Fixed Futures
On a lonely highway, a fairly modern motorhome advanced calmly under the blazing sun. The engine purred steadily as the wheels kicked up dust along the straight road that stretched endlessly into the horizon.
Inside, at the wheel, Owen wore a relaxed expression. His hands moved confidently over the steering wheel, accompanied by the soft music playing on the radio. From time to time, he glanced sideways, observing the infinite desert—golden dunes undulating like a motionless sea.
In the passenger seat, Wanda watched him seriously. Her fixed gaze, heavy with reproach, was intense enough to unsettle even Owen, who usually kept his composure no matter what.
Unable to endure the weight of those eyes any longer, Owen furrowed his brow slightly and asked:
"What?"
Wanda stared at him, a touch of disapproval in her eyes, and sighed.
"Do you really think this is okay? You stole from a criminal and then used the money to buy this."
Owen didn't flinch. He answered calmly, as if he had already rehearsed the explanation.
"Hey, you're saying it wrong. I took down the criminal network of a very dangerous man. I kept a bit of the money so we'd have transportation and a place to sleep. The rest I gave away to charity."
"You handed it to random people on the street," Wanda shot back, her voice dripping with disbelief.
"People who needed help," Owen said evenly, keeping his eyes on the road. His tone was so calm it seemed impossible to argue with him.
Wanda only shook her head in resignation.
"You complain a lot," Owen continued, a faint smile tugging at his lips. "Now, technically, we've got a vehicle to move around in and a place to sleep. It even has two bedrooms. We're in a different universe—you should treat this like a vacation, like we're tourists. Relax a little."
Wanda's expression hardened.
"You know very well we can't relax until we figure out how to get home… and what might be happening there."
"First," Owen replied with composure, "let's be honest: being here is your fault. Maybe twenty percent mine. Second, whether we're there or not, it's not like we can change much. It's not as if the course of the world and the timelines are going to suddenly collapse just because we're gone. I've lived there all my life, I know what's coming, and nothing really changed. There were slight deviations, sure, but never the foundations."
His words lingered in the air. Wanda looked at him silently, and for the first time, she wavered. He wasn't wrong. There was a theory that the future shifted the moment someone knew it, even if they did nothing. And Owen had lived his whole life in that world with knowledge of what was to come, a witness to unexpected deviations like the appearance of the X-Men in a universe where they didn't belong, or events happening earlier than they should. Yet the main path had remained intact… at least until the Chitauri invasion. That thought eased her mind a little, though she didn't admit it out loud.
"It's obviously one hundred percent your fault," she added irritably. If it hadn't been for Owen's strange power trying to devour her own magic, they wouldn't be here.
"In that case, it's Victor's fault. He's the one who injected me without even asking," Owen shot back quickly.
"So, where are we going?" Wanda finally asked, blinking her eyes clear and turning her gaze back to the road. The American desert heat shimmered in the air, warping the straight highway before them.
"There are a few people who could help us figure out how to return," Owen said with a mysterious smile. "But to be exact, almost all of them are either insane, far too dangerous, or would just erase us outright to protect their universe. We only have one person left who might lend us a hand. They can't send us back, but maybe they can tell us how to make it happen."
Wanda raised an eyebrow, confused. She had no idea who he could mean.
…
Far away, at the top of a solitary tower, a floating sphere projected images of the motorhome. Its focus was mainly on Wanda, though Owen was also within its gaze. The sphere didn't just watch them—it tried to decipher if they were a threat, unfolding fragments of their pasts and possible futures, overlapping and twisting like shattered glass.
It showed visions of Wanda losing her mind, crying out for her loved ones until she unleashed devastating power. Others where she lived peacefully, happily, raising a family while protecting entire universes. But there were darker ones too, where she became a machine of destruction, bathing her own world in blood. And in some futures, there was nothing at all—only void.
With Owen, most visions painted him as a savior. A man who sacrificed his life to protect others, who altered fates to give people a chance. A hero, a martyr, the pillar of many worlds.
But among all those futures, there was one that never changed. A fixed point.
Owen standing tall, his gaze cold and lethal, surrounded by the corpses of every hero in his universe. His body drenched in blood, a deadly smile carved on his lips.
That Owen, the one from the immutable future, suddenly lifted his head as if he had felt the sphere's gaze. His eyes locked directly on the vision, and his smile widened disturbingly. Auras of every color flared around him, overflowing with power, until the vision went completely black—cut off abruptly, as if something had severed the connection to prevent something worse.
The keeper of the tower was not there to witness it.
The images faded away, vanishing into nothing.
…
Meanwhile, deep within a cave that seemed more like a technological sanctuary than a mere hideout, endless rows of computer screens lit the darkness with a bluish glow. Off to the side, lined up like pieces of an impossible collection, stood extravagantly luxurious cars, futuristic ships, motorcycles of every kind, and, dominating the scene, the colossal silhouette of a damn giant robot—motionless, as if waiting for orders that never came.
At the center, the Dark Knight sat before the main computer. His eyes, hidden behind the mask, tracked hundreds of cameras at once. On a secondary screen, the results of a DNA scan repeated with constant errors. On another, the recording of the fight where he and his entire family had fallen unconscious played over and over, humiliation condensed into a few short minutes.
Batman studied every detail. Every contracting muscle. Every held breath. Every barely perceptible touch from that strange opponent who had managed to defeat them effortlessly.
"Sir, you've been at this for hours. It would be best if you took a break. The machine has returned errors in every analysis of the hair you found in that hotel room," said a butler with a calm voice. Alfred held a flawless silver tray, with a steaming plate of food, as if his very presence could bring sanity into the abyss of obsession.
The bat turned his head slightly toward him before responding, his voice deep and implacable.
"That man… his movements, his fighting style, even his posture. Only a soldier moves like that, after years of service. But he doesn't have the age. He's young. Which means he was trained by a former soldier, or a high-ranking officer. And yet, he has no connection to anyone I know. His strikes… basic martial arts taught in the U.S. army. Simple. Direct. But powerful—complemented by that strange power. Maybe Special Forces. Maybe the Marines. Or some hidden battalion."
He pointed to the recording where that man easily took one of Nightwing's batons just before knocking him out.
Alfred watched Batman with a mixture of patience and fatigue, then let his gaze drift to another corner of the cave. There, Damian was furiously sparring with Dick, venting his frustration after the humiliating defeat. Neither of them had managed to land a single blow.
To Alfred, that family was cut from the same cloth: stubborn, incapable of accepting defeat. Technically, they all shared the same obsession. Well, almost all. In one corner, another Robin sat with an ice cream in hand, still wearing his costume, his face painted with frustration and defeat. Words weren't necessary—the boy's despair was obvious even as he sought comfort in something sweet. Alfred suspected Barbara, somewhere else, was just like Bruce: replaying the videos over and over, desperately searching for an answer.
"Remember to eat, sir," the butler insisted, setting the tray beside the Dark Knight, who didn't even blink. The food sat ignored, while Bruce replayed the fight again and again. In his mind, counterattack patterns were already beginning to form—carefully calculated responses for every move of that strange opponent. At the same time, the computer analyzed every trace of released energy.
"Impulses… explosions of energy," he muttered. "Not magic. It looks kinetic. Or maybe…"
He stopped, focusing on a key moment in the recording: the instant Owen threw his dagger at the Joker. It wasn't a simple movement of the arm. Batman rewound, slowed the footage to its minimum speed, and saw it.
A faint red spark, barely perceptible, flared from Owen's foot. It slowly climbed up his leg, intensifying centimeter by centimeter. By the time it reached his shoulder, the aura was undeniable. From there, it expanded exponentially, concentrating into his hand—finally releasing that devastating impulse that triggered the sonic explosion.
"I've discovered your power," Batman said, his eyes fixed on the screen, his tone leaving no room for doubt.
…
Meanwhile, Owen drove calmly down the highway, Wanda by his side. The sun bathed the horizon, and the steady hum of the engine filled the silence between them.
Not even he fully understood how his power worked. And yet, his very first enemy in this new universe already seemed to grasp the secrets of that red energy more clearly than he did himself.
Of course, in part, it was his own fault. He had always left that kind of investigation to Banner. Now, without him, Owen simply let things flow. He drifted without resistance, his mind always leaning toward free, carefree paths. For better… or for worse.