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If one were to look at Stephen Strange and Tony Stark, they would roll their eyes and scoff. Two peas in a pod, they would say. Born of the same impulse. But, then, outsiders of those outsiders would also scoff at them and say, what do you really know about them? Well, for one, they really weren't wrong about the two. And two, they didn't know a single thing about them at all.
Those who jeered had only remembered the imprint of a careless playboy who occasionally was mentioned as a genius and had a partner for the night every other time you saw him on the nes—too frequent—or the arrogant doctor that racked up miraculous surgeries, throwing away cases that didn't entertain him—you can't afford me—the doctor who saved lives not for good, but for greed.
But, those who belittled and couldn't stop for a damn minute reminiscing of a time of before and to look at the present, they would know. Know better.
And if you were to ask Tony Stark, he'd be classified in that second category. He had looked at Stephen Strange and had thought he's like me, and for him, that was enough. Until, it wasn't.
Stephen had been gone for a month. Disappeared into the wind, like a ghost—a phantom. No response, nothing—zip, zilch, nada. And while Tony would be fine with it, he'd get a snarky ass response one way or another. Not complete radio silence. Complete AWOL.
So, Tony wakes up the next morning, Pepper by his side and with FRIDAY softly whispering into his ear, clears his schedule—or he would. (Good Morning, Boss. Today is Wednesday, June 26, 2025–it is 7:41 AM—)
He blinks, sits up and lets himself have a silent moment of self-reflection before he turns, gives Pepper a small kiss on the cheek—morning, love you—and gets out of bed. He mumbles something indecipherable, goes to wash up and asks for his schedule.
"Fortunately for you, Boss," FRIDAY had replied, rather sassily, "your schedule today is clear and free of daily responsibilities."
Tony rolls his eyes. "Friday, baby girl, you know that Daddy's been getting better at being a responsible and functioning human of society, right?" He snapped back, without any bite in his tone.
"Of course, Boss!" FRIDAY chirps. "After all, I have been managing yourself schedule and exercising necessary force for you to acknowledge and attend bi-weekly board meetings."
The man snorts.
"So, what's on the agenda today?"
Tony hums. "How would you feel taking a little trip to Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory, hm?"
The practice of forgoing food for many days had left with him some sort of immunity, Tony had supposed. Though, that wasn't something he should brag about, and it wasn't something healthy either. But, the situation of Stephen's unannounced vacation had been eating at him for a good week now, and he couldn't focus on anything else. So, he stands right outside of the Sanctum's doors, the faint, prickly feeling of hunger at the back of his mind and knocks.
"Knock, knock? Dumbledore, your Chosen One is here, needing some life lesson about friendship and vague bullshit," Tony had said, rather cheerfully. Or so, he had hoped.
Like the first time, and many more after, the door swings open by itself, this time with more force than usual and Tony walks right in, completely at home. Though, his brows furrow, as if he could sense the dreary undercurrents of the Sanctum. Tony stops himself from wrangling his hands together in a fit of nervousness because he didn't do that and Tony most certainly did not do nervousness.
(Except for when he proposed.)
"Stephen?" He called out. Turns, looks at the vast space of the Sanctum and calls out again.
"Stephen—"
"—Tony," Stephen says, as steady as he could.
"Yeah?"
The taller man pauses at the door, an indescribable look on his face. The corner of the Cloak edges out, runs across his still hand and Stephen gives it a small, subtle pat. Then, he exhales, swallows down the petals, blood and love, and shakes his head.
"No. Never mind," he said a moment later, quickly conjures up a portal and quickly glances back at Tony before fleeing.
Tony looks up from his work as the last of the golden sparks fizz out of existence. His brows furrow.
"He's not a man who's usually so unsure." He muttered.
(And once Tony racks his brain, he'd figure that this was the last time he'd really seen Stephen Strange.)
"You can't keep going like this." Wong grumbled out, eyes narrowed as Stephen's body had tipped forward in a wave of dizziness. Stephen grunted, but otherwise didn't offer any other form of acknowledgement as he rubbed his temples.
"The human mind had never meant—or had the ability to shelter the sheer size of fourteen-million lifetime, much less two." Wong had said after a moment, "your mind is clinging onto the memories because you yearn. You want to remember, Stephen. It—"
"—is damaging my magic, me and destroying the natural laws of the world, yadda yadda yadda—I know, Wong." The Sorcerer Supreme—foolishfoolishfoolish, what could you get out of a few blips of memories of a timeline so unattainable it hurt?—gritted out with pursed lips and aggravated voice.
"Then, you should know to stop."
Stephen Strange was a disciplined man—but, in that discipline was an oxymoron—a person who was rigid as stone, yet flexible as water. Stephen Strange was a human who bent backwards for the sake of the Universe, who had brought Time into him and unraveled, only to spring back, Time clinging onto him. He was a human who clung to what could be, who was plagued with what can't be, and every breathe he took was soaked in blood and petals.
(The answer was everything. For a man living a life, in the vast multiverse, of the What Cannot— looks and watches the timelines of What Can, and dreams. And envies, and yearns—)
He was a human with worlds that come as daily nightmares and heart wrenching daydreams stuck inside of his head, pressing down onto his soul—clings onto them and suffers for it. But, Stephen was always—always will be a realist; he had never been a human who stuck his head in the cloud for too long.
Soul magic is tricky. It's diving into a swamp that keeps you in it's murky waters, dragging you down and back. It keeps you from moving forward. To leave a minor imprint, to leave the version of himself, of the now, that is was tricky. Clones dissipate over a short period of time, illusions hold no tactility, no autonomy, nothing but a farce that broke at the simplest touch—the ones he wanted anyway. Copies would deviate at the slightest rupture.
But, Stephen who had always been a genius—from days of cheap coffee and three-day all-nighters, studying and memorizing with little effort until his brain fried—cracks the code after a few weeks of increasingly agonizing pain in his ribs and increased difficulty in breathing. This is it.
He finds that, that is okay.
A sort of apathy sets into himself, as does acceptance.
"Hello Tony—"
"—Stark."
Tony jumps, hand flying to his chest as he stares as the stone-faced Wong with wide, terrified eyes. His heart hammers loudly in his ears and his breathing might have quickened for a moment. "Jesus! Wong! Give a man a warning before you give him a heart attack." He yelped.
The man stares, still unamused. "What have you come to seek?" He curtly asked.
(Tony only slightly wrinkle his noise in amusement at the statement. How fortune-teller-y of Wong.)
"Looking for Stephen. The wizard hasn't tried prophetic bullshit and fallen off a tower, right?" He responded just as quickly, and tried to make himself busy by fiddling with a nearby object. Hm. Looks like it could be in a giftshop.
"He's out." Wong replied shortly, not at all reacting to the pop-culture reference.
Tony's brows draw slightly in disappointment before they furrow. "Well, yes. But, it's been a month, y'know? He's been dead silence for a month and well, the wizard is a member of the Avengers now, active roster or not. He's required to go to team debriefs, panels with UN officials—yadda yadda, yadda, superhero political bullshit."
Or well—that was the excuse he had rehearsed. (Tony had just wanted to stop by for a visit, because he was worried.)
Wong gives him a long stare, before he repeats, "Stephen is out." Before he continues, just as sharply, "The responsibilities of Sorcerer Supreme requires him to be off-Earth frequently, sometimes for a longer period of time than others. Just as he has responsibilities to the universe as the Sorcerer Supreme, he also has responsibilities to Kamar-Taj as the leader of the Master of the Mystic Arts. You will see him when he returns."
And with that, he's booted out of the trippy Sanctum. Tony faintly thinks that it's been more than a month that he's seen Stephen.
"Boss," FRIDAY says from his ear. "I had detected a faint change in Mister Wong's heartbeat."
(And wasn't that wizard?)
Tony stills, hand on the wheel of his car stopping. He laments over the detail, eyes shining with trepidation as he turns to stare at the Sanctum. The hunger from before he way out of his mind, as it races.
"Odd," he mumbled a little surprised, but overall knowing. Every human on earth has told a lie at one point or another, "I'd figure that he wasn't one for lying, as blunt as he is."
Something stirs inside of him. Unease, he would come to recognize. (Something's wrong.)
Tony puts the car into gear, and chews on his bottom lip as he drives away. "Off-Earth, hm? He's not a man to be careless as to leave without notifying the team—or me, for any unexpected absences," he mumbled.
(Something's wrong.)
"Baby Girl," Tony starts off, slow and cautious. The light turns red and he eases into a stop.
"Yes, Tony?"
"It appears that we have a mystery on our hands."
"FRIDAY, run facial recognition programs on every street camera you have access to. For the street cameras that you don't, access them. Run across every CCTV data spanning from... a month and a half ago till now, for a Stephen Strange."
"Already on it, Boss."
"Seems like a we have an estranged wizard to catch."
"Boss," FRIDAY dryly remarked as Tony grinned. "Your puns leave much to be desired."
Sometimes, you win the battle, but not the war. Tony had felt like that was the case years ago, for many occasions, and he had felt like that now. You win some, you lose some. It was just how it was, how everything came to be when he put on that metal helmet in 2008 and everything rocketed off to God know's fucking where—
"Doctor," Tony had started with an odd quirk of the lips that left the feeling like he really wasn't smiling at you. "I hope I'm not interrupting.
The woman at the desk—a Christine Palmer, who has had her life tangled with Stephen Strange's past and present—doesn't seem outwardly fazed at his sudden appearance. She looks up, but there's a small, hidden startled quality to her eyes and his lips turn into more of a smile.
"What—" she started before, trying to catch the words flying out of her mouth as carbon dioxide, before whispering, "what is Tony Stark doing in my office?"
Tony stares at her from behind his lenses—tinted, hiding his expressive eyes—and lifts an eyebrow. "Would you like to get lunch? My treat. I'd feel like we have some mutual friend gossip we need to catch up on about a certain circus performer. You could say, he's a little strange."
Suddenly, the startled-awe slips off her visage and her expression turns into something darker—something that makes his skin crawl. It sets something deep in his guts, like an a thousand pound weight dropping to the floor.
(I don't like this.)
Her eyes make him feel sick. He knows them, knows them well enough to know that it's the same look mirrored in his for a long, long time.
It’s like a staring at a ghost one cannot forget.
Stephen Strange is dead. Has been dead for several weeks. Nobody outside of a librarian who couldn't access for the muscles in his face to save his life, a Harry Potter cult so out of tune with the outside world it doesn't even have access to proper technology that wasn't from the middle ages, and a doctor caught up in the middle if it all knows. Nobody knows because Stephen Strange is no longer a man who Tony could look at and say, he's like me. Not really.
(He wonders if he really knew Stephen at all, from their snarky banter, from half-deep conversations that made Tony squirm when their eyes caught and there was something in Stephen's eyes that made him freeze up—something—something—)
Stephen Strange is gone and he wonder's why it stings a lot.
black roses signify death and mourning.
it is considered to be the color of sadness
and farewell.
The lab he had possessed had never really been a home as much as one would call a "safe-house". He'd call it that on a loose-term as this was where he'd hide away when static—the outside—had gotten to much, and he just needed a good boost of rock from decades ago blasting and a wrench in his hand. It was cathartic. It was rather lonely.
Stephen comes in, showered in gold and warm and company and samesamesame—
And Tony wonders if that is why he feels kinship.
Tony fiddles with the small thing. A cube that glowed gold with warmth and power that even he could feel. That he had felt, a couple years ago, on that battlefield with the weight of the world pressed on his shoulders and the fate of the universe on his hand like fucking jewelry.
(Sickening.)
Presses it again his palm, grips it tightly in his hand and squeezes.
He jerks back, alarmed once it explodes into golden dust and light that circle his form. They converge—
"Hello Tony," Stephen says, like everything has not just been flipped over its head and that he was still alive—
"For a dead man," Tony scathingly replied a moment later, as he tried to catch himself, "you're doing a surprisingly bad job at it."
"So, whats this then? Ghost from the afterlife coming to get back at me because I one-upped you on too many occasions?" He quipped, rather hurriedly because well—Stephen Strange is deaddeaddeaddead, and yet he's right in front of Tony—and he's freaking the fuck out.
Stephen only smiles at him, with an emotion that even scares him time to time now. "No, as highly amusing as being able to make inconveniences to you without being detected is, I have not." His face turns into something gloomier—like a cloud in the blue sky that slowly darkened as rain came into presence.
(Tony had never really liked the rain.)
"If this was given to you, I'm dead. As I had half expected." A wry smile makes it way into Stephen's face. Tony doesn't like that either.
"Expected?" He echoed then added rather aggressively—and indignant, "so, what, Metro General Hospital's treatment wasn't looking to hot, huh? You should have just came to the compound's infirmary, state-of-the-art. Tech—probably—capable of healing whatever fancy-schamncy alien injury you got."
Stephen's eyebrows draw, a hint of surprise. "You knew I went?—" then his incredulous tone lost itself and something familiar, warm—fond—seeped into his voice and Stephen had said, rather amused, "Of course."
Tony squirms slightly at the undecipherable—tenderfondadoration—look in his eyes and clears his throat. "Well, of course. Gone for a month, complete radio silence. I was rather... ah, curious."
"Curiosity kills the cat, Tony," Stephen chided with a smirk, rather half-heartedly. Something dark had been lurking behind his eyes as he had said it.
"Yeah?" Tony paused, feeling like he was missing something he should be getting, "well, satisfaction brought it back."
Stephen smooths out his translucent features. Not this time, he thinks and echoes it rather cooly. This is your chance. He adds a moment later in thought, the spell is draining, the last tethers of your soul will disappear from the material realm. But...
The three words that had been sitting in his throat and leaving him withered, and utterly love-sick shouldn't be. Not in this timeline at least, not for this Tony, and should not be said by him. The words, I love you, died, escaping his thoughts and his mouth. There were many other Stephens capable of saying that, but he was not one of them.
"Ah." He vocalizes a moment later and feels the irony of it. "I'm fading. Of course. There's always a price for success."
There's a urgent quality in Tony's voice that Stephen knows from lifetimes ago. "Already?"
"Nothing lasts forever, Tony." Stephen stated, forlorn, but accepting, "I'm past my due. Though... I'd have thought I would have dropped dead in a more..."
He trails off, throat closing. Shakes his head and locks away the love, the pain, the thousands and thousands of lifetimes behind his crystal clear eyes and drags it down with him to his grave.
There's a silence between them. Stephen's form flickers and he smiles serenely—sadly, and whispers,
"I had just wanted to say goodbye to... a dear friend."
He's disappearing bit by bit. Stephen reaches out—
(I love you.)
Nothing but a phantom; a whisper in the wind. Unheard, unacknowledged.
Gone.
Black Rose,
end.