Chapter Text
In a world full of weird sentient magical artifacts, a sentient little green jewel doesn’t even surprise Stephen anymore.
The Cloak was surprising. The sentient tea set that keeps eating all the sugar anyone throws into it and spills anything that isn’t quality tea leaves – that was weirdly surprising.
The Eye of Agamotto – or rather the Time stone inside it being an intelligent sentient being? At that point, when the stone actually spoke to him just days after the battle with Dormammu, Stephen just shrugged it away.
Weird? Yes. Surprising? Not anymore. Annoying? Sometimes.
Let’s play a game.
“I’m trying to meditate in here,” he mumbles out loud.
Even better. You can practice performing multiple tasks at once, feeble human.
“I’ll pass.”
You can also prove you know the Imagine Dragons discography better than I.
“I don’t have to prove that, of course I know it better.”
‘~Welcome to the land of hire, I hope you brought the right attire, the crippled man is waiting at the door ~’
Stephen groans at the poorly drawled out tones and any remnant of his previously acquired Zen goes out the window. “Seriously? ‘I need a minute’, from the 2009 Imagine Dragons EP. There, proved it. Now please never sing again.”
Oh, but we’re just getting started. ‘Last things last by the grace of the fire and the flames, you're the face of the future, the blood in my veins, oh oooooh, the blood in my veins, oh oooooh ~’
“That’s…not an Imagine Dragons song.”
Not yet it’s not.
“You’re trying to cheat your way to victory by using their future song? How desperate do you have to be?”
About as desperate as you are now to live long enough to actually listen to this future song.
Aside from disrupting his meditation sessions, his study and practice of the Mystic arts and even pestering his astral form, the most annoying thing it does is actually making Stephen respond to it.
Whether out of spite or curiosity – or a combination of both – he just can’t resist.
Wong is so not amused by walking in on Stephen talking to himself in an empty room all the time.
Very well, Master of the Music Arts. You win! – the stone tells him one night, after apparently losing their guessing game.
“You serious?” Stephen frowns.
Of course. So tell me, what is it you would desire as your reward?
He scoffs, letting out a tired sigh. “Some peace and quiet would be really nice.”
Is that so? Is that truly what you most desire?
“What are you now, the genie in the lamp? A goldfish? My fairy godmother?”
Don’t be foolish, I am not granting you three wishes – just one. Ah. How about a good sense of humor, you are clearly so very lacking one.
“I want ice-cream then. Ben&Jerry’s is launching Avengers flavored edition soon, sounds…weird and disturbing so how about that?”
We both know what it is that you most desire – question is, are you capable of even voicing it?
Stephen shifts in his seat, fighting off the shudder those words send down his spine. The Time stone as an entity is rather harmless on its own. It doesn’t just do things, not without being steered by whoever is wielding it. Every now and then, it gives Stephen a tiny insight on just how powerful and knowledgeable it is.
It should scare him. It should scare him a lot. Instead, it intrigues him, because apparently even encounters with demons from other dimensions aren’t enough to quench his curiosity.
The thing he most desires is simple – he wants to go back to being a neurosurgeon.
Sure, he’s not the man he was a year ago anymore. Not really. Even though he might have embraced his new reality as the Master of the Mystic arts, living in the Sanctum with a Beyoncé fanboy wizard and enough sentient relics to make his head hurt, there will always be a part of him longing to go back to being a doctor.
It was always his calling. It’s what he does best and what he enjoys doing above everything else. His reasons and approach are different now but other than that, little else changed when it comes to neurosurgery, something he studied for years of sleepless, party-less nights and practiced longer still.
All the effort, the ambitions and hard work – gone in an instant. Irreparable. Broken. Lost.
He could do what that other man did – sacrifice his magic for his own personal gain and go back to being a doctor – but now that he’s seen what’s out there, the horrors, evils and most of all, the wonders hidden in the corners of every dimension, he can’t go back. It’s a new kind of calling and he’s content with it.
He can be the Master of the New York Sanctum and protect the Earth’s dimension – or he can practice medicine again. He can’t do both, so he made his choice.
This way, he can save more people he could ever hope to save as a doctor. The sentiment was what motivated him to pursue medicine in the first place. Not that he remembered it for too long, suddenly getting lost in the glamour, the lifestyle, the fame.
He’s content to protect and save lives this way now.
Are you really? What if I told you there is a way.
“How about no. Thank you. I would rather not mess with the natural order any more than I have already.”
Ugh. You sorcerers and your natural order. Is it beyond your minds to fathom the inner workings of the universe I am such an inseparable part of?
“Yes, I know, you and your stone siblings were created at the dawn of existence of this dimension…which apparently makes you think you can just mess around with order of things whenever you want.”
Everything I do is well within the natural laws and universal order. Breaking reality is a specialty of my red acquaintance and I would never dare to break time. Time is I. And I decide what is time and what is not. What happened and what did not. What will happen and what will not. That, my foolish sorcerer, is the true nature of order.
Stephen frowns, contemplating the words. “I…don’t think your definition of order is the same as mine.”
Clearly.
“Besides, even you cannot simply undo what’s already been done without actually breaking time.”
Have I or have I not undone your thousand deaths? Returning your fickle flesh and bones back to as they were before the demon had its way with you?
“That’s exactly what I meant by messing around with order of things.”
Oh child, for all your wisdom and spirit, you are forgetting yourself. Who are you to decide what was meant to transpire there that night, within the depths of the darkest of dimensions? It is I who decides.
“I’m sure there’s still a price to pay for that…the reckoning,” he mutters, shuddering as he remembers Mordo’s words.
There is always a price. A moment of time cannot cease to exist without another being created in its stead – and one cannot be created without another ceasing to exist. There is your order, child. The simplest of balance.
“What are you saying…that the moment Dormammu consumed the Earth just…ceased to exist as a result of what we’ve done and instead something else is going to happen now?”
Now, then or eternity later, yes. Precisely. Action causes reaction. Decision prompts consequence. Chaos returns to balance. How many more words should I use for you to understand?
Stephen has to admit that however mindboggling the stone’s logic is, there is logic in it. Albeit being difficult to grasp after decades of understanding order as an entirely different concept. Especially when it comes to the Mystic arts. It goes against what the Ancient One and Mordo tried to teach him.
And he’s not ready to allow himself to believe they might have both been wrong.
As I said – there is a way.
“To keep my magic and have my hands back – both?” he asks despite himself. It’s not like he’s agreeing to anything, he’s just asking.
Yes, sorcerer. You can have your hands and keep your magic – both.
“How?” he squints in suspicion.
It is simple. I will make it so that the moment your hands suffered the irreparable damage never happened. That is what you desire the most – and to keep the balance, your beloved order, I will take away the moment you will desire the most in your future as it is at this moment.
Something he will desire the most? That’s too cryptic even for him. “What is it?”
Does it matter? Does it really?
No, Stephen realizes. What could he possibly ever desire more than to have his hands back? Nothing could compare, nothing. But what if? “Maybe?”
Very well. With one moment ceasing to exist – another will have to take its place. It will forever prevent you from obtaining what you will one day desire the most.
“Yes, yes I understand that part. What is it though?!”
There’s a pause, as if the stone was contemplating if and what to answer with.
Love.
“Love?” Stephen blurts out incredulously, eye-brows shooting up. “That’s…not what I expected.” Especially since it’s the most ridiculous thing he’s heard since before he found magic was real.
You wish to regain that which you love the most – your ability to be a doctor. To balance that, you must forfeit that which you would love the most in the future.
Love isn’t exactly something he expects to be burdened with anytime soon and even if…surgery is what he loves. Being a doctor is what he loves. Being a doctor and a sorcerer both? What else is there for him to love after that?
A person? In some grotesque rom-com manner? Christine could be his character witness and a singular proof that romance is not what he’s good at should that ever happen. He’s had his fair share of flings and quick romances ignited by lust only for them to be quenched just as quickly as they came to be.
And yet, that’s what the stone insinuates. Should he forget all about this offer and go on with his life, Stephen would one day in his current future desire love above all else – and get it. Should he accept the offer, that will never happen.
I see you are not taking the matter lightly. I know men that wouldn’t think twice about accepting this, men with no regard for their future and the impact of their decision.
“Who said I’m thinking about accepting your offer at all?!”
You need not to speak for me to know.
“What are you now, the Mind stone?”
I do not require your mind to see and know what you are thinking of – I am time and time is I. Your past, present and future is no mystery to me.
“In other words, you already know I’m going to accept this.”
I know that you don’t consider love something you would desire more than having your hands – and your life – back.
Stephen rolls his eyes and suddenly wishes the stone had a physical or at least an astral form that he could glare at right now. “So in other words, you already know,” he repeats.
In other words.
“It’s true…I don’t consider it…,” he pauses.
More important – the stone supplies, effectively finishing Stephen’s train of thought.
There. It’s out. As heartless and cold and selfish as it sounds, he’s given up on love decades ago – for a lot less than this. Giving up on it again to get his life back shouldn’t even be a question now.
“Is that it? Is that all there is to this…exchange?” he clarifies when he’s met with a patient silence he’s learnt to recognize in the past few weeks.
What else do you have in mind?
“Well…there’s usually a catch. Whenever something is too good to be true.”
Is it? Too good to be true?
“Yes?”
And yet you don’t sound very certain.
“It’s too good to be just that.”
If you say so.
Stephen waits for more half-assed wisdoms or prompts from the stone, but it’s apparently done talking to him. After all, the offer’s been made and all there is left to say now has to come from Stephen.
Accept or refuse.
The stone already knows the answer. Stephen already knows, too.
“If I say yes, how much am I going to regret it one day?” he eventually voices the sinister thought plaguing him from the beginning of the entire discussion. “Am I going to regret saying yes more than saying no?”
Only time will tell.
“Time is you,” Stephen repeats mockingly.
Then one day, I will tell.
He didn’t expect a straight answer from the most cryptic being he’s ever met in his life – and he once thought the Ancient One couldn’t possibly be beaten in this regard.
In a way, the stone did answer him though. It carefully implied there will be enough regret to go around regardless of his choice.
If there ever really was a choice to begin with.
“I accept your offer.”