The Keeper of Infinity

Take a Step Back

July 25, 2025; 12.30 pm; Raj Bari, West Bengal, India

Stephen stepped off the car that had driven them from the private airstrip — courtesy, Clint's contacts — to the same palace that he had visited only a couple days earlier. The structure looked pretty much the same, still appearing uninhabited by any intelligent life form.

This time, he had chosen to enter through the front gate, and it would be a lie if he said that this part of the entrance wasn't somehow much eerier as compared to the back gate. There were a pair of huge iron gates, rusting from all the time they had already seen, waiting to welcome them in the not-so-humble abode.

Roots had grown across pretty much all the structures like one would find in abandoned places.

Stephen's feet were light as they walked up to the gate, almost as if his whole body was still debating on the appropriateness of either a fight or a flight response. He had never run away from any situation in his entire life, be it something as monumental as his upended reality after the accident in 2016 or something as minimal as an exam.

But today, as he stood before the gigantic iron gates, looking on at the magnificent, albeit old, structure of the palace through the little loops as if he were in a cage, all the feelings of safety that he had felt the last time he had visited had evaporated, and all it had left behind in its wake was that of extreme anxiety.

"Is this the place where you had met her two days ago?"

Stephen didn't turn as he replied, "If you call that a meeting, yes."

"Alright, so, uh, who's gonna pick the lock?"

"Wilson, this palace dates back to sometime in the 1700s or so. Do you really think this would be a lock that can just be picked?" Dr. Banner's tone was mostly dry but Stephen could hear a note of apprehension in the man's voice.

Not that wariness was anything new for the mild-mannered scientist but Stephen wondered if the Hulk felt something different about the place. From all those alternate timelines that he had seen on Titan, a common thread was that the Hulk had some real good, borderline supernatural, instincts.

"Then, why don't you suggest something?" Wilson countered, sounding annoyed.

Before Banner could answer, however, another response came, this time from the former Winter Soldier. White Wolf, Stephen supposed, was what he went by these days. "How about we break it?"

"Yeah? With what? An axe?" Wilson raised his brows pointedly at Banner. "Now, what do you have to say to this, Dr. Banner?" He seemed to relish in the long sigh that the scientist exhaled. "Oh, come on, Buck! Didn't you listen to a word Banner said? The lock was forged some five centuries ago. You really think you can just break it?" He shook his head in exasperation, muttering under his breath, "At least, mine did not include any force! Supersoldiers! Always looking to punch their way out!"

Barnes rolled his eyes. "I have a metal arm."

"And that's an iron lock made five hundred years ago!" Wilson exclaimed. "I don't think your metal arm is gonna be sufficient—"

"It's a vibranium metal arm—"

The somewhat-pointless debate — in theory, sure the metal arm could probably break the lock, but in practice, he wasn't naive enough to think Atheileisia wouldn't have put a spell on pretty much everything around — was put to an instant stop when the gates unlocked without any prompt, swinging open with a loud whine typical for old, rusty structures.

It took only a short second — perhaps, even not that — for the Avengers to draw their weapons in every direction as they formed a small circle, facing outward, sharp eyes sweeping their surroundings for any unwelcome approaches.