Chapter 173: Wang's Multiverse
The Ancient One's room had the quality of a place that had been accumulating stillness for a very long time.
Sunlight came through the window at an angle that seemed deliberately chosen, falling across a face that looked like it had witnessed several centuries of human decisions and had arrived at a patient, unhurried relationship with all of them. She was pouring tea when they entered. Two cups were already set out on the table in front of where they would sit.
Strange took this in and felt, with a slight recalibration of his worldview, that he had perhaps underestimated what he was walking into.
Mordo led them in, bowed, and turned to leave.
His expression, in the half-second before he completed the turn, was the expression of a man containing something he had decided not to express.
Why does a civilian get to walk into Kamar-Taj? The thought came through to Ethan clearly, briefly, before he withdrew from it. What has an ordinary person done to earn this?
"Mordo," the Ancient One said, "take Ethan for a walk around the grounds. I'd like to speak with Dr. Strange privately first."
"Of course." Mordo's composure reassembled itself in the time it took to turn back around. He bowed again. Smiled.
Ethan shrugged agreeably. Future master-student conversation — made sense to have it without an audience.
Strange looked at Ethan with an expression that asked, plainly: Did you tell her my name?
Ethan was already walking out. Strange didn't get his answer.
He set this up, Strange concluded, watching the door close behind his friend. Of course he did. He's been planning this the whole time. He felt a complicated warmth about this, filed it, and turned his attention to the woman across the table.
What he didn't know — and Ethan had no particular reason to tell him — was that Ethan had essentially done nothing. He'd come to recharge his Sling Ring. Strange was a passenger on a trip Ethan was making anyway.
Some friendships ran on that kind of low-effort sincerity, and they were the best kind.
In the corridor, Mordo walked beside Ethan with the precise, controlled energy of a man who was being professional about something.
Ethan didn't particularly want to spend thirty minutes in careful conversation with someone whose default internal state toward him was competitive resentment. He also had no interest in aggravating it.
"Actually," he said, as they reached the courtyard, "I'd like to spend some time in the library. You don't need to stay with me — I'll find my way."
He didn't wait for a response. He walked.
Mordo stood in the courtyard and watched him go, and said nothing, because there was nothing to say that wouldn't reveal more than he wanted to reveal.
The library smelled like old paper and something Ethan couldn't quite identify — incense, maybe, or the particular atmospheric residue of a lot of concentrated magical practice in an enclosed space over a very long period of time.
He pushed the door open.
An Asian man, heavyset, was sitting at one of the reading tables with the focused attention of someone engaged in a private activity they would prefer not to be caught doing. He had, Ethan noted, very quickly and smoothly concealed something under the table at the sound of the door.
He wiped his mouth with his sleeve.
The smell of lo mai gai — sticky rice wrapped in lotus leaf, the specific comfort food of dim sum carts and Cantonese Sunday mornings — was already in the air. The concealment had been too late by several seconds.
Ethan looked at this man and felt something he hadn't expected: immediate, uncomplicated warmth.
Wang.
He'd known about Wang from the films. The librarian. The sorcerer who was, by any reasonable measure, more suited to the job of keeping things running than half the named characters in the franchise. Who fixed problems quietly and without credit. Who had been standing next to people having dramatic crises for years and had mostly been interested in getting back to whatever he was doing before the crisis started.
The most functional person in the entire Marvel universe, quite possibly. Grounded, competent, sensible, possessed of a genuine enthusiasm for good food and a complete lack of interest in fame.
Also — crucially — a fellow Asian man, which in Ethan's experience of being Chinese-American abroad created a specific kind of instant recognition.
"Wang," Ethan said, smiling. "Ethan Cross. Good to meet you."
Wang sized him up with the straightforward assessment of a man who didn't bother with social performance, and then his face opened completely.
"I know who you are. Lord of Hell's Kitchen." He was already standing. "You threw the nukes into Japan. Outstanding work. Can I get your autograph?"
He said this with complete sincerity, like autograph-collecting was a reasonable and dignified activity for an ancient-order sorcerer to pursue, which in Wang's particular personal economy it apparently was.
Ethan laughed.
He'd watched a video once, in his previous life, where someone had made the argument — half-joking, entirely correct — that the MCU was actually Wang's universe, and the other characters were just living in it. Wang had been present at nearly every major turning point. He'd opened portals on pure intention when trained sorcerers needed their rings. He'd kept the Sanctum running when the named cast was off having feelings about things. He'd quietly upgraded himself to Sorcerer Supreme during the Snap and then handed it back without making it into a whole thing.
The real MVP, Ethan thought. Absolutely.
"Whatever you want to know about the library," Wang was saying, "ask me. I know where everything is." He paused. "Also — is that lo mai gai I smell?" Ethan asked.
Wang looked caught for exactly one second, then decided this was fine. "Every morning. I go to Hong Kong for breakfast. There's a cart on—"
"Next time you're in Hell's Kitchen," Ethan said, "come to the Lucky Dragon. I'll take you for dim sum. Proper sit-down."
Wang's eyes lit up in the specific way eyes light up when someone offers you the exact right thing.
"You have a good dim sum place?"
"I run the restaurant."
"Brother," Wang said, "you just became my favorite person in New York."
They were halfway through Wang explaining his Hong Kong breakfast routine when the system notification arrived, quiet and immediate:
「Congratulations, Host! Wong has been added as a Friend — Current Level: ★!」「Attribute Gained: Rings of Raggadorr!」「Integrate immediately?」
Integrate.
The Rings of Raggadorr settled into his ability set the way a new key settles onto a keyring — cleanly, without friction. A magical barrier technique. Elegant rather than powerful, but reliable, and in Ethan's inventory of abilities that leaned heavily toward offense and mobility, a dependable shield was not unwelcome.
He turned it over briefly in his mind. Not flashy. Useful.
He thought about making the rounds of Kamar-Taj's entire sorcerer population — surely there were useful abilities scattered across this place — and then dismissed the idea. When Strange became Family, everything Strange learned would feed back into Ethan's own pool. The efficient move was patience.
Wang had moved on to an extended discussion of the relative merits of various dim sum items and their proper preparation.
Ethan was genuinely listening — this was real expertise, and he respected it — when Wang looked up suddenly.
"The Ancient One is calling for you. Ethan!"
He pointed.
Ethan looked across the courtyard. Strange and the Ancient One were standing together near one of the doorways, and the Ancient One's gaze had found him across the distance with the unhurried precision of someone who didn't need to raise her voice to be heard.
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