For a long moment, the only sound in the silent hall was Wanda's quiet sobbing as she held onto Aryan.
Tony, T'Challa and Namor sat in respectful silence, witnesses to a moment of timeline altering intimacy.
Finally, Wanda's tears subsided. Her breathing evened out and the crushing tension in her shoulders seemed to melt away.
She pressed a gentle kiss to the top of Aryan's head, a silent seal on their shared history… both the one that was and the one that now.
She slowly straightened up, her face tear streaked but her expression no longer one of grief.
She wiped her eyes, took a steadying breath and returned to her chair beside him, her hand immediately finding Aryan's again, their fingers lacing together in a grip that was now unbreakable.
It was Tony who finally broke the spell, his mind, as always, the first to pivot from the emotional to the practical.
"Wait a second," he said, his words cutting through the residual sentimentality. "Let's unpack that last part. You said your vision of Wanda's future... it just stopped."
He looked at Aryan, his eyes narrowed in concentration. "And your own original timeline is a big, fat 'unreachable' error message. So, your theory is that once you enter the picture, the original timeline becomes unreachable to the viewing panel."
Aryan nodded slowly. "It's the only conclusion that seems to fit the facts I have."
Tony leaned forward, his energy returning as he latched onto a clear logical inconsistency in how the theory applied to him.
"Hold on, that doesn't quite add up, at least not for me," Tony said, shaking his head. "The future viewing panel. I saw everything. The ambush in Afghanistan, the cave, Yinsen, the whole escape, Obadiah's betrayal back home... The system let me see that whole chapter of my life. It played out like a damn movie. There was no cut off point for me. And all of that was after The Fool had already brought us together in this room."
"Perhaps," T'Challa interjected, "the rules are different for each of us, based on our... significance. Or perhaps the nature of the events themselves dictates what can be shown."
"No, I think it's simpler than that," Tony said, a spark of insight in his eyes as he started connecting the dots. He stood up, too agitated to sit and began to pace. "Okay, let's establish the variables. Aryan's vision of himself: a permanent, hard coded 'unreachable' error. He's the Anchor, a special case. We put a pin in that for a second. Aryan's vision of Wanda: starts in 2014, cuts off at an unknown future point. My vision: covers all of 2008, no problem."
He stopped pacing, pointing a decisive finger at Aryan. "The theory is just incomplete. It has to be about when we were supposed to meet in the original timeline."
He started pacing again, his words coming faster as the theory crystallized. "So, according to that logic, if I am still able to view my future via the future viewing panel... it can only mean one thing." He looked around the table. "In the original timeline, I wasn't supposed to have any significant interaction with you for a long, long time."
He let that sink in. "Just think about it, what are the chances? Me, a weapons designer, a billionaire playboy who treated the world like his personal casino. You, a reclusive software CEO. Our worlds were completely separate. In that original timeline, maybe some world ending crisis would have finally forced us into the same room, but that could have been in 2020, maybe even later. Who knows?"
He spread his hands. "So, for me, the original timeline for the next few years is an open book. I can view it because, in that version of reality, you and I are still on completely separate tracks. My story doesn't intersect with the Anchor's story yet."
He then turned his gaze to Wanda, his expression softening with a sudden understanding. "But your future was different. The system gave Aryan your name and as he watched your original timeline, the vision of your deepest loneliness was the last thing he saw before it cut off.. That means your paths were supposed to cross at that exact point. That was the moment when you two met in the original timeline. That's why your 'original timeline', the one that was supposed to happen after that point, became 'unreachable.'"
Aryan gave a confirming nod. "And for myself," he finished the thought, his voice laced with a perfectly performed weariness, "my own timeline has been unreachable from the moment I arrived. If your theory is right, it's because I am the source of the primary deviation. My very presence in this universe is the first and greatest paradox, so my original path was erased from the start."
"So we are flying a spaceship into the with no windows and the god in the engine room can't even see where we're going," Namor summarized. "This is a disadvantage."
"Is it, though?" T'Challa countered, his voice a calm anchor in the sea of their new uncertainty. "We are not entirely blind."
The others turned to him.
PS: Come on guys, we just need 26 more Power Stones for a bonus chapter. Let's push it, haha.
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