Stand As Heroes » Quicksilver

chapter twenty one

21 x can science solve magic?

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[ Third Person POV ]

Bruce sat on a stool and watched as Jemma Simmons, Leo Fitz, and Jane Foster all spoke about astrophysics and quantum physics at a rapid pace. Bruce was tracking, but he was more of an internal processor than the others seemed to be, and there was quite a bit he was trying to process.

"—and if the fabric of reality is that thin in that spot—"

"—repairing spacetime seems like a little more than just a tall order—"

"—if we could figure out how to differentiate our realm's biological matter from their realm's biological matter, then perhaps—"

"—couldn't just close it, it's not a door—"

"—how does one stop a wormhole equivalent, anyway?"

Bruce zoned out. It was a complicated affair, to say in the least. The others' voices became background noise, different accents droning on into oblivion.

He liked Fitz and Simmons — or FitzSimmons as Daisy Johnson had introduced them — liked their spirit, their wit, their ideas. They treated he and Jane with the utmost of respect and an abundance of enthusiasm, all of which was admittedly new to Bruce. Jane took to them with ease and delight, and while Bruce appreciated their genuine intrigue, he was less comfortable with socializing with people who both weren't his team and didn't think the worst of him.

But he could get used to it.

"The problem is," Fitz said, "that we've no idea what brought about the tear in the first place, which totally overcomplicates trying to patch it up."

"Well," Jane was undeterred, "given the different magics that Asgardians and the other realms have at their disposal, I think we're gonna have to accept that we won't fully get what caused the tear, and move on."

"We've got magic at our disposal, too, don't we?" Jemma looked between them. "I mean, Doctor Banner—"

"Hmm?" He looked up to see Jemma Simmons smiling kindly at him.

"You said that Doctor Strange and Wanda Maximoff, for all intents and purposes they can 'do magic,' correct?"

Bruce sighed and gave a little nod. "For all intents and purposes." A smile tipped his lips. "Tony hates that wording, but I personally have yet to be able to explain even the half of what they can do."

"Right!" Simmons beamed at him and looked between Jane and Fitz. "So if we have magic, and the problem is one of magical origin, perhaps we can concoct a way for our magicians to close the tear! Utilizing science, of course."

Jane nodded, and a smile grew slowly on her face. "That's an excellent idea, Simmons."

Simmons beamed and squeezed Fitz's arm. Fitz smiled affectionately at Simmons before he cleared his throat and focused on Jane. "Uh, so, Doctor Foster, how, uh ... how would you suggest we do that?"

Jane glanced at Bruce.

He held up his hands. "Don't look at me, you're the one with astrophysics and Asgardian knowledge."

"And you're the one who closed a tear in spacetime in Manhattan," Jane retorted.

Bruce scoffed. "Technically, that was Natasha who did the actual closing, and it was Selvig who opened the tear and invented a way to close it. So ... my participation in the astro-part of those physics was minimal at best."

Jane's face lit up and she took a few steps closer to Bruce. "Of course it was Selvig who figured out how to close it. How did he do it? What did he use?"

"Well ..." Bruce scratched his cheek, then removed his glasses and fiddled with them. "The thing is, he used a self-sustaining energy source to keep the 'door' open, so it was just a matter of disrupting that energy source. Do we know ..."

Fitz was already shaking his head as he looked down at the holotable. "At this point in time the tear shows no signs of actively interacting with an energy source. It's just ... there."

"So it's safe to assume what opened the tear," Simmons said, "is not needed to keep it open. It just ... is."

"Right," Jane said. "Which is very different from Manhattan, I will admit. But," she came up beside Fitz, "if there's no current input on their end, where the tear came from, then we don't have to stop that input ..."

Bruce nodded as understanding dawned on him, "Maybe we could provide our own input."

"But how can they close it? Spells? Mental concentration?" Simmons wasn't mocking by any means, but rather desperately curious. "It took work for it to be torn in the first place ..."

"... so maybe there's a way to repair it," Fitz said.

And the four of them went to work.

—

[ Different Third Person POV ]

Bruce Banner's voice rang clear across the Avengers' network. "Vision, does Doctor Strange have a comm?"

"Yes," Doctor Strange answered, "I do." He ducked a flying sword and created a hole in the earth that all the nearby undead fell into. "Kinda busy at the moment, so if you could talk fast—"

"Sure," Bruce agreed. "We think we have a way for you to close the tear. Can Wanda hear this, too?"

"Yes," Wanda answered. She threw a hex that scattered pieces of undead in its wake before she landed beside Doctor Strange. "We are together now," she told Bruce. "What is it you want us to do?"

Bruce began to explain, but Strange and Wanda didn't quite catch all of it. More like half of it.

Then they were distracted by Thor and Megan practically exploding out of the tear at phenomenal speeds. They barely managed to slow down before they were skidding to a stop, each of them indirectly taking out numerous undead as they did so.

Megan was glowing, Thor crackled with lightning, and both looked unsettlingly disheveled.

"Guys!?" Peter Parker's voice came over the comms. "They're closing in on not evacuated spaces! And it's— it's not easy keeping all the civilians safe!"

"Or alive!" Scott agreed. "Like, holy crap— I'm gonna have so many nightmares after this—"

"—and you guys didn't get all of that, did you?" Bruce asked with a resigned sigh.

"No, we didn't," Strange answered. "But I think it's safe to say everything's about to get worse."