After all the commotion, Wanda and Pietro finally drifted into sleep.
A single day had forced them to endure more than most people face in a lifetime.
Even adults would find themselves mentally and physically exhausted under such circumstances, let alone two children.
So, despite sporadic gunfire echoing through the night, they surrendered to unconsciousness almost immediately.
Now Luca found himself pinned to the bed, one child on each side, in a situation he hadn’t exactly anticipated.
He’d just returned from the Titanic fully rested, sleep was the furthest thing from his mind.
Besides, Wanda and Pietro had experienced war and bereavement.
He’d experienced interdimensional travel, a system awakening, infinite possibilities, and a crash course in cosmology.
If he could casually drift off after all that, his psychological resilience would be genuinely concerning.
Eyes wide open, he leaned against the headboard and began planning his next moves.
Sokovia was obviously untenable.
According to memory, this miserable country experienced local conflicts three or four times annually on average.
How his body’s biological parents had adapted to this chaos remained a mystery.
More pressingly, he recalled something crucial from the plot, somewhere outside the city stood a castle from the last century.
Its owner?
HYDRA’s top snake, Baron Strucker.
In the Marvel films, Baron Strucker appeared for perhaps two scenes before dying.
A spectacularly useless demise.
Casual viewers probably retained no impression of this bald man who showed up only to immediately collect his lunch.
But in actual Marvel lore, Baron Strucker ranked as a genuine HYDRA veteran.
He’d served as Red Skull’s right hand during World War II, and after the war inherited a substantial portion of Red Skull’s strategic legacy.
His resources and capabilities arguably rivaled SHIELD’s.
Consider when in Avengers Age of Ultron, the entire assembled Avengers team struck Baron Strucker’s castle with full force.
And they only succeeded because Strucker, attempting to split the Avengers through strategy, deliberately set a trap and allowed himself to be captured.
He calculated correctly about the Avengers fracturing, they did later split over ideological differences.
He simply failed to anticipate being murdered in his cell by Ultron, a mad mechanical lifeform.
A profoundly undignified end.
In the original timeline, Baron Strucker devoted himself to developing superhuman abilities.
Wanda and Pietro numbered among his successful experimental subjects.
Some might argue that gaining power justified any risk.
Luca disagreed emphatically.
His little Wanda was perfectly adorable as she was.
Why subject her to potentially lethal human experimentation?
Pietro, on the other hand…
he might consider volunteering the boy.
Kidding.
Originally, without system involvement, Luca had considered relocating with the twins to that certain unspeakable country.
Legend held that nation enjoyed the protection of the River Crab God, whether Thanos snapped his fingers or the universe exploded, that country stood unscathed, not even a ripple disturbing its surface.
But now, with a system in his possession?
If he still chose retirement over adventure, setting aside his own objections, surely the readers would revolt.
Having finally crossed into a new world, equipped with a system like this, he needed to make something of himself.
His research suggested this system triggered tasks through contact with original plot characters.
His first mission had activated precisely because he’d encountered Wanda.
As for why Pietro, the first twin he’d encountered, hadn’t triggered a mission?
Either the system’s activation wasn’t guaranteed, or perhaps this kid Pietro simply lacked narrative weight.
Even the system apparently didn’t consider him a key figure in the Marvel universe.
Compared to Scarlet Witch’s formidable reputation, who remembers Quicksilver?
Of course, it might also indicate the system favored female characters over male.
These remained mere speculations.
Mastering the system’s rules would require extensive experimentation.
Based on his first mission, being dropped into “Godzilla 2: King of Monsters”—the worlds this system opened apparently connected to the quest characters he encountered.
The ancient Titans in that world could genuinely destroy civilization.
Even the Red-Scaled Godzilla treated nuclear warheads like snacks.
Drop Captain America or Black Widow into that scenario?
Gratuitous food delivery.
But Scarlet Witch at full power?
The outcome became genuinely uncertain.
Thus, while ensuring his own survival, the next superheroes he contacted demanded careful consideration.
The first world had been specially calibrated as a newcomer tutorial.
Would the second offer similar protections?
If he recklessly approached Iron Man now, who knew what plot the system might hurl him into?
Dropped into a “God of War” universe?
Some random mook’s sneeze would probably kill him.
Until he developed actual power, he’d avoid the truly overpowered characters.
But avoiding Iron Man didn’t mean avoiding everyone.
Other heroes or villains remained viable targets.
Black Widow, for instance.
War Machine.
Falcon.
Characters whose power levels remained within mortal bounds.
He began mentally mapping his next moves.
Once tomorrow’s fighting stabilized somewhat, he’d grab the twins and flee.
He wanted nothing to do with this broken country.
His predecessor’s parents had left a reasonable inheritance, enough to reach New York, certainly.
The twins shouldn’t prove problematic.
Two unaccompanied minors, either they followed him, or they ended up in orphanages.
They weren’t stupid enough to choose the latter.
New York, despite its chaos, offered the perfect environment for rapid growth.
In such a hub, he could quickly encounter various plot characters and accelerate his development through system rewards.
Timeline-wise, this was late 2006.
Soon, that annoying genius would become Iron Man.
Then Earth would enter its great transcendent era.
In New York, at minimum, he could track plot development, leverage his prophetic knowledge, and accumulate system rewards.
Yes, crises loomed larger there, but unless he retreated to that certain unspeakable country, danger existed everywhere on Earth.
Movies showed only the visible threats.
Hidden dangers lurked everywhere, potentially no less lethal than New York’s perils.
This remained, after all, the Marvel universe.
Who knew if eating dinner peacefully at home might end with a large green posterior crashing through your ceiling?
“Don’t…
don’t leave me…” Wanda clutched his arm tightly, murmuring in her sleep.
Nightmares, probably.
Poor kid.
He patted her shoulder gently.