The air crackled with tension so thick it felt like the very atoms were trembling.
Tony Stark stepped forward, his face a map of pain and battles lost—half of it illuminated by the eerie glow of the TVA insignias etched into his armor. Every step he took echoed with the weight of timelines torn asunder.
"You don't understand," Tony's voice was low, but laced with iron. "I come from a future you're supposed to prevent."
The younger Stark Sister's eyes narrowed, reactor humming louder as light spilled in ripples across her palms.
"Then tell me. What do you want?"
Tony's gaze flickered, haunted.
"You. You are the Nova Stark from my timeline. The one who became a devourer of time—absorbing entire futures to fuel herself."
He gestured around them: the shattered Forge, the fractured Avengers, the chaotic echoes of lost moments.
"I was sent to stop the destruction before it starts... but I'm not sure if that's even possible anymore."
Visual Shift:
Flashbacks splintered like broken glass.
A younger Nova Stark, her eyes glowing blue-white, standing amidst an annihilated New York.
Skies ablaze, portals ripping open.
Time itself bending to her will, crushing the world beneath her feet.
"I tried to reason with her," Tony's voice faltered, pain in every syllable. "But she was lost. Consumed by the Prime Core. She saw herself as a god."
His fist clenched. A faint scar pulsed along his palm—a remnant of their last battle.
The younger Stark's reactor surged wildly, her breath quickened.
"I'm not her."
Tony's eyes softened, yet his warning was brutal.
"You will become her if you don't control the Core."
Suddenly—
A low rumble shook the Forge.
From the shadows, a figure emerged.
Shrouded in fractured timelines, the true architect of the chaos: a mysterious Time Warden with eyes like liquid silver.
"You think this ends with your fight?" the Time Warden sneered, voice like the grind of ancient gears.
"You're pawns in a war you can't even see."
His hand flicked, and a wave of temporal distortion crashed toward the younger Stark.
Instinctively, she raised her palms.
The Prime Core flared—light spilling out in dazzling waves, distorting the air with heat and power.
But the Time Warden's strike pierced the light—cracks spiderwebbed across her shield.
Suddenly, Tony shouted:
"Run, now!"
He threw a temporal grenade that exploded with a brilliant pulse of fractured time, throwing all three apart.
The younger Stark was thrown through a tear in reality, landing hard on cold stone.
She gasped, struggling to rise as the world around her shimmered—broken but alive.
And then—
From the darkness, a voice whispered.
"You've felt it too, haven't you?"
A figure stepped forward: an older, battle-scarred Doctor Strange, his cloak torn but eyes burning with resolve.
"Time is breaking," Strange said quietly.
"And you... are the key to fixing it—or shattering it forever."
The younger Stark's eyes widened as the Prime Core pulsed violently in her palm.
Behind her, the Forge crumbled further—fractures spreading like wildfire.
And from the deepest crack, a chilling, distorted voice echoed:
"She carries the pulse of all timelines... but whose heart will she break first?"
The shadows parted, revealing…
A figure wrapped in dark energy—the true lost heir of the multiverse, stepping forward with a smirk that chilled to the bone.