Norway.
Odin and Frigga sat together on a bench outside the house they'd chosen for their years on Midgard, the fjord grey and still in the morning light.
Frigga said, "You're not going to watch the tournament?"
"I heard Smith Doyle organized it. They've already reached the quarterfinals."
Odin shook his head. "Let the young ones manage their affairs. We've earned our quiet."
Frigga settled her hand over his and said nothing more. They sat like that, looking at the water.
In London, Thor was on the couch at Jane Foster's apartment with the match on television.
Jane glanced at him sideways. "You're really not disappointed you didn't go? An event like this—"
"My only wish right now is to be here," Thor said simply. "I don't need the Dragon Balls for that."
Jane looked at him for a moment. Then she leaned into his side without another word, and they watched the ring together.
In the arena, the maintenance crews had cleared the last of the debris from Wong's match and the surface was flat again.
Agatha Harkness climbed through the ropes. T'Challa followed her in.
He took her measure the moment he stepped on the canvas and kept his expression neutral. Nobody who had made it through the preliminary bracket and then eliminated their zone opponent was someone to dismiss. That was a rule he'd set for himself at the start and he intended to keep it.
Agatha, for her part, had done her own assessment long before the draw was announced. T'Challa was physically formidable, the suit was vibranium, and his combat instincts were sharp. But there was nothing in him she could use. No reservoir of mystic energy, no cultivated power base she could touch. He was strength and speed and exceptional technology, and that was the end of it.
She found the match mildly inconvenient in terms of scheduling.
The host finished his introduction. T'Challa moved first — direct, fast, committed, exactly what a tactician does when he knows his opponent has range advantages he can't match.
Agatha smiled with the corner of her mouth and released a controlled burst of energy.
It hit T'Challa in the chest and sent him tumbling backward, three rotations across the canvas before he stopped himself with both hands and came back upright.
"You should yield now," she said, almost pleasantly. "There's nothing here for you to work with."
From the stands, Shang-Chi cupped his hands around his mouth: "T'Challa — don't you dare!"
T'Challa was already charging back in. He heard a voice — Agatha's, but not addressed to the audience, a low murmur pitched directly into the space behind his eyes.
He stopped. Shook his head hard, like clearing water from his ears.
"Impossible," he said, and charged again.
The dark blue energy lifted him off the canvas before he'd crossed half the distance. Not a strike — levitation, clean and total, both feet off the ground with nothing to push against and no angle of attack his suit could reach from that position.
He fought it. Arms against the field, every gram of super-soldier-equivalent strength the Heart-Shaped Herb had given him pressing outward. The energy held without visible effort on Agatha's part.
She walked forward at a pace that suited her.
"Let me see what you're working with."
A gesture, and the vibranium helmet unsealed itself and came free. T'Challa's face, exposed and set hard, looked down at her.
She plucked a single hair.
The spell was quiet — three words, nothing theatrical about it — and a portal opened in the air beside her, the images on the other side moving like memory. A younger T'Challa in a ritual chamber, the Heart-Shaped Herb pressed to his lips, the Panther God's power flowing through the lineage like inheritance paid in full.
She watched it complete itself, stepped back through to the ring, and let the portal close.
"The blessing of the Panther God," she said. "A divine bequest, passed down through bloodline." A pause. "Unfortunately — not transferable."
She waved her hand.
T'Challa crossed the ring boundary at speed and hit the floor below. The levitation field released the moment he was past the line. He came up immediately, already on his feet, the magic that had held him simply gone like a switch thrown.
Two seconds of silence. Then the arena responded.
"What was that—" "Did she open a portal—" "She called it the Panther God, is he actually—" "She's a witch—"
Someone nearby: "Witch, mage, sorcerer — it all goes in the same category, don't get hung up on the word."
In the Wakandan VIP section, T'Chaka's expression was composed. The composure was doing a lot of work.
Shuri, next to him, watched Agatha step off the ring with the brisk efficiency of someone who had done exactly what she came to do. Shuri was already running calculations. "The suit needs ranged attack capability," she said. "We can't keep building around the assumption that the fight stays at arm's length. It doesn't."
T'Chaka said nothing. He was thinking about the portal, and what had been visible through it, and what a room full of eighty-five thousand people had just learned about where T'Challa's powers came from.
In the VIP box, Fox leaned forward slightly. "A magical tradition completely outside Kamar-Taj. That's the first time I've seen that."
Smith was quiet for a moment.
He knew the name. Had pulled the file on Agatha Harkness the moment she appeared on the registration list, sorting through what he knew against the version standing in the ring below him.
In the comics, she was Wanda Maximoff's teacher — one of the oldest practitioners alive, a figure of genuine historical weight in the magical community.
In the world he'd come from, the universe the MCU had built — she'd hunted Wanda's secrets, overplayed her hand, and lost badly. Wanda had drained her, sealed her memories, sent her back to a life she didn't remember having. She'd eventually clawed her way back, recovered her power, grown stronger for the ordeal in the way certain people do when the worst thing happens and they survive it anyway.
In one hypothetical branch he'd come across in his reading — she'd absorbed the power of the Eternals. Found the Celestial gestating in the planet's core. Devised a method to take that power for herself, and won.
Agatha Harkness was arguably the most dangerous practitioner in the human magical tradition, the caveat being that she operated on an agenda entirely her own.
He watched her cross the floor toward the waiting area.
Which version are you? he thought. And what do you actually want out of this bracket?
In the waiting area, Wong had watched the match from start to finish. His expression hadn't moved.
"Members of the old craft," he said quietly, to no one in particular. "We haven't had word of them in years."
Coulson was in the audience with his tablet already open, running a search against known databases.
"A mage from outside Kamar-Taj," he said. "I wasn't aware there was another organization operating at that level."
Ward said, "Should we approach her after the event?"
"That's above our pay grade," Coulson said. "Someone else handles the mystical portfolio. Our focus is still the Winter Soldier trail."
Ward nodded. The Agatha file was interesting. It was not his problem today.
The host's voice returned.
"Match Three — Gilgamesh versus Tony Stark. Competitors, please take the stage."
In a second VIP box along the upper tier, Howard Stark leaned back in his chair with the easy confidence of a man who had watched Tony compete in enough contexts to read the situation.
Harley Keener had his face pressed practically against the glass. "Can he win it all this time?"
Pepper, from Howard's other side, said, "It's difficult. The suit took real damage in the Vanko fight, and this round he's up against—" she looked at Gilgamesh crossing the floor below, "—that."
Harley made a sound of genuine pain. "I really wanted to see it. Iron Man against a god. The most advanced technology on Earth versus the most powerful body on Earth — that's the best fight you could put together."
Howard reached over and ruffled Harley's hair. "And what makes you so certain it would be a good match?"
Harley looked at him with complete seriousness. "One is the peak of what a human body can become. The other is the peak of what a human mind can build. That's not just a fight — that's a question about what actually matters more."
Howard looked at him for a long moment.
Then he laughed — a real one, head back, the kind that surprised him coming out.
"Kid," he said, "you're going to do fine in this world."