Chapter Seven
Kara was pissed.
She floated in the upper atmosphere, arms crossed, face turned toward the sun and let the rage simmer.
They'd left her.
She'd been gone maybe an hour, one hour, to clear her head, and when she'd returned to the coordinates where the Helicarrier should have been, there was nothing. Just empty sky and the faint trace of ion signatures from the turbines.
Gone.
Kara exhaled slowly, deliberately, and tilted her face up toward the star that fed her.
The sunlight washed over her skin, warm and golden, seeping into every cell. She could feel it working, not healing, exactly, because she wasn't injured, but replenishing. Filling the reserves she'd burned through holding up the ship, fighting the Hulk, processing the sheer overwhelming chaos of the last few hours.
It felt good.
But it didn't erase what she'd seen.
There had been too much death. Too much destruction. The Helicarrier's decks torn open, bodies in the wreckage, the smell of burning metal and ozone and blood. The Hulk's chest caving in under her fist. The way Bruce Banner had looked when he'd crashed through that warehouse, broken, bleeding, human.
It was too soon.
Too soon after Krypton, for her anyway.
Too soon after watching her world burn, after being shoved into a pod against her will, after waking up fifty-two years too late to save anyone.
Kara closed her eyes and focused on her breathing.
In.
Out.
In.
Out.
Her mother's voice echoed in her memory, calm and steady: "Fear, my daughter, is not the enemy. Fear keeps you alive. But fear unchecked will keep you from doing what must be done."
Alura Zor-El had been many things...a judge, a scientist, a mother, but above all, she had been steady. Even as Krypton fell apart around them, even as the sky burned and the ground split open, her mother had remained calm.
Kara wished she had inherited that.
Instead, she'd gotten her father's temper and her mother's stubbornness, which was a truly unfortunate combination.
She exhaled again, slower this time, and let another memory surface.
Uncle Jor-El, standing in the Hall of El, one hand resting on the pod that would carry his unborn son across the stars.
"I hope," he had said quietly, "that Kal will grow up in a world where he is free to choose. Not bound by guilds or genetic chains. Free to be... whoever he wishes to be."
He'd looked at Kara then, eyes sad and knowing.
"I hope the same for you, Kara. That you will find a place where your choices are your own."
Kara's throat tightened.
She had been made to serve.
Every Kryptonian was. Designed before birth, their genetics tailored to fulfill specific roles in society. But Kara had been different. Her father had made her... perfect. Engineered to excel at any task, any role, any purpose. Perfect genetics for a perfect being.
And yet, even with all that perfection, she had not been free. The need to serve remained, encoded so deeply that even her father's greatest work could not erase it.
She was not meant to be a warrior.
And yet.
Kara flexed her fingers, watching the way sunlight played across her skin. She thought of the Hulk's chest collapsing under her fist. Of the way the Helicarrier had felt in her hands—heavy, impossible, and then suddenly easy.
She had not been made for this.
But she was choosing it anyway.
This time, Kara thought fiercely, no one will tell me where to go. What to do. Where to be. How to act.
I will do what I think is correct. And right. And true.
Not what others tell me.
Somewhere deep inside her—deeper than bone, deeper than blood, in the place where her very essence lived—something clicked.
It was quiet. Subtle. Like the sound of a lock turning, a door coming unlatched.
Not open.
Not yet.
But unlocked.
Ready.
Kara's eyes snapped open.
The communication device was still in her ear. She'd forgotten to take it out.
She pressed the button, tuning in to the chatter.
"—beam of light just shot up into the sky—"
"—Stark Tower, confirmed—"
"—portal opening, we need all hands—"
Kara's heart kicked into overdrive.
She closed her eyes again, but this time it wasn't to meditate. She focused on her breathing, the technique Aura had taught her, back when Kara had been young and restless and unable to sit still for more than five minutes.
Breathe in. Hold. Listen.
Her aunt had been many things. A warrior. A strategist. A criminal, as it turned out, married to the man who would tear Krypton apart in his quest for power.
But Kara had loved her anyway.
And the breathing technique worked.
Kara's hearing expanded outward, pushing past the wind and the clouds and the curvature of the planet itself. She listened for the direction she needed to fly.
There.
A heavily populated area. Massive structures of glass and metal reaching toward the sky. The unmistakable hum of an energy signature that didn't belong to this world.
Kara's eyes opened, blazing gold.
She shot forward like a missile, breaking the sound barrier in an instant, the world blurring into streaks of color as she raced toward her fate.
The Ancient One
The Ancient One stood on the rooftop of the Sanctum Sanctorum, staff in hand, calmly deflecting a Chitauri soldier into the astral plane.
It disintegrated with a satisfying pop.
Another came. She waved her hand, and a golden mandala sliced it cleanly in half.
The battle raged around her, aliens pouring through the portal in the sky, Avengers fighting below, civilians screaming and running, but the Ancient One remained serene.
She had seen this before.
Not this exact timeline, of course. But close enough. The general shape of events remained consistent across the branches she had observed.
Loki would lose. The portal would close. The Avengers would be born.
What mattered was what came after.
The Ancient One's gaze shifted, tracking movement below. A figure was making his way through the chaos, moving with purpose toward the Sanctum.
Right on time.
She turned just as a man climbed onto the rooftop, slightly out of breath from the ascent.
He was large. Green. But not quite the Hulk.
Bruce Banner's face, yes. But the Hulk's body, tempered and controlled in a way that should not have been possible in this moment. His eyes were calm, intelligent, thoughtful.
Professor Hulk.
From a future that did not exist.
"Uh," the man said, looking around in confusion. "Hi. I'm looking for Doctor Stephen Strange?"
The Ancient One tilted her head, her expression patient and knowing.
"I'm afraid you're about five years too early," she said mildly.
The man, Bruce, but not blinked. Then his face fell.
"Right. Of course. The Snap hasn't happened yet. He's still..." He paused, shaking his head. "Okay. Look, I know this is weird, but I need the Time Stone. It's important. Really important."
"Predictable," the Ancient One murmured.
"Excuse me?"
She smiled. "Don't worry, Dr. Banner. We are just waiting for one more. She should be along soon."
"She?" Bruce looked confused. "Who—"
The Ancient One pointed upward.
Bruce followed her gaze.
A streak of gold and red cut through the sky, moving faster than sound, faster than sight. It slowed abruptly, coming to a hovering stop thirty feet above the rooftop.
Kara Zor-El floated there, cape billowing behind her, arms crossed.
Her eyes locked onto Bruce.
And immediately began to glow.
Not red.
Gold.
Pure, blazing, solar-fire gold.
The air around her shimmered with heat. The rooftop tiles beneath the Ancient One's feet cracked from the sudden pressure.
Kara's expression was fury incarnate.
He was green. Large. The size and shape were similar. too similar. The memories of that fight, of being called that word, of the rage that had consumed her, came flooding back.
"You," she said, voice low and dangerous.
Bruce took a step back, hands raised. "Whoa, whoa, wait—"
"Kara Zor-El," the Ancient One said sharply, her voice cutting through the tension like a blade. "Ease your fury. This is not the being that attacked you."
Kara's eyes flickered gold to blue and back again. Her gaze swept over Bruce, taking in every detail. The calm intelligence in his eyes. The way he held himself—cautious, not aggressive. The wrongness of him, the way he didn't quite fit into this moment.
This wasn't the creature that had roared at her. That had called her... that.
But he looked so similar.
Her brow furrowed in confusion.
"I... don't understand."
"Please," the Ancient One said, gesturing toward the rooftop. "Both of you. Come here. Time, as they say, never stops."
Kara descended slowly, boots touching down on the tiles with barely a sound. She didn't take her eyes off Bruce.
Bruce, for his part, looked thoroughly confused and mildly terrified.
"So," he said carefully, "um... who is she and why does she seem so mad at me?"
The Ancient One's smile widened.
"The future, Dr. Banner. Or perhaps the past. With time, it's so difficult to tell."
She turned, staff tapping against the stone, and walked toward the door to the Sanctum.
"Come. We have much to discuss."
Kara and Bruce exchanged a glance—hers suspicious, his bewildered—and followed.
Behind them, the battle raged on.
But in this moment, on this rooftop, the real game was just beginning.