"I have to say something unpleasant first—but you absolutely must not attempt to escape or attack this cage. Even the slightest act of aggression, and you might just enjoy a journey from nine kilometers up in the sky."
After Loki was placed into a specially designed cage, Nick Fury walked in from the outside.
He glanced at Loki first, then went over to the control panel and pressed a few buttons. Immediately, the bottom hatch of Loki's cage opened. Below him appeared a hole that led straight to the ground.
"This cage is quite impressive, but I suppose it wasn't built just for me?" Loki touched the glass walls of his cage, unreserved in his praise.
"You guessed right. It was built for someone much more powerful than you."
"Stronger than me? Haha." Loki tapped on the glass in front of him. "It couldn't be Clark, could it? I doubt this cage could hold him. Then maybe Thor? Or… Banner?"
"Interesting! You actually let those two stay in your little base. One's an alien in your eyes, and the other's a mindless beast."
"This guy really has a foul mouth," said Banner, feeling a bit uncomfortable as he listened to Loki from the lounge. He also felt uneasy about Fury's invitation and the fact that this cage was clearly designed with him in mind, even if he knew it was the right call.
"He's stalling for time. But what's the point? He can't command his army from in here. Still, I get the feeling Loki wanted to be caught." Steve, sitting nearby, was trying hard to analyze Loki's intentions, but with so little information, he couldn't figure out what Loki was truly after.
"Who knows? Maybe he's just crazy." After being insulted by Loki, Banner wasn't too fond of him anymore.
"Hey, watch what you say. No matter what, he's still from Asgard. And his brother is right here!" Thor felt awkward hearing people complain about his brother in front of him.
"He killed over eighty people in the past two days," Natasha chimed in at the perfect moment.
"Well… he's adopted."
"Everyone, enough arguing. Loki is trying to distract us. While we were busy fighting him, Agent Barton broke into the Stuttgart lab and stole the iridium." At that moment, Coulson walked over holding a report.
Banner casually took the report from Coulson and glanced over it. "Iridium? They went through all that just for iridium? There's a problem here—what exactly do they need iridium for?"
"It's probably a stabilizer. I've read the Tesseract's reports. They say the energy it emits is corrosive. So, according to what Loki said earlier, if they want to open a stable portal using the Tesseract, they'll need something highly corrosion-resistant and soft—like iridium—to stabilize it."
As soon as iridium was mentioned, and thinking back on what Loki said, Tony immediately pieced together their plan.
"Now that they've got iridium, the rest of the materials shouldn't be too hard for Agent Barton to get. But once they have everything, all they need is a massive energy source—big enough to heat the Tesseract to over a hundred million degrees..."
While Tony explained what iridium is and how it's used, he plugged a micro USB drive containing a decryption program into a nearby computer.
As the group discussed the issue intensely, Clark noticed Diana quietly leaving the control room. After thinking for a moment, he decided to follow her.
"Why didn't you agree to Loki's offer back then? Maybe he really could have sent you home. I was in heaven at the time, but I still heard your conversation. Did you really not want to go back? Why...?"
After stepping outside, Clark found Diana alone on the deck of the Helicarrier, staring blankly at the sky. Even though the Helicarrier was floating more than 9,000 meters above the ground, with freezing temperatures and thin air, it didn't affect Clark or Diana—they were a god and a superhuman.
Hearing Clark's question, Diana turned her head and smiled at him. "I don't know."
"You don't know? You're not sure whether Loki could've sent you back? Or... something else?" Clark had wanted to ask if she hesitated because of someone, but seeing the confused look on Diana's face, he decided not to hold back anymore.
"I don't know why. To me, both the world I came from and this current world feel unfamiliar. Clark, did you know? He left Themyscira more than a hundred years ago. I haven't gone back since."
"So whether it's one Earth or the other, it's all the same to me. That's why I won't let a war fall on this world for personal reasons."
"And I have a feeling—maybe I came to this world with a purpose."
"I understand, Diana. Even though I'm not Superman in your world, strictly speaking, I'm not originally from this one either.
"In another world, I had parents and friends. But when I woke up, everything had changed. At first, I was scared and confused. I didn't know what to do next.
"To me, this world felt like a movie—something unreal. I knew what was supposed to happen in the future but couldn't tell anyone. So back then, I felt alone and uninterested in everything. Everything I did was just to play along.
"But then something happened that made me realize that no matter how I think or feel, to the people around me, I'm real.
"So slowly, not long ago, I started feeling like I belonged in this world. And I started to want to do something for it."
Looking at the confused Diana, Clark thought for a moment and then shared his journey with her. He felt only someone who had traveled across time and space like him could understand her thoughts. After all, reality isn't like the books, where a character suddenly changes their mindset just because of one line.
Clark believed that anyone who suddenly appeared in a completely foreign world—where everything they once knew was gone—would need a long time to adapt.
The more you understand, the more you miss the world you came from. That's why Clark had always felt Diana was incredibly strong. Unlike him, she seemed to adapt so easily after arriving here.
Clark thought maybe it was because she had once lived in America.
"It's because of you." Yes, Diana realized the reason she could act like everything was normal was because of Clark—someone who felt like he came from the same place as her.
"Oh right, Clark—didn't you say you're not from the same place as me? Then why do you have the same powers as Superman? Are you from Krypton?"
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