Because I could feel the wand resisting certain currents.
Not refusing outright—just… tightening. Like a horse that will trot happily but gets stubborn the second you ask it to charge.
I waved again and set everything down with gentle precision. The sock landed exactly where it had been, which I decided was a sign the wand was at least not judging me for my laundry habits.
I stared at the wand in my hand.
It works.
But it's not right.
Excitement warred with regret. Relief warred with disappointment. I had a wand—finally—and that meant survival. It meant I could cast properly again, with stability and accuracy, instead of spraying wandless spells like a malfunctioning sprinkler system.
But the wand's personality—yes, wands have personalities, and anyone who says otherwise has never held one that hated them—wasn't aligned with who I was or what I needed.
The pine heartwood was acceptable. Barely. A hundred years old, minimally magical, doing the job like a tired employee who shows up on time but doesn't care about promotions.
The Pegasus feather, though… the Pegasus feather was real, and it was powerful, but it wasn't my match.
My wand in my previous life had been oak heartwood, dragon heartstring, built for durability and authority. It had amplified both light and dark magic without complaint. Combat spells felt like breathing through it. Curses had flown clean. Transfiguration had snapped into shape.
This wand?
Same length. Weaker body. Pegasus feather core.
Its nature was life, vitality, recovery, sanctity.
A pure light-aligned wand.
Defensive magic felt effortless. Shield charms were smoother. Stabilization spells settled more naturally. Even basic restorative work felt like the wand was helping, nudging my spellwork toward coherence.
But offensive casting?
Dark magic?
It didn't just fail to help. It pushed back, subtly, like it didn't want to be stained.
It was like trying to write with your non-dominant hand—possible, but slower, clumsier, more exhausting than it should've been.
This wand is usable.
But completely unsuitable for me.
I exhaled slowly and forced myself to let go of the disappointment before it turned into bitterness. Bitterness wastes time, and time was the one resource I couldn't buy, steal, or bargain for.
This was a start.
A foundation.
I could study properly now. I could fight properly now. And while I trained, I could search for better materials. Because this world—this ridiculous, terrifying, cinematic universe—didn't have unicorn hair or phoenix feathers sitting on shelves.
But it had other things.
The Golden Apple Tree of Asgard.
Odin's ravens.
Sleipnir, the eight-legged nightmare horse that probably laughed at physics.
Dimensional entities whose "remains" would make dragon heartstring look like thread from a sewing kit.
If I could build a wand from those…
My old wand might not even compare.
The thought didn't just comfort me.
It hardened into certainty.
I'd come into this life thinking maybe I could relax more than I had in the last one. Less war. Less constant edge-of-death planning. More normal teenage moments.
Cute idea.
But reality was clear: deals still had to be made. Alliances forged. Resources acquired. Because the future wasn't a story I'd read anymore.
It was a timeline I lived inside.
And no one could guarantee that my presence wouldn't change which people got erased by that final snap.
Movies were just movies.
This was real.
I could use what I remembered—broad strokes, likely events, major crises—to predict trends, prepare, and position myself. But I couldn't rely on it like a script. That way was how you get blindsided, because the universe doesn't care about canon.
Experience speaking.
I cleaned up my tools and scraps with meticulous care, because messes attract attention and attention attracts problems. Then I sat down and started writing.
The "introduction" to my magic system that I owed the Ancient One.
Not a full reveal. Not my entire life story. But a coherent framework: wand focus theory, spell categories, intent-based casting, magical exhaustion, mental discipline, transfiguration principles, potion binding logic. Enough to give her a baseline for understanding without handing her a map to my throat.
By the next morning, I'd organized only a fraction.
The system I'd learned was vast—centuries of refinement, contradictions, odd gaps, rules that worked because millions of witches and wizards had believed they worked. Explaining it to someone like the Ancient One—someone who'd spent her life manipulating dimensions like origami—was going to take time.
And then there were potions.
Potions and Herbology didn't translate cleanly here. Too many ingredients simply didn't exist. Dittany, unicorn blood with correct properties, powdered moonstone… gone, replaced by a world where magic was hoarded behind monasteries and hidden sanctums instead of sold in alleys.
Even my few successes—wound healing, blood replenishment—were weaker than the versions I remembered. Barely usable.
To build a real potion system for this world, I'd need more than time.
I'd need money.
Serious money.
Enough to fund endless experiments, buy rare materials, and legally "lose" a few shipments without anyone asking why a teenager was ordering preserved neural tissue and bulk silver powder.
Maybe a research institute, I thought.
A pharmaceutical front.
Investors' money paying for potion research.
Products sold as "cutting-edge treatments."
Everyone wins. Mostly.
The idea was still a skeleton, but the goals were clear:
A stronger wand, suited to me.
A potion system adapted to this world's ingredients and physics.
Resources and infrastructure, so I wasn't always one bad day away from running out of options.
I'd finally built a wand.
And immediately, two new challenges stood up in front of me and waved.
Story of my life. Lives. Whatever.
Morning came too quickly.
I ran, showered, ate, and packed my bag. The wand went into a concealed pocket like it belonged there. It didn't feel perfect, but it felt solid, and right now solid was enough.
When I'd come home the night before, I'd told Theresa my bike had been stolen.
Not technically a lie, since it had been destroyed beyond recognition. She'd offered to buy a new one immediately, but I'd insisted I could take the bus for a while.
So I left earlier than usual and headed for the stop.
Sean was already there, bouncing on his heels with that restless energy he always had, like he'd been born with a battery installed.
"Sean, morning," I said.
"Abel!" he practically shouted. "Have you heard? Tony Stark is missing. The news says he got captured by terrorists. It's terrible, right? Even someone that rich can have problems."
I froze mid-step.
Oh.
Right.
The Pinnacle Award.
The Afghanistan trip.
The convoy.
The explosion.
The kidnapping.
The cave.
The beginning of everything.
Iron Man was about to be born.
I forced my face into something neutral. "Yeah," I said slowly. "That's… terrible."
Sean kept talking, but I barely heard him. My mind had already shifted into that cold planning space where futures aligned like chess pieces.
New York was about to become increasingly dangerous.
Not overnight—there was still time. But once Tony built armor in a cave, the world changed direction. Superheroes stopped being rumors. Public threats escalated. Enemies started responding.
And in the distance, far beyond the immediate chaos, the real deadline waited.
Thanos.
Ten years, give or take.
Ten years to prepare, to build strength, to build alliances, to gather the kind of resources that could matter when gods started throwing planets around like toys.
Ten years.
Could I prevent everything before that? Stop Loki's invasion. Prevent Ultron. Kill Thanos before he ever collected a Stone?
Maybe.
But "maybe" meant nothing without power.
And right now, I had a barely-adequate wand, a half-written magical framework for the Ancient One, a potions problem that required billionaire-level funding, and S.H.I.E.L.D. somewhere in the background politely sharpening knives.
Work to do.
So much work.
I adjusted my backpack strap and followed Sean onto the bus as it arrived, the doors hissing open like the start of a new act.
The future was coming whether I was ready or not.
And as the bus pulled away from the curb, I looked down at my hands—steady now, wand weight comforting even through fabric—and made myself a promise I didn't know if I could keep.
I wouldn't sit still this time.
Not while the cave waited.
Not while the timeline accelerated.
Not while the snap hung out there like a guillotine I could already hear being raised.
Better start preparing.
Because the era of "I'm just trying to survive high school" had officially ended.