Chapter Text
— PART ONE —
THE ARRIVAL
When Stephen exited the spaceship, he was greeted with the magnificent sight of a perpetual eclipse. It shone like a halo in the far distance, the single source of rosy red light in a landscape otherwise bathed in a sorrowful purple hue. Stephen allowed his eyes to trace its circular outline and followed its reflected trail along the several reservoirs of water resting in-between the rises of expansive sand dunes. If he were anyone else, he might’ve thought it a gateway to another universe, another world infinitely grander than his own.
“Vormir. The epicentre of celestial existence,” said Stephen, not looking back at his companion as he stepped out into the unfamiliar expanse. The air felt sterile against his skin; clammy and uncomfortable and entirely at odds with the picturesque view before him.
“Uh huh,” said Tony who now stood at Stephen’s side, sounding visibly unimpressed at the sight. His voice was characteristically muffled and tinny beneath the helmet of his Iron Man suit, which he had deployed on instinct despite Stephen assuring him that Vormir was perfectly oxygenated. For a moment, the two of them gazed out into the painfully barren landscape. There was not a single sign of life, not one suggestion of movement apart from the occasional few grains of sand, drifting from dune to dune in the wind. Tony turned to Stephen. “For the epicentre of celestial existence it sure does attract quite the crowd.”
“It was referred to in those terms long before you or I existed,” said Stephen, shrugging.
“I just thought, with the way you were sounding earlier about leaving Peter behind, there might’ve been a little more… competition, you know? I thought everyone and their mother was after these things.” Tony’s armoured head turned to the Eye of Agamotto resting against Stephen’s sternum, the Time Stone encased within. Though Tony did his best to hide it, Stephen could sense the unease hidden beneath the layers of his companion’s exterior polish, both literal and figurative. In their line of work, travelling to new places often brought with it the expectation of imminent adversity in the form of evil-doers, aliens, monsters and what-nots at almost every turn. A complete absence of life altogether was strangely unsettling for them both.
“Perhaps we should take it as a sign of good fortune,” Stephen offered.
“Or a warning,” muttered Tony.
***
Stephen remained in place as Tony returned to their ship—or rather, their escape pod—to set it into a dormant, energy saving state. They had borrowed it from the so-called ‘Guardians of the Galaxy’ whom they had encountered after the pair and young Peter Parker had crash landed on Titan with Thanos’ ship. Whilst their initial introductions with the Guardians hadn’t gone as well as one might have hoped, once the two parties had established a common enemy, their camaraderie had been smooth sailing since, save for a handful of squabbles between Tony and the Guardians’ self-elected leader, Peter Quill, or at his ceaseless request, ‘Star Lord’. They soon left for Vormir without a moment to spare, hoping to reach the secluded planet before the Mad Titan himself could get there first.
Now, far beyond the sight of Stephen’s naked eye, the Guardians lay in waiting, positioned somewhere outside of Vormir’s atmosphere. Stephen had insisted that Peter—the stowaway teenager Tony had inadvertently brought along into space—remain with the Guardians, as much for his own safety as well as theirs. It had taken no more than a day for Stephen to decipher the soft spot Tony held for the boy, and so Peter’s absence from this particular mission had become paramount. His presence would have skewed Tony’s focus, and they all knew it.
“This is the universe at stake here,” Stephen remembered himself saying. He saw himself rub a shaking palm around his neck, swallowing to ease the lingering pain of strained vocal cords as a result of their endless debate. Tony’s defeated glower would forever remain as a memory the sorcerer never wished to think of again, even less so the fact that he had been its cause.
To distract himself, Stephen weaved through the millions of timelines he’d played over and over in his head ever since he had used the Time Stone to view them all those weeks ago. His thoughts lingered as if his mind were stuck in thick mud, slowly dragging through each of his futile attempts one by one, trying to keep sight of an ever-dwindling light. Although he knew he was headed in the right direction, Stephen could never shake the memory of what had come before. He’d witnessed countless deaths, defeats and false victories. He’d seen the world crumble several times over. He’d watched as heroes sacrificed themselves for their loved ones, for their friends, for strangers even. He’d suffered and died over and over and over—been burned to ash, crushed, pulverised, stabbed, destroyed from the inside out—and all of it was for naught. None of it had made a difference. Not a single one.
No death was as painful as that knowledge harboured within his heart.
“You’re one-hundred percent certain this is where the stone is?”
Stephen turned to where Tony now stood beside him, having approached at some point in-between the sorcerer’s mental muse. This time, his companion had drawn back the outer nano-casing of his Iron Man helmet, allowing Stephen to soak in the sight of his facial features under Vormir’s otherworldly glow.
“Yes,” Stephen replied, drawing his eyes away.
“Well, how do we get it?”
“I’m not entirely sure—”
“That’s helpful.”
“—But I have a feeling it has something to do with that mountain over there.” Stephen pointed forwards, letting Tony’s eyes traverse the invisible path it led towards the mountain in question. With its cruel and jagged edges contrasting starkly against the softness of plum coloured clouds, the mountain at first appeared not so dissimilar to every other mound of rock scattered along Vormir’s sandy plains. However, the most promising aspect of this one in particular, and what had caught Stephen’s attention in the first place, were the two obnoxiously large stone monoliths sitting on top of its most prominent cliff face. They stood out like beacons in the otherwise natural landscape, even from the far distance of Stephen and Tony’s landing space, as obvious a sign as any.
***
“I wouldn’t be surprised if Thanos decided this one wasn’t worth it, actually,” said Tony, turning to Stephen whilst they made their way to the mountain, both of them now airborne, his voice raised against the wind. “Imagine having to travel all this way by foot and then realising you have to walk all the way up that mountain once you got there? No thank you.” On account of the vast amount of distance and water between them and their destination, both Tony and Stephen had determined the best method of travel to be through the air. Or at least, the Vormirian equivalent of air, for there was indeed an indescribable difference in comparison to Earth. Together, they flew side by side; Tony propelled by his suit and Stephen by the Cloak of Levitation.
“It might buy us some extra time if Thanos is willing to go the long way. But yes, it would’ve been quite unfortunate for us.”
“Let’s just say I’m glad that I don’t have to carry you all the way there,” said Tony.
“Am I hearing correctly or did you just say you’ve actually considered carrying me before?” He altered the angle of his body towards his companion as they flew side by side. Despite Tony’s face being covered by the armour of the Iron Man suit, Stephen didn’t find it hard to imagine the flustering individual within.
“No, I— That’s not—”
“I hope you had a better alternative to bridal style, by the way,” said Stephen, smirking.
Immediately, the Iron Man suit turned on its side mid-air to face Stephen, its head tilting slightly. “What’s wrong with bridal style? Everybody loves bridal style.”
“I may be many things in this life but your damsel in distress is definitely not one of them.”
“I think you’d make a great damsel in distress,” said Tony, retracting his helmet to reveal a mischievous grin.
Stephen proceeded to give his companion the most unamused glare he could muster.
“Too soon?” A breath. “C’mon, Doc.” When the sorcerer failed to bite in the silence that followed, Tony huffed in defeat. “Oh, you’re hopeless. How on earth does Wong manage to deal with you each day? Actually, I doubt he even has much of a choice.”
“No, he doesn’t really.”
“Poor man.”
“I know.”
Before the pair could even register what was going on, they found that they were grinning at each other, their faces slipping into the familiarity of secretive smiles. And when neither of them could hold it in any longer, they burst into laughter, giddy with a childlike glee. The sound felt so foreign to them yet so innocently pure and wondrous, so full of light it sent a tantalizing shiver over Vormir’s desolate, sandy plains. And for a moment, for a single breath, Stephen almost felt whole.
***
“Hey, can I ask you something, before we go in?” Tony halted his momentum in the air, causing Stephen to follow suit.
“Alright. But you’ll have to make it quick. We don’t have much time.” Stephen’s eyes quickly flitted over their immediate surroundings. They were only a short distance away from the cliff face, close enough now that they could see a sturdy rock platform beneath them to land on. Presumably, it was a section of a pathway others might’ve taken had they not possessed the ability to fly.
Tony only made to speak once both of their feet were on solid ground. “Remember when you said something about knowing me for a fairly long time or whatever? From just a little while ago?”
Stephen nodded slowly. He knew this conversation had been coming ever since he’d haphazardly said the words but still, somehow he’d hoped that they would avoid this whole conversation entirely. Perhaps then he could’ve spared Tony of— No, best not to think about it.
“I don’t know why but, the way you said it… It sounded like you were implying that we’ve known each other for ages. I’ve only known you for like, a month tops, right? I mean, I know it feels like a whole lifetime ago since we met but...” Tony’s words slowly drifted into nothing.
“Perhaps a month is all anyone needs to know someone, if they try hard enough,” Stephen said simply, barely allowing enough time to pass before he was once again preparing to return to the air, refusing to meet Tony’s gaze all the while.
“Well then, if that’s true,” interjected Tony as he stepped forwards, forcing Stephen to remain where he was, “I’ve known you long enough to tell when you’re talking shit to avoid giving me a proper answer.” An unfooled smile pulled at Tony’s lips, his eyebrows raised expectantly. “Spill.”
Stephen sighed. The expulsion of air made him all the more aware of how abnormally heavy his shoulders were and how suddenly overcome he was with a deep, aching tiredness. The sensation crawled through every aspect of his being, forcing him to close his eyes and lower himself to sit on a nearby rock in an attempt to regain himself once again.
While he waited for the fatigue to subside, his mind reverted back to the realm of memory as it often did whenever he succumbed to one of these ever more frequent episodes he’d been experiencing as of late. One in particular was pulling at him now. It had the distinct feeling of century-old paper; as if it were some yellowed, brittle reminder of a time long since passed, an echo of the world he was fighting to save. A high school excursion. That’s what it was. The one where he had once bore witness to a marble statue of the Greek god, Atlas, burdened by Zeus to hold up the weight of the heavens for eternity. He stood before the piece, his classmates already three statues ahead of him, transfixed. Why exactly, Stephen did not know. Never before had he recalled the moment until now, and yet the image of this god, almost collapsing beneath the weight of the celestial sphere on his back, had materialised so vividly in his mind. A question soon began to bloom.
Is that what he was now? What Tony was? Both of them a pair of false gods trying to hold up the weight of the universe?
“Strange?” The voice came from somewhere vaguely in front of him. “You alright?”
Tony. Vormir. The Soul Stone. Everything rushed back in pulsing waves.
Stephen met with the softness of Tony’s gentle, questioning gaze. A million times over he had looked into this man’s eyes—had studied them, become lost in them, both hated and lived for the power they held over his body and soul—yet still, even now after all this time, Stephen found himself completely breathless in light of their beauty. It was a beauty he never wished to lose sight of for as long as he lived.
“Yes, I’m here.” Stephen hated how small his voice felt. He took a moment longer to breathe, to forcefully drag his attention away from Tony and instead to the view beyond. “When I went through those other timelines, the ones where we—” Died. Failed. Lost. Stephen couldn’t bring himself to say the words, wouldn’t dare let himself tarnish Tony’s hope with their vile, sordid nature. “I didn’t just see how they played out,” he continued. “I lived through them. All of them.”
Tony’s gaze grew heavy and he took a long moment to respond. Despite the extensive amount of time they had spent together during the past month on the Guardians’ ship, they had never talked about that day on Titan.
“But you were only in that trance for a minute at best. Maybe two? I don’t— How could you have…?” Tony’s eyes fell from Stephen’s own and down to the sorcerer’s chest. They stopped when they reached the Eye of Agamotto and remained there for a long while, hovering over its faint green glow. “How many…?” Tony’s words trailed off, the ones unspoken hung limply in the air between them, clear as day. How many times did you die? How many times did I?
“All of them,” Stephen repeated, his voice barely above a whisper.
The air seemed to grow heavy and thick with the weight of Stephen’s words. Although they each made their best effort not to acknowledge it, their unspoken duty to the well-being of the world had become a constant influence at the back of their minds, preying upon the pair’s every movement, thought and spoken word. For Stephen, the burden had become increasingly tiresome after his experience on Titan. Though it had been well over a month ago, the toll of viewing over fourteen million possible futures had only recently started to tax him and was growing in its intensity with every passing day.
Stephen watched Tony’s eyes shift from point to point, both seeing and not, too wound up in his own thoughts and in the hopelessness of it all. It pained Stephen to see his companion like this, so undone with the stakes of their task. A part of him wished to take Tony back to simpler times, when his biggest worries had only been for the welfare of Stark Industries and the trivial pestering of industry competitors.
But he couldn’t. Not now.
The universe needed Tony Stark. Depended entirely upon him, even.
“Does this happen a lot? This future?” said Tony, gesturing to the space around them in an evident attempt to change the subject.
“Only once,” Stephen replied.
“So, this is the one?”
Stephen nodded. “This is the one.”
“Shit.” A beat of silence. “But I assume you know how everything is going to happen, right? Since you’ve done it all before?”
“To a certain extent.”
“ To a certain extent? That sure doesn’t fill me with much hope, Stephen.”
The sorcerer sighed as his vision briefly blurred. He took a minute to breathe before he began to explain. “I can recall key points and actions that must happen to determine each future, but the smaller details in-between are more vague. It’s kind of like how we remember dreams in the way that finer details begin to elude the realm of memory as soon as we wake up. Besides, even if I could, all of the possible outcomes started blending together once I got past one million anyway.”
Tony stared at him. “You’re telling me you were able to recall up to one million individual futures?” He raised a single skeptical brow.
“I have eidetic memory, remember? I have told you that before,” said Stephen as if it were the most obvious answer in the world. “Well, I guess now I know you definitely don’t have one,” he remarked at the sight of Tony’s frown.
“Of course not. I’m a normal human being,” said Tony, feigning offence. “You, on the other hand, my dear friend, are a biological anomaly.”
“I hate to break it to you, but you’re anything but normal, Tony. I really don’t think that anyone else apart from yourself could ever repeat the feats you’ve achieved. Even with a photographic memory.”
Tony looked at him open mouthed in astonishment, the corners of his mouth tilting upwards playfully. “Would you look at that? Stephen Strange giving Tony Stark a compliment. Who would’ve thought?” Tony placed an armoured hand to his chest, positioning it to cover the area above his heart. “I’m flattered.”
“Remind me to never let myself compliment you again, will you?” said Stephen, turning his head away to hide a smile.
Tony hummed noncommittally. He held out his arm to Stephen, partially retracting the Iron Man armour to reveal the open palm of his right hand, the one that had been over his heart only moments ago. As he accepted the offer, Stephen couldn’t help but take note of Tony's conscious effort to grasp onto his wrist rather than his scar-ridden hand.
“I don’t know about you, but I might actually prefer to go the rest of the way on foot,” said Tony, letting go of Stephen once he was steady, now re-applying his armour, save for his helmet. “I think we’re close enough now. Plus, FRIDAY’s scanners say this path should take us to the cliff face anyway.” He indicated towards the hollowed pathway through the mountain now before them.
Stephen nodded, silently thankful for Tony’s unspoken kindness. Over the time they had spent together in the Guardians’ much-too-cramped spaceship, Tony had grown accustomed to Stephen’s often fluctuating energy levels. Stephen knew keeping his corporeal form grounded was the best way to bring himself back to the realm of the living and Tony, with his selfless intuition, had picked up on the self medicating habit. The act became especially potent in the knowledge that Stephen knew his companion was itching to get this whole ordeal over with as soon as possible and return to Earth at a moment's notice. Even if Tony had never spoken as such, it was there in his eyes, in his wistful searching out into the abyss of space, a lingering flicker of hope somehow continuing to burn despite it all. Whether it would remain once this was through, Stephen did not know.
***
It took Stephen less than a second to register the distinct, uneasy drop in temperature as he and Tony entered the mouth of the small mountain tunnel. Something was different. Someone was here.
On instinct, Stephen immediately brought himself to a defensive stance, using Eldritch Magic to construct fist-sized tao mandala shields that instantly lit up the immediate surroundings with their bright yellow-orange sparks. Behind him, he heard the mechanical clatter and powering up of Tony’s suit as he too prepared himself for whatever they were about to face. Stephen moved his body a step in front of Tony’s, putting himself on the front line of danger in some small, unconscious attempt to shield his companion from harm.
Together, he and Tony waited, tense with anticipation.
They did not have to wait long.
Soon enough, a wraith-like figure emerged from the shadows. Its corporeal form hovered like a ghost, defying all forms of natural law as it traversed its way towards them. Stephen watched intently, noting the edges of its coal coloured cloak in particular as they ruffled with the momentum of the wraith’s floating motion. The material’s edges seemed to be in a constant state of dissipation, fraying into smaller black wisps of fabric before dissolving into nothing, a waterfall of endless soot. Stephen would have focused on its face, if not for the fact that the wraith’s head was completely obscured by the shadow of its hood.
The icy tinge in the air continued to grow in its biting intensity the closer the creature came, making Stephen shiver involuntarily. The wraith only stopped once it was a few paces away from the defensive pair, far enough so as to not warrant an immediate attack from either of them.
“Welcome Stephen, son of Eugene. Tony, son of Howard.” The voice echoed around them unnaturally, its deep reverberating tone pulsing through the cold air in a haunting vigor.
For a moment, no one moved. It was as if all three of them were frozen in time; their breaths held, their hearts slowed, their eyes searching, analysing, trying to conclude whether the other was friend or foe. Around them the wind whistled and groaned. Small flecks of snow drifted in from the clouds above, their white powdery forms peppering onto everything within Stephen’s line of sight.
“You know us?” Stephen questioned, his voice piercing through the stagnant silence.
“It is my curse to know all who journey here,” replied the wraith.
“And who are you, exactly?” said Tony. He edged forwards to stand alongside Stephen, flaring his repulsors in warning.
“Consider me a guide,” said the wraith, sounding all too calm for comfort.
“So you know where it is? The Soul Stone?” Stephen asked. He had to know for sure. Had to know whether all of this had indeed been worth something. It was a frightening thought—one Stephen had often been fortunate enough to avoid for the majority of his life—that there was still the slightest chance he could get it all wrong, that his own mind might fail him at the crux of his life’s purpose.
The wraith nodded its hooded head. Stephen heard himself sigh as his posture relaxed, relieved to disprove his own doubts.
“Though, I should warn you,” said the wraith, regarding both Tony and Stephen consecutively, catching the immediate attention of both once again. “That which you seek extracts a terrible price.”
A small, shallow laugh escaped Tony’s lips. “I don’t care,” he said, shaking his head. “We’ve come too far for anything else. And, trust me, I’ve seen it all. There’s nothing I’m not prepared for.”
The wraith floated forward a step closer and brought two wiry, skeletal grey hands to its hood. Slowly, it drew back the material, revealing a crimson, uncannily human head into the Vormirian light. The wraith was a living human skeleton; a creature trapped between life and death, its face so hollow and gaunt it seemed as though its inner spirit had been sucked dry, leaving only an empty red husk of a human being in its wake. Beside him, Stephen heard Tony suck in a breath at the sight, a sound torn somewhere between astonishment and recognition. For Stephen, there was only dread.
“We all think that at first,” said the wraith, its thin, lipless mouth contorting into a knowing, haunting smile. “We are all wrong.”