Gwen’s fingertips lingered on his bare shoulder, tracing the very edge of the white bandage. The touch was feather-light, but to Ethan’s heightened senses, it felt like a live wire.
He didn't pull away. Instead, he reached up and gently caught her wrist.
Gwen’s breath hitched. She didn't pull her hand back. Her pulse was racing, a frantic, rhythmic flutter against his thumb.
Ethan slowly lowered her hand, but he didn't let go. His other hand slid smoothly to her waist, his fingers finding the jagged tear in her spandex suit and resting directly against the warm, bare skin of her hip. He pulled her just a fraction of an inch closer.
Gwen let out a soft, shaky exhale. Her gaze dropped to his lips, her eyelids fluttering half-shut. The tough, multiversal vigilante was completely gone. In her place was a girl desperately, visibly leaning in.
Ethan closed the distance. His hand slid up from her waist, tangling in her damp blonde hair to tilt her chin up. Their lips were a millimeter apart. He could literally taste the rain on her breath.
BRRRING! BRRRING! BRRRING!
A blaring, obnoxious heavy metal ringtone suddenly shattered the intimate quiet of the Sanctum, blasting directly from the pocket of Ethan’s discarded leather jacket on the floor.
Gwen jumped like she’d been struck by lightning.
She scrambled backward so fast she nearly tipped over the coffee table. Her face was entirely flushed, a brilliant, glowing crimson that spread all the way down her neck and disappeared into her suit.
"I—um! I should... the blood!" Gwen stammered, pointing wildly at nothing in particular. "I need to wash the suit! And sleep! I'm going to sleep! Goodnight!"
She didn't wait for a response. She practically sprinted for the grand staircase, taking the steps two at a time before vanishing down the hallway. The frantic slam of her bedroom door echoed through the empty foyer.
Ethan sat frozen on the sofa, his hand still hovering in the empty air where she had just been.
The heavy metal ringtone continued to blare merrily from the floor.
Ethan slowly turned his head toward the jacket. His golden eyes darkened with a murderous, unholy rage. A prominent vein throbbed violently at his temple.
"I am going to end a life tonight," Ethan whispered to the empty room.
He leaned over, snatched the smartphone out of the leather pocket, and answered the call without even checking the caller ID.
"Unless the planet is currently being split in half by a giant purple thumb," Ethan hissed, his voice dripping with venom, "you have exactly three seconds to justify your existence."
"Whoa, easy there, Gandalf," Tony Stark’s voice crackled through the speaker. "Put the glowing stick away. Just doing a welfare check. You jumped through that portal looking like you were ready to murder someone. Everything good in magic-land?"
Ethan closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose.
"Tony," Ethan said, his tone deadly calm. "I am going to reach through this phone, and I am going to beat you to death with it."
There was a confused pause on the other end of the line.
"What? Why?" Tony asked, sounding genuinely baffled. "I just called to see if you saved the Spider-girl! What did I do wrong?!"
"You exist, Stark. That’s what you did wrong," Ethan growled.
"Hey, I’m trying to be a good team player here," Tony defended himself. "I even paused my life-saving elemental synthesis to make this call. You should be thanking me."
"I was two seconds away from a very different kind of synthesis, you absolute tin can," Ethan snapped, glaring up at the second-floor landing.
Tony went quiet for a second. The gears in his genius brain turned, and the realization suddenly hit him like a freight train.
"Oh," Tony said. Then, a loud, obnoxious bark of laughter echoed through the phone. "Oh, man. I interrupted, didn't I? The Master of the Mystic Arts got blue-balled by a cell phone. That is priceless. I need to tell J.A.R.V.I.S. to log the exact time of this call for the archives."
"I will turn your armor into a giant, un-openable toaster, Tony. I swear to god."
"Have a good cold shower, Merlin!" Tony cackled before hanging up.
Ethan tossed the phone back onto the coffee table with a sharp clatter. He leaned his head back against the sofa, letting out a long, frustrated sigh. The quiet of the Sanctum had returned, but the tension was completely dead—shattered by a billionaire with atrocious timing.
"Right," Ethan muttered, standing up and cracking his knuckles. "Time to go interrogate a multiversal dog. At least I can actually hit that."
Down in the magically reinforced basement, the multi-limbed Hound was pacing its cell, snarling at the walls.
The heavy iron door swung open. Ethan stepped inside, his expression completely blank.
The beast lunged, its jaws snapping.
Ethan didn't use magic. He channeled the pure, unadulterated frustration of the last ten minutes into his 10% Ben Tennyson template. He sidestepped the beast’s jaws and delivered a flawless, bone-crushing Plumber martial arts combo directly into the creature's snout.
Thwack. Crack. Boom.
For the next ten minutes, the basement echoed with the sounds of a very one-sided beatdown.
By the end of it, the Hound was huddled in the corner, nursing a bruised snout and whimpering softly. It looked up at Ethan with its six black eyes, projecting a profound sense of cosmic injustice. I'm a trans-dimensional apex predator, its eyes seemed to say. Why am I being treated like a punching bag for someone's romantic frustrations?
"Don't look at me like that," Ethan grunted, rolling his shoulders. "You started it."
The next morning, the atmosphere in the Sanctum was thick enough to cut with a knife.
Ethan was sitting at the dining table, casually sipping a cup of coffee. Gwen came bounding down the stairs, already dressed in her sleek corporate assistant attire.
She wouldn't even look at him.
"Morning," Ethan offered, a teasing lilt in his voice.
"Morning!" Gwen squeaked. She grabbed a piece of dry toast, completely missed her mouth on the first try, and nearly knocked over a vase trying to get to the door. "Can't stay! Miss Potts texted—she needs me in early today! Lots of files! So many files! Bye!"
She practically sprinted out the heavy front doors, slamming them shut behind her.
Ethan took another sip of his coffee, chuckling quietly into the mug. "She runs fast for someone without web-shooters."
He spent the next few hours lounging around the quiet Sanctum, flipping through a few ancient texts and plotting his next move to synthesize the Hoi-Poi capsules.
Just before noon, the heavy brass knocker on the front door echoed through the foyer.
Ethan raised an eyebrow. The Sanctum’s wards kept ordinary civilians away. Anyone knocking on that door knew exactly what this place was.
He waved a hand from the couch. The heavy oak doors unlatched and swung inward.
Standing on the threshold, dressed in a sleek black leather jacket and dark jeans, was Natasha Romanoff. Her green eyes scanned the relic-filled foyer before locking onto Ethan lounging on the sofa.
"You said there was always a job for a highly skilled employee," Natasha said, her voice smooth and unreadable. "I'm here for an interview."