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Chapter Text

14,000,605 possibilities, and with each one that had passed before his eyes was a devastation that was worse than the previous. Every small victory slowly built a false hope of winning the entire war. But each piece of the board, every player in the game of war was simply swatted away like flies. Those victims were but simple civilians, and each time Stephen lived through it the more he saw the horror and disbelief dawning on their faces. Entire cities once-bustling turn desolate despite the howling cries of those left to live and breathe in the dust left behind.
Stark started as a mere nuisance, his playboy billionaire attitude was the only real trait he had. And yet Stephen saw the broken look in his eyes, saw past the flashing smile and sarcastic remarks to see the man suffering behind a thin veneer plastered on for the public to see.
He was the same after all, a broken man hiding behind magic and an infinity stone. It wasn't hard to witness the Earth's best defender silently crumble and break deep down behind the facade of being Iron Man. It was agony to stand by and simply be unable to help. Time and time again, he watched the fall of the Earth's best defender. Always in battle, be it with Thanos or his inner demons preying upon him.

Tony was strong enough for a kid from Queens, for the citizens of Earth and the entire universe. But never for himself. If Peter was lost so was Tony's will to fight. If Pepper or Rhodey happened to get caught in the heat of battle the fire in his eyes would die and leave a shattered shell of a man behind.
Stephen had fought fourteen million, six hundred and five futures with and a select few without the man. He grew to admire the sheer strength the man had, the cost of losing was too great. Bargaining with Dormammu was a nightmare but it was nothing to each loss to Thanos and seeing all the work diminished into nothing, now that was pure and utter hell.
Perhaps it was around the first million futures that he felt his heart-stirring from more than fear and pure adrenaline. The need to survive and find a way to achieve victory was accompanied by an infuriating ache at the sight of Tony's. Be it a comeback, smirk, or a well-timed attack Stephen came to find himself caring for the ignoramus that charged into combat not caring about whether or not he lived or perished.

Look where it got him. Look at what he left behind, or rather whom. The very people that broke him when they were lost, were lost without him. Five years were lost to Tony, and now everyone had to face the next Vishanti only knows-how long.

"Someone needs to return the stones to their rightful spot, I know Its a rough time right now for everyone, but the sooner they are returned the sooner we can get back to our lives." Fury looked exhausted, the remaining Avengers and various heroes sat in the conference room. Stephen and Wong represented the sorcerers at large. The final battle with Thanos had shattered the secrecy that they had held for so long. Thus far only those involved with the battle knew that the order existed. And it would be kept that way until a new threat forced their hand once more.

"The ancient one said that if we didn't return them to the exact moment in time we took them then whole new timelines and universes would be created." Professor Hulk spoke from the front of the room, the stones gleamed on the hologram as though the projections knew they were the cause of the meeting. Every somber hero eyed the projections, so much sorrow and loss caused by some immensely powerful pebbles. No one wanted to handle them let alone think about them, it would just more suffering.

"I will return the stones." Wong glared at Stephen, the sorcerer had hardly left his rooms at Kamar-Taj since Starks' Funeral and had refused to speak about what had occurred on Titan. He was attempting to drown his sorrow with his studies and mystic duties. Strange simply ignored him in return and stared at the stone projections.

"Are you sure you can handle it, this isn't exactly the time for a magic show." Stephen scowled at Director Fury, jaw clenching at the insinuation that the grandeur mystic arts was a simple party trick.

"The time stone has been in the possession of the order for millennia. Returning the stones unseen will be easier with the assistance of the mystic arts. It will reduce the chance of corrupting the timeline further." Director Fury simply nodded once, the gathered ex-avengers stared at the sorcerers warily.

"If you had an infinity stone that entire time, why didn't you prevent any of this? We could have prevented all of it!" Clint was at the edge of his seat seething. Stephen stared coolly at the archer unimpressed by his tone.

"Why didn't you listen to Stark and help prevent Thanos from reaching Earth?" The room went deadly silent at the response. The remainder of their faults and loss hung heavily in the air. The cost of one man for victory was still a harsh reminder that not everyone can be saved. And that the earth had just lost its best defender.

Chapter Text

Of course. None of the Avengers, or better known as the ex-avengers these days, had a single brain cell amongst themselves. He had read the reports and heeded their words of not being spotted by the others while returning the stones.

And yet Lang had forgotten to mention that the trip to the battle of New York had failed. Steve had been caught in the heat of battle and not all of his remains had been found, and Tony had…
Stephen had foolishly believed that Scott had written a full report.

"I should have never trusted a hero named after an insect." He ran his shaking hands through his hair in frustration. Tony had almost died of a heart attack, that was the brilliant plan of theirs. Had he always had a death wish or was it just when Stephen was forced to watch it from afar?

Loki had stolen the Tesseract and disappeared to Vishanti only knows where, and not a single person had noticed yet. This timeline was far too corrupted, Rogers had not only interacted with Hydra but had the audacity to mention Barnes to his other-self. Though, Rogers being distracted by Barnes while Tony was near death seemed to be a rather annoying pattern no matter the timeline.

No matter what Rogers seemed to ruin everything he interacted with. Seeing the captain left defenseless and face down had been rather amusing. Now that the scepter or at least a rather well made duplicate for the original had been damaged, had been returned Stephen was stuck watching from the sidelines as the group argued over what to do next. He couldn't bring himself to find the Ancient One and seeing that Bruce had not signaled that he had the stone, it would be wise to not interrupt their conversation. At least that was what he told himself to keep from having to deal with such things.

Through the barrier of the mirror dimension, he was able to hear and see everything. Tony was alive, perhaps for the last day of his life, and he was stuck with the people he trusted and cared for, least. In all of the futures Stephen had seen, the battles that were fought Stark at least had someone one his side. Here he had no one, at least no one that he knew about.

Seeing him frustrated with the failure to get the stone was agony. If only Stephen could have reached out and handed him all of the stones so that stubborn gleam of hope would return to those hazel eyes… But that would have defeated the purpose of needing to return the stones in the first place and it would only grow to be more problematic in the long run. The original timeline was already corrupted enough, the other need not be tampered with.

He straightened when Tony and Rogers seemingly formed a backup plan from the mere threads of nothing. They just clicked and the effortlessly made plan was put into action. If only Rogers could have worked everything out perhaps the losses of the world would not have grown to be so terrible. The pair slipped through time leaving Lang behind wondering what the hell just occurred. Stephen rolled his eyes, and he thought himself to be a genius. Really. It was only a few minutes more before Banner signaled and the remaining duo was gone. Yet Stephen hesitated to follow.

In this timeline, it would be years before Thanos was seen. If he followed and continued returning the stones now… Stark would only have hours left to live. Here? There was a time. Years before the Avengers fell apart, years before Titan, years before he succumbed to the stones. Stephen had seen so many futures yet he knew so little of the past. Now he was living that time long before they would officially meet before he fell for the iron martyr. Afterall this timeline had already been corrupted thanks to a certain Norse god of Mischief. With him roaming freely with an infinity stone only chaos would come from it. He sighed and began thinking of how he would track down the trickster god. After all, he would need to make an attempt to get the timeline on the correct path. With Loki, free nothing was guaranteed and that was one headache he would try to halt before the Stephen of this timeline would have to deal with it.

Later on, at least for a small period of time, he would watch from afar. To see Tony smile and simply alive was soothing. Far too many times, he had been forced to watch the man be killed or sacrificed himself for the world. For once, he would allow himself to see him live.
°·°·°·°·°

Locating the bastard god was overall anticlimactic. Due to the fact that Loki was adopted, Stephen realized he could not simply use a strand of Thors' hair and be done with it. Instead, he was forced to either follow the god of thunder around blindly until he found his brother, or he would be forced to search for the trickster using his astral form and thus leaving him defenseless without the Sanctum.
Thus his current situation, trying to avoid other sorcerers in the mirror dimension whilst following the frantic god of thunder around New York looking for someone who had long since disappeared. The kaleidoscope of New York did help ease and entertain his mind, S.H.E.I.L.D. and the newly formed Avengers were rather inept when compared to their other-selves. It was clear that there were many things that needed work for anything to get accomplished. The lack of communication, the ruffled egos, and the total lack of trust was making the search ineffably harder than need be.
Unfortunately, Stark Towers had not caught the moment Loki had disappeared, all cameras were offline due to the damages that the building had taken during the battle. Another unfortunate side effect of having an infinity stone tied to the building. For some reason, Thor thought that since his brother was beaten, he would simply escape to another part of the city to tend to his wounds instead of what actually occurred.

Eventually, Thor gave up his search Loki in New York and dealt with the arrangements over his rank on the team and the mentions of a possible alliance between Asgard and Earth. His recent banishment did not speak well of his political standing, but it was the thought that counted.
From what he had gathered after the final battle, Asgard had been destroyed. Though being the scholar that he was Stephen did not stop to appreciate the grandeur offered by Asgard from within the confines of the mirror dimension. There was a rogue mischief god whose path needed to be corrected before too much time had passed.
I will always be the one saving your reality eh, douchebag? A bittersweet smile crossed his face, much more like a grimace than anything. He should have learned to curb his snark after meeting the Ancient One, there was too little time had with those he cared for after all. Only Vishanti knows who would be next. Stephen forced his feelings to the side. Now was not the time for such ponderings. He had a god to find and correct.

It took two entire days to find the bastard, though he had only left the Asgardian halls a day and a half ago. Every time he thought he was gaining ground Loki slipped away, he knew someone was hunting for him. It seemed as though the god wasn't sure if it was Heimdall or Thanos at his heels.

He has succumbed to his fatigue and needs to heal. Large bruises splattered the pale skin, large swatches of skin was scared to the point that the flesh was unrecognizable as living flesh. Much less the flesh of an Asgardian, some of the wounds were a festering yellow and garish green filled with infection and death.

Stephen paused and began to diagnose each and every symptom the god was displaying. His body had fallen into shock from the immense amount of pain, if not treated properly he would die.

Wherever he has hidden the space stone it would become vulnerable in the gods’ demise and Thor would never reach his proper potential to fight against Thanos. Even though the timeline was corrupted and sinking further and further away from the original, the ending was all the same. How they got there did not matter, it was whether they would win or lose to the Mad Titan that mattered.