked, "In that case, what do we do?"
Harry had already thought of a solution. Smiling, he said, "Don't worry too much. We know everything now, which means we have plenty of effective ways to deal with this. All we need to do is capture Alexander Pierce and Hydra's senior leadership.
Once they're gone, the rest of Hydra won't have much ability to resist."
"How exactly?" Tony asked.
Harry thought for a moment, then answered with complete confidence, "Relax. On my way here, I saw Pierce hurrying over, and Crossbones and the others are inside this building too.
You deal with Pierce, since he doesn't have many guards with him. I'll handle Crossbones and the Hydra elite agents."
Once they had finished discussing the plan, Harry split off from the group and headed for the Stark Tower elevator.
The plan itself was simple, but with him as the main combat force, there was no way much could go wrong.
After all, with both raw power and broken mechanics on his side, he honestly had no idea how he was supposed to lose.
…
On the eighteenth floor of Stark Tower, the elevator doors slid open. Inside, a group of Hydra agents tensed up as they watched Captain America, Steve Rogers, step calmly into the elevator.
Once Rogers entered, every eye in the car fixed on him, while Steve himself looked completely at ease.
As the highest-ranking agent present, Sitwell stepped forward. Doing his best to stay calm, he asked in a seemingly casual tone, "Captain, I thought you were assisting with the rescue effort?"
Steve moved slowly into the center of the elevator, his expression unchanged.
"Plans changed."
The Hydra agents watched him carefully. The least disciplined among them had already drifted a hand toward a pistol at his waist, ready to move at any second.
Captain America put far too much pressure on them. After all, standing right beside them was basically a superhuman.
Crossbones turned and cautiously greeted him. "Hey, Cap."
Captain America turned to him as well.
"Hey, Rumlow."
The atmosphere inside the elevator grew even more tense. Steve knew that if he didn't say something now, a fight was going to break out.
And he really did not want to relive the experience of getting jumped by a packed elevator full of burly men.
So he straightened up, put on a grave expression, and said, "I just got a call from the Secretary. I'm in charge of the scepter now."
"What?" Sitwell whipped his head around, staring at Steve in disbelief.
Sharp as ever, he instantly understood what this could mean. One possibility was that Steve had discovered Hydra. The other was that even Captain America was one of them.
So Sitwell fixed Steve with a steady look and waited for his answer.
"Sorry, Captain. I'm not sure I understood that."
A faint smile touched Steve's mouth. He swept his gaze over everyone in the elevator before finally explaining, "We got word that someone's planning to steal the scepter…"
But before he could finish, Crossbones cut him off.
"Sorry, Captain. We can't hand it over to you."
Unlike Crossbones, who already had personal friction with Steve, Sitwell in this world had never been abandoned by Pierce. He was visibly calmer and more loyal. After a brief hesitation, he said, "Sorry, Captain. I need to call the director."
"Totally fine, trust me," Steve replied.
But the instant Sitwell pulled out his phone, Steve leaned forward slightly and said in a low voice, "Hail Hydra."
The agents: "!!!"
What the hell?!
Hydra was that powerful?
Even Captain America Steve Rogers was one of them?
The second those words left his mouth, Sitwell stopped hesitating and handed Steve the case containing the Mind Scepter.
Inside, Steve let out a sigh of relief and felt wonderfully refreshed. But when the elevator stopped and he prepared to step out and find Tony, he suddenly discovered someone standing directly in their way.
He looked up at the tall, lean young man in front of him, then his pupils shrank violently.
He recognized him at once. This was the mysterious visitor who had appeared not long ago, the one who had ended the Battle of New York in a matter of seconds and wiped out the Chitauri entirely.
Without question, this was an opponent on the level of Thanos, maybe even stronger.
Through his communication with Tony, Steve had already learned that this world's Steve had met the man before. A smile immediately appeared on his face, and he said in a warm voice, "Hey, Harry. What brings you here all of a sudden?"
But Harry's expression was abnormally stern. There wasn't the slightest trace of ease on his face, and subtle spell formations were already beginning to appear around him.
Steve's heart dropped.
Crap. Harry heard it.
At the same time, the Hydra agents around him all looked utterly despairing.
They knew exactly who had ended the Battle of New York. Against an enemy this powerful, they had no chance at all.
Steve knew that too. He immediately prepared to explain himself and convince Harry to let him take the Mind Stone back to his original universe.
But before he could say anything, he was stunned to find that Harry had already attacked.
The moment Harry realized the Steve in front of him was apparently aligned with Hydra, he didn't hesitate for even a second.
In an instant, pale violet magic rewrote the gravity in the surrounding area, and everyone in the elevator was slammed to the ground under several times normal gravity.
Steve's physical condition was at the peak of human potential, so he could still barely move under that much pressure. Unlike the others, his internal organs weren't already starting to fail.
He forced his mouth open, trying to explain, but Harry flicked out an energy whip that bound him fast and snapped, "Damn it, how am I running into Captain Hydra here too?!"
With a light wave of his wand, Harry made Steve float beside him. Then he snapped his fingers, broke the limbs of the Hydra agents, and took Captain Hydra with him to rejoin Tony and the others.
Very soon, Tony and the others had Pierce and the Hydra agents locked up, and then they began interrogating Captain Hydra.
This universe's Steve stared at his other self with a grim expression and demanded, "Why? Why would you join Hydra?"
Only then did the older Steve finally speak.
"No, listen to me. I never joined Hydra!"
Harry raised an eyebrow slightly. "You were exchanging code phrases with Sitwell and the others in the elevator. Don't think I couldn't sense that."
Steve looked like he wanted to cry as he hurried to explain.
"I'm Captain America. How could I possibly be Captain Hydra?
I'm from your future. At first, I refused to meet you because I wanted to avoid changing history. But now that I've already been exposed, it doesn't matter anymore.
Come out, Tony, and explain things to them, otherwise there's no way we're leaving with the Mind Stone."
A moment later, under everyone's astonished gaze, a much older Tony, a much older Steve, and an unfamiliar man appeared before them.
Tony from the original timeline quickly realized what that meant and muttered to himself, "I see. So the future really did run into some kind of fatal crisis, bad enough that I had to travel through time and come back to the past for help."
Before long, the superheroes from the two timelines began talking.
Then, after hearing one particular piece of information, Harry looked at the other universe's Tony in surprise.
"Wait, are you saying Banner went to Kamar-Taj to ask the Sorcerer Supreme for the Time Stone?"
The other Tony looked confused, not understanding why Harry cared about that.
"That's right. Is something wrong?"
Smiling, Harry pulled the Time Stone out from beneath his shirt and said, "I'm the Sorcerer Supreme too. If what you're saying is true, then maybe I can lend it to you myself."
Everyone present: "!!!"
…
Harry opened a portal and stepped through to the New York Sanctum.
As he looked at the familiar Sanctum, the familiar spell formations, the familiar layout and decorations, a complicated expression appeared on his face.
Before going there, Harry had first visited several other places he remembered.
Aunt May and Uncle Ben were still alive in this world, though they were much younger than they had been at the same point in time in his own universe.
Peter was the same. He was still just a kid.
As for Gwen, Harry hadn't found any trace of her at her home address. That house was occupied by a completely unfamiliar family now.
All of it proved one thing. This was not Harry's world. Even if countless details between the two universes were nearly identical, almost perfectly the same, it still wasn't his.
Taking a deep breath and temporarily setting aside the storm of thoughts in his heart, Harry took a single step and Apparated to the rooftop of the New York Sanctum.
The moment he appeared there, he saw the following scene:
A huge green brute with his upper body bare was striding toward a woman in yellow sorcerer's robes. One look at the way the massive green giant was cracking his knuckles told Harry he was definitely up to no good.
Harry raised an eyebrow. He knew he had arrived at exactly the right time, so he immediately declared in righteous indignation, "You barbaric oaf, what exactly do you think you're doing to that elegant lady?"
The Ancient One had already noticed Harry's arrival, but Banner very clearly had not. He glanced at Harry in confusion, then, after noticing his clothing, shook his head and stopped paying attention.
Probably just another sorcerer from Kamar-Taj, and he had no time to waste arguing with sorcerers right now.
Looks like this world's Banner hadn't gone through the same lessons Harry's version had and was a bit too reckless. Harry drew his wand and gave it a light flick.
At once, the immensely powerful Hulk was encased in soul-freezing ice and could no longer move.
Then Harry flicked his wand again, and Banner's soul, in his normal form, was popped right out of his body and left floating in the air with a blank look on his face.
Harry nodded. That was much better. Then, as if it were only natural, he said, "Banner, you just charged at an elegant lady. Apologize to her."
"Huh?" Because everything had happened in an instant, and because time itself had felt frozen while he was trapped in the ice, Banner only felt a brief moment of disorientation before discovering that his soul was somehow floating in midair.
Seeing Banner's blank, stupid expression, Harry shook his head. Then he looked toward the Ancient One and broke into a brilliant smile.
"Long time no see, Master."
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