The group made their way to the side of the road.
Ever the gentleman, Dr. Bruce Banner stepped forward and took it upon himself to hail a cab.
Unfortunately, luck was not on their side—car after car passed without stopping.
Maeve and Annie kept their hoods up and masks on, doing their best to conceal their faces. After all, this parallel world had alternate versions of themselves, and the last thing they wanted right now was to cause a scene.
Tony eventually stepped in to take over from Banner—yet even with him waving, no taxi stopped.
"This isn't right." Tony frowned deeply. "Some of those cabs were clearly empty, yet they didn't stop. It's like the drivers didn't even see us."
Banner had noticed it too. "Do you think our identities have already been exposed?"
Just then, Tony spotted a privately owned car pulling over in the distance. He jogged over quickly.
"Hey, buddy, mind if I borrow your car? Will this be enough?" He flashed a fat stack of cash, ready to solve the problem the old-fashioned way—with money.
But the driver didn't so much as glance at him or the bills. He simply turned and walked away.
Tony froze for a moment. His tried-and-true "cash persuasion" method had never failed before—until now.
And he had even brought paper money specifically for situations like this!
Unwilling to give up, he stepped into the middle of the crowd and raised the bills high over his head.
"Hey! Anyone want to give us a ride? This is all yours if you do!"
The pedestrians either chatted with each other or hurried along without so much as a glance in his direction.
Tony's frown deepened. Something was seriously wrong here.
"Tony! Over here—big problem!" Banner's voice called from behind.
Tony turned around—and his eyes widened.
Banner, Annie, and Maeve were standing in the middle of a busy street.
Cars roared toward them at full speed—yet instead of colliding, the vehicles passed straight through their bodies, as if they were nothing more than phantoms.
The three of them emerged completely unscathed.
Startled, Tony began patting himself down.
"Jarvis… tell me I'm not a ghost right now."
"Of course not, sir. You're perfectly healthy," Jarvis replied.
"However, it appears we're experiencing a… minor issue with this world. While we are physically present here, it's as if we're existing in a separate dimension, unable to physically interact with anything in it."
Tony narrowed his eyes. "Wait a minute—you hacked into this world's network earlier to gather intel, didn't you?"
"No, sir. In truth, I hacked into the network of another world you've already visited—the one with Vought International you're familiar with.
It seems these two parallel timelines are in a unique overlapping state, which caused my earlier misjudgment…"
Tony cut him off. "So, in short—you got tricked? And you also can't access this world's network?"
"I'm afraid that's correct, sir."
Scanning the street, Tony murmured, "Interesting… but this mission may already be doomed."
Banner, Maeve, and Annie jogged over, gliding through both people and vehicles on the way—smooth as ghosts.
"My god, what is happening? Did we die and turn into spirits?" Annie asked, stunned.
Maeve, equally baffled, shook her head.
"Something's seriously wrong. Either there's a problem with this world… or with us."
"There's another possibility," Banner mused.
"We're fine, and so is this world—but the moment we entered it, something happened. You've all heard of Schrödinger's cat, right? I suspect we've become the cat—trapped in a state of quantum superposition."
Tony had Jarvis run calculations for quite some time before finally sighing.
"Bruce, you're right. Even if this isn't pure quantum superposition, it's close enough. Open a portal—let's run an experiment."
"I was thinking the same thing." Banner nodded.
Right there in the middle of the street, Banner opened a dimensional portal.
Since no one could see them anyway, there was no reason to be subtle—and he wanted to test whether linking the two worlds would break the superposition state.
But the pedestrians remained oblivious. Moments later, the four stepped through the portal and returned to the Multiverse Defenders' Marvel base—where they immediately regained normal physical form.
They reported the anomaly to Bruce Wayne, Superman, Captain America, and the others. One by one, each of them traveled to Butcher's mission world—only to experience the exact same inability to touch anything. The effect applied to both people and objects they brought with them.
Repeated experiments brought no solution—only a new discovery: time in the mission world was… off.
The first time Tony's group entered, it had clearly been 10 a.m. But when they returned with Batman and the others for a second visit, it was already night.
This could have been explained as a difference in the rate of time between worlds, but on their third visit, they were shocked to find the time had reverted to 10 a.m. again. Not the next day—exactly the same moment as their first arrival.
"Yep! Look—there's that guy pulling over again," Tony pointed at an ordinary silver sedan.
"I remember thinking he didn't care about money at all last time."
That was the very car Tony had tried—and failed—to buy during their first trip. To this world's inhabitants, they simply didn't exist.
Bruce Wayne's brows knitted. "You're saying this world is stuck in a one-day time loop?"
"Highly possible." Banner nodded. "A fascinating temporal singularity."
Bruce considered this, then offered, "Here's my advice: find Billy Butcher. He might be the key to everything strange happening here. Alright, this is your show now—I've got business elsewhere."
With Gotham in chaos, Bruce had already stretched his time thin to even be here.
After seeing him off, Banner turned to Tony, Annie, and Maeve with a shrug.
"I'm guessing you almost forgot the actual mission—we came here to rescue someone."
Tony smirked. "If time's stuck in a loop, Butcher's situation might be even more complicated than we thought."
Annie asked, "So… which Butcher are we looking for?"
"Doesn't matter which one," Tony said. "We'll talk to him first—then we'll know."
___
🎉 Shoutout to ws and James Murphy! 🎉
A huge thank you to ws and James Murphy for joining my Patreon and supporting the journey! Your support means a lot and helps keep the chapters coming faster. Welcome to the VIP club! 🙌✨