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It's been a few hours. It's been maybe one, two, three, four, five, six, it could've been any combination of any number of hours, really, fourteen-million-and-five times over he'd seen it. Could've been any of them. This time, three to be exact, three, exactly in the one wavering bubble of time in which the orange sands of Titan did not take not only him, but the rest of the as just another part of itself, more as a faint suggestion of an existence that now no longer held any bearing on the universe, as far as a glove and a madman were concerned.
"It's the only way."
It'd been a few hours - god, more like half a day, that's the one constant in this never-ending loop scenario, the one constant that stays: science and magic meet face to face, mirror to mirror and snarl to each other that they won't accept the other as another form of right.
Nothingness feels like a gentle wind when it begins to brush the side of his face, his eyes, yes, his eyes would be fading in a matter of seconds, but still, they remained trained heavy on Stark. Panting, cauterized wound, glow redder than the dunes and old ships, the suit, struggling with it's electric gasps to make its way over his body again. Strange, slumped against the side of the dune, right eye and the rest of him becoming the wind. Could've remembered this, it felt like a memory, it felt like the future, the past, the present and-
fourteen million timelines and- haven't seen the one where his eyes turn red in the sun just as red as that suit that cape that-
mirror to mirror
i can't tell him not to be afraid now magic and science meet mirror to mirror and a mirror tells the other that one day it'll understand, stark, tony, if only i could've said sorr-
--
A mirror and a mirror stand face to face in a ship, in an array of blue and cyan and and dark and the lasting space-coldness and dislike.
Not dislike.
They both knew better that there was a name for this, that name was not dislike but it tasted like bitterness and it tasted like the cold, hard truth of putting two geniuses in a small space results in some kind of cancelling-out where a boy with a big mouth and bigger (well, if we're talking about personality, is on the same level as Stark) spider-suit is suddenly the smartest in the room.
Acknowledging the sparks that seem to spit deeper, and, unfortunately, more impactful than the needles that were making their way under his skin and bone not twenty, thirty, however many minutes ago, was going to be a feat on its own.
--
Stark looked at him like he looked at the amulet that rested on his chest like a steady promise - dutiful, a bit burdened, and trying to hold a profound lack of personal emotion whatsoever, still personal enough to protect as anyone would a precious object.
Called into question, it was still a profound amount of devotion, especially a kind to be met with the uncomfortable defensiveness that clouded his eyes when he spat think of it as a professional courtesy.
There was a profound amount of unwillingness to admit that he was incredibly grateful for Stark saving his life.
—
this is the weird timeline- oh, god, there's always a weird timeline, the ten-thousandth and he's-
what's new what's different lifetimes in orange green yellow blue six mirror shards and then
dust again, tastes like failure, tastes like cold
mr. stark's- no, stark's, no,
tony's
arms around him for a moment in a scared embrace and his face edges towards his and the future self locked in a bubble of a timeline feels his heart beat out of his chest and the self in the present tells himself over and over this is the weird timeline, this is the weird timeline, another failed one,
next-
wait no wait a second or not a second, there's no time here but the space between two bubbles and
the future feels his heart pounding when he finds his lips to be warm and a lot less colder than his words, the present feels his heart pounding when he finds that in some way he could come to know this somewhere in the space between mirrors and mirrors and mirrors-
this is the weird timeline, next-
--
There's a version in the gaping jaws of the future- well, rather a single iteration, one of thousands of millions of teeth in the gums of the mouth of the universe where Stark dies by his own sword not ten feet away from him, the same two, sometimes three gasps of blood that trickle down his face like fireworks of life and disbelief and acceptance of a long-coming fate.
In some of these ceaseless iterations, Stephen holds tight to the stone he's regretting an allegiance to over this life, he's starting to really, really regret this, he brings Stark back but he bleeds out again, brings Thanos back but he bleeds so little again.
He can no longer tell which of the millions this is, which of the millions where he watches blood spill to sandstone as if returning to a long-lost lover, Stephen is starting to take the deviating timeline every one in a few thousand, hundred thousands, where Stark sometimes crawls closer to him, Stephen takes him in his arms in either a last-ditch effort at comfort between two individuals that now know they are going to die, or-
Dead timeline. Failure, next.
--
He's getting tired of watching Stark die.
The monotony of the predictability of every minute variable in every slightly different path of time might've been part of it, fondness, even, may have been a part of it, or maybe that was simply the nature of running thousands, hundreds of thousands of millions of visions in bubbles, in the veins of the universe and universes in this exact moment, with these exact people, with this exact ending. In some of them he lives. In all of those ones, the world spits a dying laugh in his face that this will never be enough.
--
In a few of these instances, of these billions of eyes into the billions of ways that he or Stark or the universe or everyone else inevitably dies in the sometimes-inevitably anticlimactic way, they die together.
A couple hundred, Stark lunges forward, another stake through the heart. Next.
A couple thousand. Stark makes it to his side. Begs him to finish this. Two stakes through two hearts. Next.
A singular one where Stark takes his hand. The future’s heart beats fast and heavy. The past maintains.
A few, the few that hang in his palate like a bitter nightmare, a nightmare that he cannot tell as to why it is a nightmare except through the explanation of his own growing fondness to someone he’s spent a few million timelines sifting around like dust in slightly different ways to avail, in these ones there is a green stone in the Gauntlet that sits like a watchful eye, it glimmers and seems to tell him that he’s failed, Tony lives. Dies again. Rewound again. Dead again. Dead, again, alive in a second, Thanos rewinds, his stone, his allegiance, dead again, rewound, rewound, barely alive, Doctor Strange, you have the choice to keep letting this happen or not, this could be you, you know, it could be. You’re valuable.
The nightmare, in these cases is not the sometimes-inevitable truth of enslavement, but rather the taunting death repeated a thousand times before the eyes of the future that are seeing this for the first time, and a painful addition to the ones that have already seen it millions of times over.
His eyes are filled with fear in every one of them.
--
“For the record, Wizard, you’re pretty with the party tricks, a little less in the face department, but I’ll have it.”
“You’re insufferable for the genius you are, Mr. Stark.”
“Suit yourself.”
Wait- this is too far back in time, back in the mansion, surrounding by maroon and books and red and the sparks- is that magic? God, no, this is not a love story and this is a weird timeline, isn’t it, it’s a-
Back on Titan and his eyes are filled with fear. They’re the same in every one of these.
He sees himself in them this time and magic and science meet mirror to mirror they-
meet face to face, he kisses him against sandstone and how did this happen why did this happen-
magic and science close in and realize-
his lips are warmer than his heart, that’s for sure-
they realize that they’re different names for the same thing.
his lips are warmer than his heart and he doesn’t move his face on his and rather holds it, holds it as a dying man would grip onto life.
dust all the same dust timeline another failure past heart beats harder than the future with realization NEXT-
—
As in a dream, as in a memory, as in a recollection in a reflection every one of these patterns of events in times yet to bear their faces down upon the universe itself are hardly as linear as Stephen would’ve liked. The weird timelines, the weird ones are a fever dream amongst lucid ones, the ones where Tony too, becomes ashes alongside the wind, the ones where Stephen finds himself alone on Titan, he returns to Earth to dust and frustration, he’s seen this before. The ones where it’s him and the boy who’s crying for home and the ones where it’s him and his own blood seeping into his clothes.
The dead-end timelines.
The ones where Tony k-
These are dead-end timelines.
The future’s heartbeat maintains.
—
“You’re hiding,”
“From what?”
“Feelings,” she pauses. “Respect..”
“Fair enough.”
“Love. Grief.”
(there is one timeline, only one where him and the alien, the kind, black-eyed empathy die alone, together.)
“Plenty of that.” the future’s breath catches, the present knows why. Their heartbeats match up. Mirror to mirror to self.
“You loved... Tony.”
“I cared about him, respected, even. Respected him enough to send him back to Earth. It was the last of the energy I had without the stone of Mind.”
“You sent him back because you were afraid.”
“It’s a professional courtesy.” the future’s breath catches, in a way the past’s does, too, Mantis looks down with wet eyes, the past does, too.
“He saved my life once, he had to, for us to get to here, and for me to get him down there.”
Mantis sighs, the light dimming from her antennae with it. Dead-end. Nex-
“You have seen many things,”
Mantis turns around with a wavering voice.
“You love because... you have loved many times, times that he will never know, but you will.”
The future’s heart beats.
Next.
—
He’s getting tired of Tony dying. Next.
—
He’s getting tired of not being able to ignore the times, the hints of a future that never will come should he not make the right move, where Tony holds his gaze a second longer than he has before. Eyes full of fear, still red in the Titan sunlight. Next.
—
Tony dies in this one, Stephen doesn’t know why he cries before Thanos cracks his spine in this one. Thirteen million.
—
He’s getting tired.
—
They won.
Tony dies in this one.
Next.
Thirteen million, nine hundred.
—
They won.
Tony doesn’t die on Titan.
He dies killing Thanos, in this one.
Next.
—
They won.
Tony’s still dead.
Next.
Fourteen million.
—
Tony’s dead, what have you come to expect? That the universe allows for forgiveness and flexibility to one’s wants?
What has made you want, the universe asks the future, what has made you want so feverishly.
Next.
—-
What has made you want so feverishly?
—
Fourteen million and five.
The future and the past look at a man and long to tell him that he’s known him, he’s known him fourteen million times over, that he’s seen the spinning stones make their way into the sky and every breath that scatters dying ashes among deader bits of dust.
The future and the past look at a man and their heartbeat remains.
Tony’s alive in this one. He saw more in this one, complicated, a weird one. A glimpse of somewhere decades ago, blonde hair that floated lazily amongst the atmosphere, dust in fingers that turned to hands in hands and-
Tony’s alive in this one.
There’s a special kind of fondness in dying half of a fourteen million times in the midst of the same man who realizes in his own dying moments that there can be two geniuses in a room, and neither need to cancel each other out. There’s a special kind of fondness in the rarity of circumstances that lead to hands in hands - his cold and dying hand in Stephen’s, his warm and living hand holding a fading, crumbling one, allegiance between a man and a stone. Hold it like something precious.
He knew life in this one. He knew ashes, too, and he knows earth, and he knows life and he knows a half restored to a whole. He’s seen a half restored to a whole before.
He hasn’t seen his own half restored to a whole again. Something about balance.
—
“How many did you see?”
His eyes are full of fear as he stares at Stephen, still cross-legged amongst the rocks, he looks up with a smile.
“Fourteen million and five.”
“And how many where we win?”
“One.”
—
The universe breathes, but it does not live. To say the universe lives is to believe that it can know, believe that it is anything more than the river where all streams feed into, something that knows enough, cares enough to distinguish between the trickling paths that all find their way to the same body of water.
Still, Stephen feared the knowing of the universe.
The future and the present maintain. A heart considers a singular win the one where both make it out alive. Tony lived in that one. One. One win, as far as Stephen was concerned. Thanos wanted to kill as he never lived - in balance.
In this one, Tony bleeds, Tony lives, the stone floats out of his hand in exchange for a life that, admitting it or not, holds him with the same reverence as the time he devoted to protecting it. They won in some. He lives in one.
Nevertheless, he feared the knowing of the universe, he feared the knowing that comes with eyes of yesterday, and tomorrow’s warning. They won many times, but which were worth it, worth enough? In this one, Tony does not take his hand. In this one, he lets himself go, and smiles as the wind takes him as an offering. In this one, the present maintains.