Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

“What I don’t understand,” Tony Stark says, idly tapping his foot against the Sanctum’s wooden floors and only driving Stephen mildly insane, “is what the problem would be with moving into a larger complex. Not so old, maybe. Your stairs creak, and I don’t think your heater has worked since the ‘70s.”

“The problem,” Stephen grits out, “is that you think I’d care about what you think of the Sanctum. I’m not moving the home base of every sorcerer on this continent just so you don’t have to listen to creaky stairs.”

“I’m just saying,” Tony says, waving his hands around flippantly. “You could do with an upgrade. Free of charge, easy as can be. You were a neurosurgeon, you were used to luxury. No one is gaining anything by you living in a building that hasn’t been renovated since the moon landing.”

“I’m not looking to gain anything.”

“But why are you refusing?”

Stephen represses the urge to sigh, and looks up towards Tony. He’d been focusing on Tony’s arm instead, the metal one. 

“I think there’s a problem with the mechanism linking the arm to the rest of your body,” he says, returning to more pressing matters. Tony’s eyes are dark, following him intently even as the man flexes his robotic hand. 

“It works fine,” Tony says defensively. “I made it myself. Anyway, it’s not just the arm that feels weird.”

“It’s the most likely cause, though,” Stephen says. He’s been running magic through Tony’s veins for a few minutes now – all things considered, Tony should be healthy. Well, healthy – healthy enough for a middle-aged man who sleeps four hours a night, runs on eight cups of coffee a day and has a metal limb because he lost the real one when holding the power of the entire universe in his hands to right a wrong.

There’s something there, though. Something that Stephen doesn’t know what to think about.

“I linked it neurally,” Tony says, and leans forward, resting his face against his human hands. All the energy is gone from him, suddenly, and Stephen has to lean back to give him some space. “I would’ve noticed if I’d done it wrong. I’m not sure it’s the arm, Stephen. It’s all of me. I’m just – exhausted, all the time.”

“Have you tried sleeping a whole night?” Stephen asks dryly, although he feels for Tony.

It’s been just over three year since Tony snapped his fingers and lost his arm. It’s a miracle he hadn’t died, really. Since then, he’s been recovering. Stephen, being a former neurosurgeon and considering himself only a little bit involved in Stark’s fate, considering what he’d had him do, had offered his services as both a medical man and a sorcerer.

It’s not the first time Tony has taken him up on it, the last year. It’s just the first time Stephen has seen him this defeated. And Tony’s not wrong - there’s shadows under Tony’s eyes, his hair unkempt, his stance a little uncertain. And yet, Stephen can’t find anything wrong.

Tony cracks a weary grin, and shakes his head, sitting up a little straighter. “Have you slept a whole night since everything happened?” Tony asks, and huffs out an impatient laugh. “Don’t think I can, anymore. It doesn’t matter – it’s not the same. The exhaustion, it doesn’t matter how much I’ve slept. And I could’ve dealt with it, but it’s getting worse, and it’s – it hurts. Look, Stephen, I know I’ve – I know we’re not –”

“It’s fine,” Stephen says, and focuses on the magic that’s running through Tony’s veins again, trying to get past the odd feeling. It’s a last shot, really – he’s never used magic to diagnose illness, but it was worth a try. Perhaps they ought to go to Bruce Banner. There’s several ways to be ill, and Bruce has been Tony’s friend for longer. Maybe Stephen can find a way to contact James Rhodes and let him persuade Tony into going to someone that’s not in the superhero gig.

“I shouldn’t be dumping this on you. I can deal with the exhaustion, and with the pain, it’s just –”

“You don’t need to justify yourself, Tony,” Stephen says, and sits up as he lets the magic dissipate. “I am your friend and your doctor. If something hurts, you are supposed to tell me. It’s not a burden.”

Tony narrows his lips and his feet tap the floor again. Stephen ignores the sound and looks, really looks, at Tony. 

“Morgan can’t see me like this,” Tony says eventually, crossing his arms and lifting his eyes towards the ceiling. “I can’t leave her. Not now, not like this. After Thanos – after all of that – she’s only just gone back to sleeping in her bed. The psychologists, and the endless talks, the nightmares – I can’t do it to her, Stephen. Not again.”

Tony Stark has never been afraid of dying. Even now, his first thought is for his daughter and the fears that lurk in her mind. His first instinct is to protect her, not himself.

“You’re a good father,” Stephen says gently. 

Tony looks away. His shoulder sag a little, and he pinches the bridge of his nose. Stephen knows the feeling. 

“Her science fair is tonight,” Tony says, “it starts at six. I just need to be there and not be in pain, alright? She’s built this robot helper – said Dum-E inspired her. Of course, I told her Dum-E is utterly incapable of being anything but a clumsy failure of a robot and not worth the screws he’s made of. I kid you not, those screws were probably a few thousand bucks each, especially with the number of times he’s accidentally broken off pieces of himself bumping into walls.”

“So now you have Dum-E Junior?” Stephen asks, feeling his lips being tugged into a smile involuntarily. 

Tony sighs dramatically. “She called the robot Mum-E and painted it red,” he laments. “Said it’d look after Dum-E. Tragically, it has been doing a good job of it. I never thought I’d see the day. I secretly suspect FRIDAY of having teamed up with Morgan to even get it done.”

“And how much did you help?”

Tony’s look of affront is almost funny. “We’re not supposed to help!”

“So, you did half?”

There’s the sound of a claxon outside. Bleecker Street isn’t quiet, most days, since they are after all in New York, and nothing about New York can be said to be free of noise. This is a noise that both Stephen and Tony know, though – it means the end of a meeting. Happy Hogan’s there to pick him up, and Tony’s chauffeur and bodyguard is notoriously suspicious of the sorcerers, even after all these years.

Stephen enjoys showing up right next to him, the few occasions they’ve had reason to meet. Happy Hogan jumps up like no one else has ever quite done.

“Only around a third,” Tony says, and gets up slowly. His blouse and suit jacket hung over the chair, and he’s working his way back into them with an ease reserved for men who’ve spent a lot of time in suits. “Really, Morgan’s just working off some blueprints I gave her and changing things. She’s plenty smart to get it going on her own, I just – well, it’s fun to help her. And she’s eight, she’s allowed to get help.”

“Of course,” Stephen says, and once again critically looks at Tony’s prosthetic arm. It glints as it catches sunlight, the intricate silver design not as ostentatious as Tony’s suit but just as cleverly designed. Stephen’s not sure if Tony doesn’t want the arm to be too noticeable or if there’s another reason for the minimalist design.

It’s not a question he’s ever brought himself to ask, and he doesn’t think he will.

“So?” Tony asks, waiting by the door. “Prosthetic off, is what you’re thinking, right? Except I don’t want to – to, uh, spook a bunch of ten-year-olds that my daughter has to see daily. So it can wait a day, right?”

“Well, we can’t be sure,” Stephen says practically. “If you think it’s not your prosthetic, we’ll have to do some other scans. I can’t really tell anything from the spells I’ve run, either. There’s something – well, it’s almost like something doesn’t want me to use magic on you.”

Tony’s eyebrows rise. “And that’s not something you thought you should’ve mentioned earlier?”

The claxon sounds again. Stephen tilts his head.

“Might be nothing,” he says. “And I’m sure there’s a perfectly logical explanation. I think a trip to Dr Banner might be in order, is all. He might be better equipped to help you right now than I am, although of course, I’m willing to be there, too. Just let me know. If you’re in a lot of pain, take a painkiller to take the edge off. And if you’re still too tired to make it to Morgan’s science fair, just try and take a nap.”

“I’ve got meetings,” Tony says. “You don’t think I’d show up here at eight in the morning voluntarily, did you, Strange? I like you, but not that much.”

Stephen shrugs, folding his arms. “I’d be insulted if I didn’t know I’d at least show up in your top five of best-liked doctors.”

Tony considers him for a second and grins. “Top ten, maybe,” he concedes. “I know a lot of doctors. Many of them are far less insufferable than you, by the way. I’ll see if Bruce has a spot for me soon and let you know what he thinks. See you next week?”

“I’ll be there,” Stephen acknowledges. “If it gets worse, come back. I’m serious, Tony.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Tony says, and then with a few noisy thumps on the, admittedly creaky, stairs, he’s gone. Stephen moves to stand by the window, watching Tony cross the street impatiently. His navy suit, shrugged off while Stephen was examining him, allows him to blend in with the masses in New York with an ease Stephen hasn’t felt since becoming Sorcerer Supreme.

Stephen would be less notable on the streets than Tony Stark even if he were to walk bare naked on Times Square, of course. That doesn’t mean he doesn’t envy Tony’s easy integration in day-to-day life, a little bit. The life that consists of a steady job and a daughter. Tony, for all his suits and mechanics, is as human as the next person. Stephen sometimes feels he has transcended something – like knowing so many secrets of the universe disqualifies him as being human, at this point. What human can bend space and time as he has? What human hears whispers at every turn, at every street, of another dimension, another timeline, another possibility among infinity?

He watches Happy Hogan hold open the door for Tony, and the bodyguard’s face seems to linger on the Sanctum for a few seconds. Stephen allows himself a smile as he imagines Hogan’s eyes to narrow suspiciously at the building. He can’t see from this far away, of course. He wonders what Happy would do if Stephen created a portal right next to him, right now, claiming that Tony’s forgotten something in the Sanctum.

But no. Stephen should use his powers responsibly. That doesn’t mean he can’t take joy in imagining Hogan’s face. 

The black car starts moving, taking a turn at the end of the street. Stephen stands there a second longer, now just basking in the feeling of the early morning sun warming his skin. It’s a pleasant morning, he thinks, perfect for taking a stroll or getting some coffee at a café. 

Stephen Strange is a busy man these days. Maybe Wong will have lunch with him later, but for now, there’s other matters that he must see to.

He turns back around from the window, and makes his way to the gardens.

~*~

“The story is the following,” he says, and watches as the six students watch him, in turn. “The Book of the Vishanti was written down, in most part, by Agamotto. All of what was written was information given to him by those we call the Vishanti. Who they are, and why they showed any interest in Agamotto and his followers, remains unclear to this day.”

“Why does it matter?” one of his students asks. Her name is Nia Ochieng, and she is one of their younger pupils, no more than mid-twenty. The others glance at her and then back at Stephen, waiting for the answer. 

Stephen taps his fingers on the book. Wong stands on the side, leaning against the large tree in the gardens where they have their lessons, watching him carefully. While Wong must surely trust Stephen by this point with the tome (although perhaps he doesn’t, considering Stephen’s behaviour when he first came to the Sanctum), he isn’t at ease with one of their most valuable possessions being used as a teaching tool. Especially if Stephen is using it outside, near the grass.

“Well?” he asks, redirecting it to Wong. 

Wong raises his eyebrows. He’s the librarian, though, and so Stephen feels fully justified in having him answer the question. 

“The Book of the Vishanti has some of the most powerful defensive spells we know,” Wong answers slowly. “To know the source of this power is to gain more knowledge about the power we are using, and the universe we are using it in. We don’t know who the Vishanti were – if they were gods, or if they were aliens in a time people considered them gods, or if they were humans who became god-like.”

“The Sanctum has venerated them for millenia,” Stephen acknowledges. 

“Until we got a heretic for a Sorcerer Supreme,” Wong mutters, but it’s good-natured. He’s spent hours with Stephen debating on the higher powers in the universe, and all that it entails for humanity.

Stephen ignores Wong’s ribbing. “Their power is unparalleled. Agamotto writes that they appeared to him in the darkest of times and acknowledged his goodness. Then they taught him the spells, for a full ten years, and then were gone. Their reasoning, we don’t know.”

“Their mysterious appearance and apparent goodwill is another reason it’s long been believed that the Vishanti were gods, protecting humanity through sorcerers,” Wong says. “But to know who the Vishanti are is a secret that is protected by their Book.”

“We only have access to certain sections of the Book of the Vishanti,” Stephen continues. “On many sections, there are Seals that no spell we have can break. We think Agamotto did this to protect the Book if it were ever to be stolen. Unfortunately, the secret to break the Seals was lost with time.”

“So, if you were to ask what the use of the Book of the Vishanti is,” Wong says, and eyes their wayward students with the usual disgust of someone who has built their life around books and can’t believe that not everyone is equally enthusiastic about them, “There’s a lot of answers. We do not have many practical uses for it; a few spells are accessible to us, most of which we have been using for centuries. However, it is always good to know that the Book is there, and it exists, and there are secrets that we will never uncover hidden in its pages.”

“The Vishanti have been seen as godlike for as long as the Sanctum has existed,” Stephen interrupts. “The Book is part of the culture and heritage as much as we’ve ever had one. The mystery is part of our life.”

Nia Ochieng raises her hand. Stephen suppresses the smile making its way to his face; just because he likes a little bit of discussion in class doesn’t mean that many of his pupils are willing to offer it. These are mostly beginning sorcerers, unfamiliar with Agamotto and his story still, only just managing to open up portals and read the ancient symbols. Most of them take what he says on his word.

He nods to her, and she drops her hand inelegantly. “What could the Book tell us?” she asks. “And if it’s the heritage of the Sanctum, isn’t it our duty to try and find a way to read it?”

“A good point, Miss Ochieng,” Wong says, and crosses his arms. “What would you propose?”

She is taken aback by that, Stephen can see. “Well,” she says, and blinks. “The root of magic is harnessing energy, isn’t it? There are several kinds of energy that we could use to make and bind spells, and harness them into some sort of – key. If Agamotto used some sort of secret spell to create the seals, the same energy should be able to break the Seals, right? And since he basically found the Sanctum, it’s logical to assume that it’s a kind of energy that we’re still using.”

“Unless he specifically only used it to create the seals,” Stephen says, and taps the Book. 

He can see the energy signatures that she is talking about, if he focuses. Although seeing might be a bad word for what Stephen does, most of the time. His skin prickles with it, and his eyes are saturated with it, and his ears ring with it. The Mystic Arts are a sense that has accumulated all his others, and overtaken them, and yet, is completely separated from all of them. It’s not an exact science, and Stephen really looks at the Book. Something is different, but he can’t pinpoint the feeling right now. Maybe something to look into later.

Nia Ochieng tilts her head, and her black curls fall like a curtain with the movement. She’ll make a good apprentice yet, Stephen decides right then and there.

“Why would Agamotto do that?” she asks. “Wouldn’t it be a waste to have a way to use the Mystic Arts and only ever use it for a single thing?”

Stephen smiles then, and leans forward. The entire group, shrouded in the shadow of the large tree in the garden, all look towards him, eyes wide. Wong is shaking his head in amusement and defeat, and pushes himself away from the tree. The class is ending, anyway; there’s no answers to be given in this session. That, too, is part of the Mystic Arts.

“Using your best trick only once,” Stephen says, “is the best way to keep it a secret.”

~*~

A large part of Stephen’s day is sitting still and going through manuscripts. He teaches, although he has never considered himself the most patient of tutors, and he reads. A lot. Entire hours of his day are spent in the library with Wong, peering over old tomes and ancient secrets in languages that aren’t spoken on Earth anymore. 

The dimensions flare up, sometimes, but all of these are under control. The life of a Sorcerer Supreme is a life of constant surveillance; holding up a microscope to each tiny shatter in the universe and pulling it back together before it becomes a thread. Most of the time, Stephen is diligent enough that there are no repercussions to any minor damage to their dimension. 

In contrast to what many people think about how dimensions and universes should behave, their interaction is rather common. Mostly, it’s harmless; dimensions pulling and pushing is an event similar to the tide, and something that the Mystic Arts harnesses their energy from. Sometimes, a pull or push is a little too violent, which can cause issues, but as often as not, these are solved automatically.

Generally, nature does not need humanity to take care of it. It’s mankind itself that wants to be in control. Stephen lets these things be, most of the time, more comfortable in the knowledge that these things have a way of being resolved. It’s only the times that the tear becomes too large or a dimension comes too close too often that matters become more dire, and Stephen has to interfere.

He’s not a superhero. He does not track down villains; the closest he’s come is tracking down and nullifying the powers of some overeager wannabe-sorcerers. People like Kaecilius are one in a thousand, and there’s only a few hundred sorcerers in the world anyway. Mostly, Stephen keeps an eye on those who came to Kamar Taj for something and left before fully understanding the powers they play with.

Most people are not monsters, nor heroes. Most people are just people, and Stephen’s job is not to play at being either of them. He likes to think of himself as a doctor, still; his patient, these days, is the universe. He is a shield, not a sword. He is the calmth of the sea on a day without wind, and that is what he must remain. The Mystic Arts are not to be weaponized, and not to be used for violence unless there is no other way. 

Nonetheless, Stephen remembers very keenly what it was like to sit in a spaceship, knowing that someone is coming for your planet, and to kill half of life. He remembers the adrenaline pumping, the fourteen million versions of losing, the desperation of knowing there is only one way it can end, and it’s not in your hands.

The Sanctum isn’t a weapon, but Stephen’s priority is to protect humanity. If the sorcerers are needed, they will answer. And that’s the next problem: who will they answer to. For now, there is an agreement with the Avengers. Tony Stark is acting liaison, affiliated with both the Avengers and several other groups, yet not an active member of any of them. Other plans are in place, but Stephen doesn’t concern himself with those. What they have now is working out well, and Stephen, when push comes to shove, doesn’t have to do anything he deems unnecessary.

Despite the arrangement, the sorcerers have been called on only once or twice in the three years since Thanos was defeated. And so, Stephen isn’t a hero, although he is affiliated with them. He has saved the universe a dozen times, before it ever really was in danger. That’s the way he likes it best. He does not respond to danger when it is screaming in his face – he responds to it when it whispers urgently, when it’s still miles away.

That is why he worries when the whispering becomes louder over the course of the day.

~*~

“Can’t you feel it?” he mutters, rather unconcerned with Wong’s answer as he twists around his own room. “Something is going on. It feels like a trap.”

“A trap requires someone to have set it,” Wong says, but he is frowning, and that means he is taking it seriously. His nostrils are flaring like he’s trying to smell the issue, and Stephen takes a moment to feel fond of his friend – where Stephen feels like he can best explain his sense to the Mystic Arts by comparing it to a visual input, Wong always weaves an imagery in which he smells the magic.

He’s never properly explained what it smells like, though. Although Stephen’s probably never really explained what it looks like, so they’re even.

“Yes,” he says, and returns his attention to the room. The feeling of wrong is everywhere, but it’s strongest in his personal chambers. He hasn’t been back here since this morning, when Tony Stark was knocking on the door for his assistance, but something must have happened. No one has been here, as far as he’s aware. The Sanctum is protected by the Mystic Arts; they would have known if any unwanted visitor had appeared.

“How far does it go?” Wong asks, and opens the door, as if meaning to go outside and investigate. It creaks menacingly, and bumps into the wall gently. Wong still looks at him expectantly. 

“I’m not sure,” Stephen admits. “It’s been steadily building; I can’t pinpoint when exactly it began. It’s been – buzzing since the early afternoon, at least. Maybe even earlier. It’s like there’s something in the corner of my eye I can’t quite look at. Are you sure you’re not feeling anything?”

“Nothing,” Wong says. “And that concerns me.”

“Yeah. Me too.”

He twists and turns around the room, allowing the Cloak to gently guide him to wherever it wants to go. It’s a bit like a sniffing dog, except without a nose. Stephen’s not sure if it can actually sense anything, but there seems no harm in letting it try. 

His phone rings. It almost startles him, the sound of it when he’s knee-deep into sensing the deviant magic that keeps surrounding him. Being the Sorcerer Supreme in the 21st century allows for some technological developments in the Sanctum, and so they have a landline, cable, and Wi-Fi, just like any other modern building. And yet, Stephen doesn’t get many calls anymore, as his life as Sorcerer Supreme has left him with suspiciously few friends outside of the sorcerer or hero circles. 

Well, let’s be honest. It’s left him none.

“This is Stephen Strange,” he says when he picks up, a bit absently as he’s still trying to find any thread to pull in order to research whatever’s going on. 

“Hey, Stephen. It’s Tony. Listen, are you busy?”

“A complicated question,” Stephen says dryly, and takes the phone with his other hand as he turns to Wong and mouths ‘It’s Tony’. Wong rolls his eyes and taps his wrist, in a universal wrap-it-up gesture. Stephen just shrugs at him, and turns back.

“I’m going to take that as a no. Look, I swung by Bruce earlier today, and he did some scans and blood testing. There were some – abnormal findings. Said you needed to come in, because he can’t figure out what it is, but it’s apparently what caused me to be – well. It’s not any illness he knows, and he thinks it may have to do with your magic voodoo whatever.”

“I don’t do magic voodoo whatever,” Stephen splutters. “Tony, I’ll come down if you need me to, but I promise you, I haven’t used any spell on you that could possibly be harmful in any way. There shouldn’t be any traces of it in your blood.”

“Sure, I told him that, but –”

“Well, you should have him check it again. Unless you’ve angered any other sorcerers –”

“Last time I angered any sorcerers is a number of years ago, keep up –”

“You have a natural talent for aggravating people,” Stephen says, and shakes his head at Wong, who’s still waiting in the doorway. “I don’t know, Tony, but it can’t be magic. Not any of mine, anyway, and you haven’t encountered any sorcerers in years. I need to go – something’s going on down here, and I don’t know what exactly it is.”

He can hear Tony snap to attention at that. “What’s going on? Do you need the Avengers? Are you in danger?”

“Nothing the sorcerers can’t handle,” Stephen assures him. “I’ll keep you updated.”

“Alright. I’ll tell the Avengers to be on standby, just in case.”

“Thanks,” Stephen says, although he’s pretty sure the Avengers won’t be able to help even if it came to that. “I’ll talk to you later.”

He hangs up and shoves the phone back into his pockets, looking back to Wong. His friend is leaning against the door now, looking rather amused at Stephen.

“One of these days,” Wong says, “you’re going to have a realization, and I want to be here when you do.”

“Can you really not feel it?” Stephen asks, instead of asking Wong what he’s talking about. It’s sometimes easier to just ignore his more enigmatic phrases and just cut to the chase. He thinks he knows why Wong and the Ancient One got along so very well, anyway. They both love talking in riddles.

Wong pushes himself from the door. “No,” he says. “Let’s go back to the source. Something was set off here, you say – or close to here, anyway. In the Sanctum, early today. It’s been increasing in feeling ever since. Does it feel dark?”

“No,” Stephen says, and closes his eyes to concentrate better. With his fingers, he quickly weaves a spell to make him more perceptive. It doesn’t help much – the worrying sensation leaves a taste in the back of his mouth and a sharpness in his nose, but it’s still out of grasp. It feels heavy, and poignant, and rich, and most of all, it’s confusing.

“So then does it feel light?” Wong presses.

“No. It feels – like it’s all tangled. As if there are several threads, and they don’t quite know where to begin and where to end. It’s a puzzle. It smells – green, like a dark emerald. It looks like a beginning.”

“Of what?”

Stephen opens his eyes again. “This is old magic,” he says. “This is not energy like we harness it. This is something else. It feels like it’s waking up.”

It’s getting more intense, richer on the tongue, like well-brewed coffee. Stephen frowns and makes a snap decision, quickly striding through the door and down the stairs. Within a minute, he stands outside the Sanctum, on Bleecker Street.

Wong follows him hurriedly.

“What about it?” he asks.

“It’s everywhere now,” Stephen says. “You really cannot feel it?”

“Stephen, I can’t feel anything like what you are describing,” Wong says. “It all feels normal to me. No extraordinary energy. We can contact the Avengers Compound and ask them to do a reading. If this is only you, it’s either very subtle, or –”

“Or someone’s playing a game with me,” Stephen concludes. He looks around Bleecker Street, taking in the street. The sun’s setting now, and the few cars that pass all have their lights turned on. It bathes the world in orange and pink, but something about that feels wrong, too. Like the universe is fighting the end of the day.

“Wait,” Wong says, and breathes out loudly.

Stephen turns, and immediately, his eyes are fixed on the same thing as Wong’s. Near Stark Tower, recently re-christened Avengers Tower, a green light is pulsing right into the sky. It contrasts darkly with the pink sky, an ominous sign for the entire city to see.

“That’s it,” Stephen says breathlessly, watching the pulsating glow break through the clouds. It starts to move, and Stephen takes a step forward in alarm as the beam breaks up and starts to cover the entire city. “Wong –”

“Shield it,” Wong says, and throws up his hands in a defensive gesture.

Stephen does the same automatically, as the wind blows up and picks at his Cloak and hair. He shifts his feet to get a better grip on the ground underneath him, and raises his hands, his fingers weaving a protection as the green cloud of luminous whirls ripples towards them, faster than anyone can run.

“Hold it!” he yells, and sand and little bits of concrete hit him in the oncoming storm, the air picking up and crackling with the strongest energy signature Stephen has seen in years. He hears Wong cry out, but in the emerald cloud, he can’t see anything beyond the blinding pulses of the energy stream, and feel how the heaviness of whatever magic is running over him is pressing him down. 

Stephen falls, and he can hear some clothing tear, and he thinks his knee might be bleeding, but his hands are still up in the air, his shield proving less than useless under the current beating him into the ground.

His shield stutters and fades out of existence, and he dizzily thinks to himself that he didn’t believe this would be the end, and there is a bright green flash –

The world ends.

~*~ 

He inhales, and Stephen Strange starts into the present. The air is clean and crisp again, the sunlight falling through the window, because he hasn’t closed the curtains very well. He is sitting next to Tony Stark, who is slumping in the same chair he was in this morning, his foot tapping the same rhythm on the Sanctum’s wood.

“What I don’t understand,” Tony Stark says, “is what the problem would be with moving into a larger complex. Not so old, maybe. Your stairs creak, and I don’t think your heater has worked since the ‘70s.”

“What,” Stephen says, and feels his heart beat wildly. 

Tony quirks up an eyebrow, looking him up and down. “No sarcastic retort for that one? Well, never mind, you shouldn’t have one, that’s the point. No one is gaining anything by you living in a building that hasn’t been renovated since the moon landing, is all I’m saying.”

“You… are,” Stephen says slowly. “What?”

“Are you okay?” Tony asks, and gets from the chair to kneel next to Stephen. “You’re really pale. Hey, hey, look at me.”

Tony’s dark eyes are swimming in front of Stephen, and he grabs the chair’s arm tightly. 

“I’m fine,” Stephen says, when Tony is still frowning at him. He pushes Tony away, gently, and shakes his head. Tony lets him, but Stephen can feel his gaze burning on his back as he looks at the street. Bleecker Street is basking in sunlight, as it was this morning – right now? Stephen’s head is swimming.

“If this isn’t a good time, you should’ve said,” Tony says. “I mean, I’d prefer to get this dealt with before my daughter’s science fair, but if you’re not feeling up to it –”

“How did she do?” Stephen asks automatically. He rests his fingers against the window sill, curling and uncurling, trying to reconcile where he was five minutes ago with where he is now. It’s early morning, the sun not at the top of its orbit yet, the sky a pure blue marred with only a few clouds. 

No green light, no sunset. A perfectly ordinary day.

“What?” Tony says. “She has it tonight. That’s why I’m here now. I don’t want to freak her out while I’m there. Are you really sure you’re alright?”

“The green light,” Stephen says, trying to find the words. “Wasn’t it – it was evening, just now. There was a green light all over the city, a storm, from near Avengers Tower – you must’ve. You can’t have missed it, it was everywhere, and Wong was – Wong!”

He stumbles out of the room, heedless of Tony. Again, the stairs creak when he stumbles towards the ground floor, and he races through the Sanctum to get to the library. A few apprentices look weirdly as he sprints past them, but all of them get out of the way, either wary of the Sorcerer Supreme or respectful enough of his title.

The library is the same as ever – quiet, the lights a bit dimmed. Wong sits with the Book of the Vishanti in front of him, quietly skimming the words, his finger reverently hovering above the words as if he doesn’t want to mar them with his touch. Upon Stephen’s entrance, he looks up, startled.

“What are you doing?” he asks. “Didn’t you have a meeting with Stark?”

Stephen stares at him. Wong doesn’t seem to think anything is out of the ordinary. He seems piqued at getting bothered, mostly. Stephen controls his breathing, does a round around the library. Everything is still standing. That blast could’ve torn apart the entire city – the Sanctum would not have been left standing.

“What the hell?” Tony says, sounding a bit out of breath as he appears in the door opening. “Stephen? What’d you sprint off for?”

“What’s going on?” Wong asks brusquely, and rises from his chair, closing the Book of the Vishanti as he does so. One of his hands covers it protectively even subconsciously, and Stephen would have made fun of him on any other day.

Stephen raises a finger. “Nothing. I’m fine. This is all fine,” he says. “I’m – don’t worry. This is all – sorry. My mistake.”

Tony looks at him dubiously, crossing his arms. The metal one reflects the dull yellow light in the library, softening it. Stephen concentrates, clenching and unclenching his fingers. The prickling sensation of the magic, the old and heavy musk – it’s partly here in the library because the library always particularly feels like the Mystic Arts, but there is still a masked and hidden layer of whatever he’d felt – earlier? Yesterday? Today?

It’s not very noticeable yet. He wouldn’t have felt it, had he not been explicitly looking for it. As it is, he can feel it guided back to his own personal rooms again, where he just was – and some of it around Tony. Probably because he was just there, but Stephen narrows his eyes nonetheless.

“Is there something going on?” Wong says, and despite the relaxed stance, Stephen can see the tension in his body. Wong is a warrior, in a way, more so than Stephen is. 

“No,” he says resolutely. “I was – I thought I saw something, but it was nothing.”

“I don’t buy it.” It comes from Tony, who’s crossed his arms decisively. His eyes are narrowed, solely focused on Stephen. The attention almost makes his hairs stand up, but Stephen straightens himself, only raising his eyebrows.

“It doesn’t matter,” he repeats. “Even if – I’ll deal with it. It’s not your concern.”

Tony lets out a sharp, humourless laugh. “Not my concern? I don’t know if you noticed, but pretty much the entire planet is my concern by this point. I know you like the whole lone wolf act, but trust me, it’s not as satisfying as it seems, and I’d know. If something is going on, I’d rather be prepared than have it come out of nowhere because you’re not willing to share with the class.”

Stephen pinches his nose. “I don’t know what it was,” he says tiredly. “It must have been – a vision, some sort of dream. Perhaps I dozed off, or I was – somewhere else. I’m sure it’s nothing.”

The more he thinks about it, the more it makes sense. The dread from waking up next to Tony is fading with every waking minute. It must have been some sort of lucid dream. It felt horribly real, but dreams always do. The sort of spellwork that this would require – 

“What did you see?” Wong asks.

“A light,” Stephen says. “It was evening, and we were standing on the street. I could – feel, something, an ancient spell. You did not sense it. There was a green luminous beam shooting up in the sky, and then it collapsed, and swallowed the entire city.”

“Can you still sense the spell?” Wong asks. The Book of the Vishanti is now all but forgotten by him, his fingers slowly slipping from the cover as he focuses on Stephen’s story.

Stephen takes a deep breath and closes his eyes. A web appears on his vision, all colours of the world and more without a name, and he smells heaviness and lifts the fragrance of the age-old heaviness. These senses, they are beyond words and explanations, and Stephen pulls, and feels it pulling back.

“Yes,” he says.

“So what are our options?” Tony asks.

Wong makes a calculating noise. “We’ll have to investigate it. If Stephen can feel it, some sort of spell has been cast. Spells always have an originating source that we could track down.”

Stephen hums thoughtfully. “We did that in my – vision,” he mutters. “It didn’t do much. There’s the – it leads to my chambers, and it lingers. When evening came, it was everywhere. Then we saw the green light, in the middle of the city, near Stark Tower.”

“Avengers Tower,” Tony corrects absentmindedly, and then shakes his head. “So – what? That’s the source, but you can’t feel it?”

“It’s something, at least,” Wong says thoughtfully. “Perhaps we should try and see if you can sense something there, even if that’s not the origin. Green light… a spell that emits green light.”

“I’ll alert the Avengers,” Tony offers. “Bruce has access to some scanners. Mostly for radioactive readings, but there might be something else in there. I can make some calls, make sure we know what we’re dealing with. This is happening tonight, you’re saying?”

Tonight. “Morgan’s science fair,” Stephen realizes. 

Tony sighs, and pinches his nose for a second. “We’re going to have to evacuate,” he says wearily. “How far did this blast go? All of New York. That’s not – logistically, that’s not possible.”

“Let’s not rush ahead,” Wong says brusquely. “This was a vision of some kind – it might be someone just playing a game.”

If it is, it’s not a good game, Stephen decides. Although Wong might not be wrong. Stephen’s a powerful sorcerer, but if there is some strong magic in the air, he should not be the only sorcerer to have noticed. Definitely not if it is something capable of destroying an entire city. The most logical conclusion is that it is just Stephen – but then, is that really a chance they can take?

“If we evacuate, we might spook them,” Stephen says.

Tony is shaking his head. “You don’t understand,” he insists. “I’ve gone over this, years ago. I’ve talked about it with the Avengers, with SHIELD, with the UN. Evacuating New York would take at the very least twelve hours. That’s with everyone hurrying as fast as they can and everyone believing us. And you’re really sure that it’s all of New York?”

“As far as I could see, yes,” Stephen says. “Maybe beyond. I think I might’ve – well, that’s not relevant, but I passed out when the spell hit the Sanctum. It might go on beyond.”

“Right,” Tony says, painfully wry, and rubs his shoulder right where his prosthetic and his real skin meet. Stephen remembers suddenly what he was here for. Now that he’s looking for it, Tony is a little pale. “As long as we have a plan. Can we use your portals to get people to safety?”

“Yes, but it’ll need to be in a central place,” Wong says. “That way we can open one large enough for a large group of people to pass through.”

Stephen brusquely walks towards the windows, ignoring both of them. Not that it matters that much – Wong and Tony look at him for a second, but there are now larger things on the horizon. He lets their concerned voices drown him, as he taps his fingers against the window sill. The streets outside are still calm, one or two people jogging or walking their dog. 

The more he looks, the more his memories become blurred. Did he stand on that street half an hour ago? Did he scrape his knee on the pavement as the strength of a spell forced him down? The more he thinks on it, the more he thinks he must have been dreaming; there must be some sort of spell on him. He can still feel it, though, itching at his senses.

“Stephen?”

He startles when Tony’s standing next to him. 

“Something’s wrong,” he murmurs. “I just can’t put my finger on it.”

“I believe you,” Tony says, and it’s as easy as breathing to lose some tension at those words. Stephen has seen Tony do things that no one else could even think of doing. If Tony believes him, things will turn out alright.

“I’m going to the Tower,” he announces. “I need to see if I can sense the spell near there. It must be close, there – it was the epicentre of that blast. If there’s a danger, it may start there.”

He doesn’t even wait on Tony or Wong’s answer. There are answers to be had, and standing around waiting for avoidable things to happen has never been what he does. Stephen is outside on the street again within seconds, letting the morning sun warm his skin.

A young woman with a dog looks at him funny, and Stephen pats the Cloak to keep it from alerting anyone to the fact that it is anything more than an ordinary, although admittedly a little strange, adornment on Stephen’s part. This is New York – people are used to a little weird, although many of them still don’t really know the sorcerers.

When no one’s looking, he creates his own portal and steps through it.

~*~

The streets of New York are blissfully full with people going about their own lives, as they always do.

Avengers Tower is quiet. Some tourists are taking pictures, two girls pointing excitedly, talking about Iron Man and Thor. Stephen smiles at it, the young children not even noticing him. Right here, Stephen can still blend in. No one’s paying any attention to him.

But he is. The strands of the universes are tangible here, so many people with so many stories to tell. It’s extraordinary in how mundane it is, and yet so complex. Stephen could spend years trying to figure out each thread, and there would still be so many questions left. There is no sign of the magic, though. From here, he can barely feel anything.

“Come on,” he murmurs, and straightens his shoulders, closing his eyes. Standing still in the middle of a New York street – most people pass him by. He can vaguely feel them moving around him, when he focuses especially. He senses a certain kind of energy, a possibility that is alive in any human being. A soul, perhaps, although he doesn’t like those kinds of vague terms.

There’s nothing here. There should be, is the thing. It had been close to Avengers Tower, he’s sure of it. He can’t even feel the push and pull of the magic anymore, right here. Is that because it’s not real, or that it’s not bound to him? But if it’s only in the Sanctum, it can’t have accumulated here. There’s no logic to that, and even the Mystic Arts follow the basic rules of the universe in that regard.

“Stephen Strange?”

He opens his eyes, to look right into Pepper Potts’.

“Miss Potts,” he says, blinking. “I did not expect to see you here.”

She smiles – it’s a wry little thing. “I expect you didn’t,” she says. 

Everyone pretends they don’t know about the divorce. Or rather, everyone knows, and they all simply don’t ask questions. Tony and Pepper must be wildly aware that everyone does know, but they aren’t commenting – for Morgan’s sake or because they don’t want to talk about it, Stephen doesn’t know. He hasn’t asked Tony. The first time he’d seen his friend after the divorce had gone through, he’d ignored it, and after that – well, how do you ask when you haven’t the first time?

“Why are you here?” he asks, and winces. Of all the things in the world to say.

Pepper Potts doesn’t seem to mind. “Do you need to be in the Tower?” she asks. “Tony’s out, if you need him, although I’m sure that they can reach him in a second. He should be in a meeting right about now, although we can’t ever really be sure.”

“No, thank you,” Stephen says. “Tony is – hm. Who is currently in the Tower?”

“I think most of them are at the Compound, honestly,” Pepper says. “Peter might be in the Tower, depending. Are you okay?”

Stephen hums. “Yes, thank you,” he says. “I – erm. I must be going. It’s very good to see you, Miss Potts.”

He doesn’t wait for her to say goodbye – it seems like that’s becoming a quick trend of today. Nonetheless, it might be better to find what he’s looking for in the Tower. Tony’s scanners and connections put anything Stephen might use to shame, and from the Tower, he’ll be able to find what he’s looking for. Combined with his senses of the Mystic Arts, it might be enough to pinpoint something. 

~*~

The Tower’s doors open for him as soon as his face is recognised. All Avengers and their affiliations are granted access, no key required. The elevators take him to the communal lab. Technically, it’s Bruce’s, but he barely uses it. Being permanently stuck as a green giant wasn’t conducive to living in New York, Banner had once said, and so he preferred the Compound. Now, it’s mostly for anyone who wants to make use of it.

As it turns out, he’s not the only one interested in it today. Pepper was right; Peter Parker is right there, very intently focusing on some hovering blueprints of something that looks like a Death Star, if Stephen remembers Star Wars at all. 

“An interesting structure,” he says, eyeing the project hanging in the middle of the lab. “I do hope you’re not planning on world domination, Peter.”

“Dr Strange!” Peter Parker’s hair is wild as ever, the brown strands sticking up in odd places. He’s nineteen now, and enrolled in university, a far cry from the teenager that he first met on a spaceship on a daring rescue. Still, Peter’s as lanky and optimistic as ever, never too far removed from his roots.

Stephen smiles at him. “Good afternoon to you too, Peter,” he says, and then turns around. “FRIDAY, are you scanning for any – particular energy signatures? All of New York City, but preferably something close-by.”

“Mr Stark called, Dr Strange,” FRIDAY’s voice comes. “Scans have been running since 08:37 this morning. No abnormal spikes in energy measures. Energy types being measured with particular scrutiny: thermal, nuclear, chemical, elastic, gravitational, motion. Do you want a complete list?”

“Put it on a screen,” Stephen murmurs, and watches the digital map of New York light up with hotspots of a particular kind of energy. None of it seems to be what he’s looking for. Peter appears next to him, his own project forgotten.

“What’s going on?” Peter asks. “Why’re you scanning the entire city, Dr Strange? Is something happening?”

“Evacuation will soon be put in motion,” FRIDAY answers for him. “Avengers and armed forces on standby. Master Wong has been trying to contact you, Dr Strange. The sorcerers are ready for portals, but there is only a 34.2% possibility of evacuating all citizens in time. Mr Stark is predicting mass panic.”

“Not good,” Stephen mutters. “Where’s Tony right now?”

“Mr Stark is overseeing evacuation strategies. He is currently being driven here by Mr Happy Hogan. Estimated arrival time is seven point two minutes. ”

There is nothing Stephen can do, and he leans against the cold metal desk, the map of New York still hovering above him. It’s almost taunting him, the reality of the situation sinking in on him. There is no discernible spell that he can fight against, not when it’s hidden from anyone but him. And his vision – if it was a vision, then it didn’t do much to prepare him for what’s coming.

“Get your friends and your aunt, Peter,” Stephen says calmly. “Tell them to prepare. The sorcerers will be ready. Everyone will be safe, I promise you.”

“What’s going to happen?” Peter demands, and somehow, Stephen missed Peter growing up, but he can see it now. His eyes are wide, but he’s standing his ground, his arms crossed. A boy who’s already seen too much, and is now preparing to see some more.

“I don’t know,” Stephen answers honestly.

And that’s why he can’t do anything.

~*~

Stephen vaguely remembers the day that he already thought he lived as he goes through the motions. He calls Tony, and he’s on the line for when Tony’s discussing some things with the UN about the sorcerers’ portals, and he’s back in the Sanctum in time to prepare everyone for what’s going down.

It’s happening in a few hours, but Stephen feels as if he’s been awake for a week as the sun does its daily crawl. He itches, and the feeling of the spell grows ever more potent, but no one else seems to be able to sense it. Not any of the sorcerers, and not any of the scanners.

“Are we doing the right thing, here?” he asks Wong. They are together in Central Park, where one of the largest portals will be opened. They are part of the mid-city team, and he can see Sam Wilson flying around above him, keeping an eye on the evacuation.

People are yelling and pushing, of course. It’s total chaos, and it’s all Stephen can do to keep the portals open. Families are being torn apart, friends are crying as they promise to see each other soon, no matter what happens. Hospitals are being emptied; Stephen looked up the Metro-General in a second of weakness, and saw that they had already lost some lives to the impromptu evacuation.

Not everyone can make it. Not everyone will. They’ve not emptied a tenth of the city, yet; not everyone is even willing to go. These people have seen monsters fight gods and have watched aliens rupture the skies. There’s not much they can imagine will be much worse. Much less when it’s something only Stephen can feel.

“This was a warning, Stephen,” Wong says gravely. “It is better to listen to your gut than watch New York be destroyed when we could’ve done something.”

Stephen hopes he’s right.

The feeling becomes stronger as the hours pass. Stephen has been in Central Park with Wong for hours, at this point; his arms are trembling, the portals wavering in his power. It is one thing to use one massive spell in a moment of adrenaline; keeping open a portal large enough for a hundred panicked New Yorkers to pass through is something else entirely. All over the city, the portals have been failing, only adding to the critical concern.

Death tolls are rising. Stephen is helpless to do anything and keep open his entrance to Washington DC, where these people will have no home to stay and no bed to sleep in. And the sun is setting. Wong is still next to him, the sweat steadily dripping down his brow. They have not spoken in two hours.

Tony, fully armoured, lands next to Stephen. He’s not worn the Iron Man armour since his retirement, Stephen knows; the fact that he’s wearing it now, with all it asks of him, is a testament to the gravity of the situation.

“How are you holding up?” Tony asks, his faceplate opening. He’s pale, his eyes sunken. Piloting the armour is something that requires a lot of stamina, and Stephen quietly adds Tony to one of his worries.

“Holding,” Wong grunts. “How much longer do you need?”

Tony shifts minutely, looking back towards the crowd. There’s still a massive income; people are pushing past each other, and there’s a cacophony of shouts and cries. 

“We don’t have enough time,” Tony says. “We’re estimating that about half has been evacuated, but we can’t say for sure. Sun’s gonna set in half an hour, Doc. You might want to start thinking about getting yourself out.”

“Not an option, here,” Stephen says.

Tony looks at him. In the paleness of his face, his dark eyes are a heavy contrast, almost drowning the rest of him out. Stephen can’t read him, like this; Tony doesn’t want to be read, he thinks, has never wanted to choose between two bad scenarios.

“You’re still the only one that can feel this,” Tony says quietly. “My readings aren’t picking up on anything. But we can’t risk it going through the portals, too. And we’re going to need some sorcerers to make it out of this, too. You need to tell me when to call it quits, Stephen.”

For the portals, of course. It’s a matter of practicality, all things considered. The fact that Tony hasn’t even wondered for a second if Stephen’s speaking the truth about what’s going to happen is a sort of trust that Stephen feels sitting in his chest, for a second. 

“Is everyone safe, now?” Stephen asks. “Who’s still here?”

“Morgan and Pepper are in California, with Happy. Rhodey’s still managing the Brooklyn portal with Peter, but he should’ve sent our friendly neighbourhood Spider-Man through it already. Your sorcerers are still holding out, trying to get the portals to stay intact. Cap and Bucky are still out – think Sam’s around here, come to think of it.”

Stephen turns to Wong, who’s mostly been concentrating on the portal. “You need to go,” he says.

Wong turns to him, raising a single eyebrow. “No.”

“It’s not a question,” Stephen says, lowering his voice. “Get out of here, Wong. They’re going to need you. I’m needed here, but I can hold this without you for a while longer. Take Tony, and leave.”

“I’m not going,” Tony says. “Bruce and I are working on a shield. It’s – it’s not going well, since we don’t know what we’re shielding against. But I’m not going to give up. Fighting’s not over until the end, Stephen.”

“We’re staying, and that’s the end of it,” Wong says conclusively.

Tony smiles wryly. Maybe he wants it to look more motivating than it does, because he just looks tired. Still, the sight of it lifts Stephen’s heart just a little bit.

“Once an Avenger, always an Avenger,” Tony murmurs. “Who knows, maybe Bruce and I will find a last-minute breakthrough.”

“I’m sorry,” Stephen offers, and doesn’t know why.

Tony just huffs out a breath, and shakes his head. “You’re saving people here, Stephen,” he says. “Might not always feel like that’s what’s happening, but you are.”

“I’ll see you later, Tony,” Stephen says, and hopes it’s a promise.

Tony smiles – weary, lost, but sincere. “I’ll hold you to that, Stephen Strange,” he says, and then he flies up in the air. Even though Iron Man hasn’t been seen in three years, he moves as gracefully as ever, and Stephen watches until Tony’s gone. He’s flying in the direction of the Tower. He must be working with Bruce near the root of the problem, then. It makes sense, in a way.

The anxiety makes him shiver even as he’s still holding his portals.

It’s not going to be enough, but Stephen closes his eyes, and hopes he was wrong.

~*~

It takes thirty-two minutes for the beam to rise up in the air. Stephen’s still startled by it. Now he’s in Central Park, he can see it more closely as the beam races to the darkening sky. There’s a loud thump, almost like the coming of a storm, and then it’s there.

“No,” Wong mutters, and the world starts screaming. Stephen drops the portal, falling to his knees. 

This might not have been the best idea. He should have tried to stop the spell, whatever it is – he can taste it now, and it burns like cayenne on the back of his throat, dry and spicy. Now, he’s already fallen when New York still stands, and around him, everyone is starting to run.

Wong grabs his shoulder. Stephen leans on him gratefully, his friend helping him up quickly.

“We need to stop it,” Stephen yells, trying to get over the noise of a panicking mass. He’s almost being run over, and it’s only a cleverly designed spell that keeps everyone from bumping into him.

“Shield?” Wong suggests, his eyes still on the beam. It looks like it’s coming directly from the Tower, now, and Stephen has no time to wonder if he’d seen it wrong the first time around or if the beam could have shifted.

“Try whatever we can,” Stephen orders, and spins around. The gleaming red-and-blue shield of Sam Wilson is nowhere to see in the air, anymore – maybe the Captain is trying to stream the masses away from the Park, now. This disorder is fundamentally opposing any help Stephen can offer, but it’s easier to protect a large group of people in a crowded place rather than shield all of New York. 

There’s no time to look for Wilson or Barnes. With a loud noise, the beam starts falling apart, starting right at the top. It’s almost like a stalactite coming down from the sky, illuminating New York City in a glowing green. Wong’s eyes glint in the light, and Stephen grabs him to pull him back.

“Together!” he shouts, and Wong gives a crisp nod. Neither of them has the power to do such a powerful spell alone, now; doing it together is the only chance they have.

Stephen looks to his side as he feels his fingers tingling with his own spell. An elderly woman is lying down in the grass, her eyes empty and her fingers outstretched towards him, as if she’d wanted to ask him for help. She must have died in the masses, as everyone trampled over each other, only concerned with their own survival.

He looks away, closes his eyes. Wong’s spell matches his own, like it can only do when you know each other particularly well, and the shield builds up around themselves before stretching out. 

He doesn’t see the green spell fall over him, this time, but he feels the rush of wind. He’s knocked down again, but Wong’s rough hands are on his arm, giving him some sense of being grounded. Their own shield breaks before it even really has a chance to solidify around the people it needed to protect, and Stephen opens his eyes only to see Wong closing his.

There’s a storm of grass and sand and mud around him, and Stephen gasps for air, his legs finally giving way after a day of inhuman effort. Trees are ripped from their roots all around him, but the storm is not strong enough to drown out the sound of humans crying out in pain and agony.

Stephen grits his teeth, his entire being filling with yet another trick of magic, and then he falls over.

~*~

“What I don’t understand is what the problem would be with moving into a larger complex. Not so old, maybe. Your stairs creak, and I don’t think your heater has worked since the ‘70s.”

Stephen’s breathing loudly, gripping the side of his chair. Tony’s sitting right opposite him – a little pale, but not nearly as weary and ill as he should’ve been after hours of piloting the Iron Man armour. In fact, he seems very casual, easily grinning at Stephen like they’re having an old argument just for the argument’s sake.

They are, Stephen realizes. It’s Thursday morning again – for the third time in a row. Thursday has never before felt like such an insistent day, and Stephen pinches the bridge of his nose, catching his breath.

“Are you okay?” Tony asks, a tinge of concern creeping into his voice. He’s half-rising from his seat, just waiting for Stephen’s confirmation.

Stephen sits straight, immediately.

“Sorry,” he says. “I had a long night. You were saying?”

Tony lifts a single eyebrow, but relaxes back into his chair. His navy suit and blouse are once again draped over it, with Tony sitting half-naked there. Yes – Stephen was checking his shoulder. He almost forgot why Tony was here in the first place, with the day – days? – he’s had.

“I’m not surprised, me,” Tony says. “Of course you would be kept up all night. The Sanctum’s noisy, you know? You can’t walk here without the wood protesting your very existence. I’m sure that’s some kind of breach of a safety protocol, you know? Not a very good example, all in all.”

Stephen lets out a breath. He still can, now. It’s a luxury he thought he’d lost two times now in a relatively short number of hours. He’s also still feeling exhausted. His muscles protest a little bit when he moves up, experimentally flexing his biceps. If he is on Thursday morning again, he shouldn’t be aching in muscles he hasn’t technically been using.

Then again, it might be a mental thing. Stephen wouldn’t rule it out. This might all be a mental thing. Maybe he’s just going insane. It’s almost a nicer thought than the alternative – that something is going on, and Stephen’s somehow involved in a plot he can’t sense in any other way than vague visions at the edge of his periphery. 

“You’re right,” he says, when he remembers the thread of the conversation. “It’s a bit old and dusty, isn’t it? It’s home to a lot of people, however. It always has been.”

Tony also stands up, taking his blouse and putting it on. That might be an exaggeration, though; it loosely hangs on his shoulders, covering up his arms and chest only partly. Stephen’s never really looked, but when the sunlight hits Tony, he almost can’t tear his eyes away. There’s a scattering of scars on him, both small and large, none of them seeming to bother Tony at all as he crosses his arms and stands next to him, watching Bleecker Street with him.

“I can respect that,” Tony says quietly. “I can fix up this place too, if you’d like. You don’t need to live in poverty just to be respected as a person, Stephen. You’re not making amends by letting the Sanctum stay what it always has been.”

Stephen turns to him. “Making amends for what?”

Tony shrugs. “Aren’t we all making amends for something? Anyway, the offer stands. If you want to move your home base, give me a call. The Tower’s been too empty for a long time. And if you want to stay here, that’s fine too. Just – there can just be a room in the Tower for you alone, too, if you need it. Or Wong, that’s totally fine, invite anyone you want.”

“Invite them into your home?” Stephen asks.

“I like to think of it as everyone’s, really,” Tony mutters. “It’s everyone else that keeps insisting it’s mine.”

Stephen hums. “I’ll think about it,” he says. “As for the other matter – I can’t find any reason for why you’d feel ill, Tony. Just take it slow. Maybe you should get out of the city for a couple of days. Take Morgan and just – go.”

Tony laughs quietly. “Sure, sure. In a month or so, maybe. If things calm down. Anyway, thanks for checking. I guess I’ll go to Bruce, see if he can do some tests. It won’t be much good to Morgan if her dad’s falling over from exhaustion. She’s got this science fair tonight, yeah? I told you about that, didn’t I? Promised her I’d come to see her.”

Something is stuck in Stephen’s throat. If the last two days have taught him anything, it’s that the science fair won’t happen. If it ends, it won’t end happily. But Tony’s sitting there, and he might be exhausted, but he’s still a concerned father.

The evacuation obviously didn’t work. Even if Stephen managed to get all the portals in place a few hours earlier, and got the evacuation plans in order – well, Tony would believe him in a heartbeat, that is clear. It still wouldn’t be enough.

He thinks of the elderly woman, lying on the grass in Central Park, her fingers reaching for him. She will be alive today. The evacuation cost too many lives and didn’t save nearly enough. The beam still came too fast, and Stephen and Wong’s shield had not managed to protect anyone against it. 

“I’ll see you later,” he just says to Tony, and watches him straighten out his blouse and put on his suit, immaculate as always. He looks out of the window as Tony disappears in Happy Hogan’s care again, the bodyguard eyeing the Sanctum as suspiciously as ever, and doesn’t find it in himself to imagine surprising Hogan.

It’s time to figure out what he’s up against.

~*~ 

He’s a little surprised when he’s joined for his solitary lunch. He only has a bit of yoghurt that’s two days past the due date, courtesy of the fridge not having been cleaned, and a handful of grapes to mix it with. All in all, not the worst meal he could’ve hastily thrown-together, especially considering the fact he was far more busy with his crisis.

Nia Ochieng sits next to him where he leans against the tree in the garden. The garden is big enough for most sorcerers not to bother each other, and the warmth of the sun kissing his skin helps Stephen to stay in the present. He must be aware of the time if he wants to be able to do something.

“Good afternoon,” Nia says brightly, although she eyes his lunch with a less cheerful demeanour. “What in the world is that drab?”

“Food,” Stephen says curtly, and turns another page in The Key of Solomon just to send a message. He hadn’t been done reading, but whereas he would usually give some attention to his students whenever they approach him, he’s now feeling a bit pressed for time. He hasn’t been able to find much of anything so far, although there’s some interesting ways to create a shield he might have to try out against the beam.

“Only barely,” Nia says. “Wong told us about the Book of the Vishanti, today. He seemed a bit grumpy that you didn’t do it.”

“He’s more than capable of doing it himself,” Stephen murmurs, and turns another page with a little more rustling than he usually would, and definitely more rustling than Wong would approve of. He likes Nia Ochieng, it’s true, but the sun’s high in the sky and he’s no closer to an answer.

She lifts her head as she observes him. Stephen just lets her sit there and continues his reading. He’s got several books with him, all carefully lying on a blanket in the grass before Wong finds him and kills him several hours before the green beam could. Although that might be the preferable way to go out.

“We’ve got a saying, where I’m from,” she says. “ Lisilo budi hutendwa. I’ve seen men who say it but rarely mean it, and then I’m seeing people who mean it but never say it.”

“Swahili?” he asks, and shrugs at her nod. “I’m great at Google Translate, but my language skills don’t go far beyond that.”

Nia smiles. “It means that you must do what must be done. You’ve got the look of a man on a mission, and the temperament of one on a time-sensitive one. Since Master Wong’s back to hogging the Book of Vishanti, I thought I might be able to help.”

“Not unless you can feel it,” Stephen mutters, and closes The Key of Solomon with a sigh. “Can you? The sense of something heavy in the air? Sense it for me, if you can.”

To Nia’s credit, she immediately closes her eyes and does as he says. Her body sags as she exhales, her fingertips pressed against the grass. She sits like that, still as a statue, for several moments. Then her eyes open, and she gives him a minute shake of her head.

“Nothing,” she says, and frowns. “Should there be?”

“No, there shouldn’t, and that’s the issue,” Stephen says, and stands up with a roll of his neck. He sometimes isn’t sure if he’s getting old or if it’s the toll of the life he leads. Anyway, he still feels sore when he gets back to his feet, and he offers a hand to Nia. She rises easily, still young enough to be able to sit on the ground for a long time without feeling any effects.

“So?” she asks, as she invites herself along as Stephen finds his way back to the library. He doesn’t really mind; Nia is one of the sharpest minds in the Sanctum. She’d come to them only a few months ago, but she’s picked up the Mystic Arts with considerably more ease than her peers.

“So,” Stephen says, “We need to find some books on time loops.”

That stops her in her tracks. “Time loops?” she says incredulously. “You can’t be serious? Master Strange?”

He smiles and snaps his fingers. “Wong’s still attached to The Book of Vishanti. Library’s free for everyone. You said you wanted to help – this is how. This is part of the Mystic Arts too, Nia.”

She crosses her arms and taps her foot. For a second, she reminds him of Tony, but then he pushes open the creaking door to the library. She sighs dramatically, and walks inside. Stephen clenches and unclenches his fingers, and then follows.

~*~

While Stephen would love to involve Wong, he had seen the consequences of that, just one day – loop? – ago. Wong has seen gods, monsters and universes be crushed; has seen Galactus rip apart a city and lived through Thanos ending half the universe. Wong, although more experienced than Nia by far and undoubtedly the most knowledgeable librarian they have, would take action.

Stephen has taken action before. He needs to find the right spells and, preferably, he needs to find out who cast the spell in the first place. And , if it comes down to it, he needs to be unpredictable, in a way. Whoever cast this involved Stephen in it. It suggests a certain kind of forethought, and Stephen does not know what the spellcaster’s play is.

Best to play his own game, for now. Nia Ochieng, while rather inexperienced when it comes to the Mystic Arts, is an analytical thinker, a speedreader, and speaks fluent Swahili, English and Kikuyu. She was a PhD student of philosophy at the University of Nairobi before she came to the Sanctum. 

They’ve gone through a dozen books when he becomes aware of the commotion. Stephen puts down The Book of the Invisible Sun just as Wong storms in, the doors rattling as they fall against the wall. Stephen jumps up; only one thing will have Wong this rattled.

How had he lost track of time this badly? Wong doesn’t need to open his mouth in order for Stephen to sprint past him, already snapping his fingers and creating one of the most powerful shields he knows. He’s read so many spells today that might help, and he mentally goes through all of them.

Wong and Nia are right after him as he almost crashes into the street. A car almost hits him, but Stephen stops it with a single move of a digit. The man behind the wheel stares at him and falls into the street as he opens his door.

“Oh my god,” he wails, “it’s the aliens again, it’s the aliens again!”

“Stay behind us,” Wong says brusquely, almost pushing the motorist to the street. “We’ll deal with this. Stephen?”

The green beam is up in the sky again, near Avengers Tower. Stephen frowns at it, but raises his hands. He could’ve sworn it came directly from Avengers Tower last time, although he’d perhaps also been somewhat exhausted and preoccupied with other matters.

“We have only seconds,” Stephen says. “We need a shield that will protect all of New York. Nia, on my right and follow my lead. Wong, you know what to do. Now !”

If they doubt his leadership, they don’t voice it. The shield is a little easier to create with the three of them, not tired out by hours of holding portals in place, and when they have more than mere seconds to create a shield that will hold. Stephen’s heart hammers in his chest loudly as he strains himself.

“By the Vishanti,” Wong breathes as the beam shatters, tearing the city apart. Stephen just grunts, tries to exert the shield. It’s covering the block, now, but there is no certainty it will even hold out the beam yet. If only he knew what spell it was –

“Come on!” Nia shouts, her eyes tightly shut. The storm has almost reached them already, her dark hair whipping in the wind and in front of her face. She is already struggling, and Stephen pushes harder, feeling the old magic tear at their combined shield.

It falls, and it comes so unexpectedly that Stephen falls back. There is the sound of bone breaking, and a sharp pain in his elbow, and then the green storm blinds him completely.

~*~

“What I don’t understand is what the problem would be with moving into a larger complex. Not so old, maybe. Your stairs creak, and I don’t think your heater has worked since the ‘70s.”

“Damn it,” Stephen says, and rises from his chair. “Damn it, damn it, damn it !”

Tony blinks at him. “You okay?”

“No,” Stephen growls, and then deflates. “Yes, yeah. You were talking me into moving into Avengers Tower, weren’t you?”

Tony’s nose scruffs up. There’s a certain way of talking to Tony Stark that Stephen is currently disregarding entirely: the way of sass and subtle conviction. Tony, for all his bluster, isn’t a straightforward man. He’ll turn and twist around the point unless he wants to throw you under the bus for something, when he’ll point it out quite abruptly.

Obviously, it’s not something he likes to be done to him. 

“No,” Tony says, and crosses his arms. “I was just saying that you could do with an upgrade. Renovation , as it were. If you want the Avengers Tower for something, that’s fine, too, but don’t say it like I’m bullying you into something here. C’mon, Stephen, I’m just trying to help.”

“I know you were,” Stephen mutters, and pinches his nose. “Okay. Alright. Let’s go check out Avengers Tower, then. Let’s see it. I’ll come with you today, and we can go over the plans. There’s a couple of hundred sorcerers between all the Sanctums, and perhaps something more luxurious won’t be misplaced.”

Tony stares at him. “Really?” he says in disbelief. “You’re sure? Dr ‘This is the Sanctum and home of all witchcraft and wizardry, Hogwarts 2.0’ Strange?”

“Yes,” Stephen says. “Let’s go. Now.”

“Look, it’s not that I don’t want you to see Avengers Tower,” Tony says, getting back into his blouse already, “ but I do have a bunch of appointments. I’m not here at this time in the morning just because I like having meetings at eight in the morning, Stephen. And you haven’t yet said if there’s, well, you know. Something going on with my health.”

“You’ll manage well enough to go to Morgan’s science fair,” Stephen says, and has the door already opened even though Tony’s still working on getting his jacket on. His movements are a little stiff, and Stephen feels bad for rushing them out. Tony’s survived Morgan’s science fair three times already, so Stephen can’t really say it’s an emergency right now.

“The science fair –” Tony starts, and then shakes his own head, buttoning up his blouse. “Guess I did tell you about that, yeah. Why are you in such a rush? Not that I’m complaining, but, you know, it’s a little suspicious.”

“It’s a day for trying new things,” Stephen says, and gestures to the open door as if he’s a gentleman. Tony rolls his eyes at him. “Hogan is picking you up, isn’t he? I’ll come with you in the car.”

Tony snorts, but he’s an easy companion by Stephen’s side as they leave the Sanctum. “Oh, he’ll love that. Look, Strange, you’ve – you know, you’ve been helping a lot the past few years, with my arm, and – are you sure you’re alright? Something’s off .”

For him to stand there, in the early crisp air and gentle warmth of the morning sun on the Sanctum’s sidewalk, it means he’s genuinely concerned. And Stephen knows that he is, and that there might be a reason for it. For a second he wonders if Tony’s illness is a harbinger of some sort of whatever is going on now, but he dismisses the thought as fast as it comes. Tony’s health issues have been going on for longer than this spell has, and he can’t let his concern for his friend colour his perception of the current events.

Even if Tony’s looking even paler in the sunlight than Stephen noticed before. But that’s all a trick of the light, and Stephen can help him figure out what’s wrong after the damned time loop has been closed, and Friday begins.

“Don’t worry,” he says gently. “There’s nothing that I can spot, but we’ll figure out something. We’ll make a call to Bruce, and possibly Helen Cho, and the four of us will know how to treat you.”

Tony smiles, and it’s a brisk little thing, and then he looks away from Stephen. “Yeah. Thanks.”

It’s only minutes before the black car rolls up the street, and Happy Hogan stares in surprise at seeing them waiting for him outside.

“Tony,” he says, without another word, and opens the back door for him. Then he turns back, and squints at Stephen in a way that is probably supposed to look intimidating. “Strange.”

“Good morning,” Stephen says chipperly. “If you don’t mind, I’ll be coming with you.”

At that, Happy Hogan immediately looks over to Tony. “Is that –”

“Yep,” Tony says immediately, already halfway into the car. “C’mon, Stephen, chop-chop. Some of us can’t magic up our money.”

Stephen slides into the seat next to him, and feels himself grinning at the dark looks Hogan sends him despite the urgency of the situation.

~*~

Avengers Tower is full of personnel and empty of actual habitants. Stephen reflects on how lively it had been years ago, when he’d still been an ordinary neurosurgeon without any inclination towards magic. The Avengers had lived in New York, and he hadn’t cared much about it, but there still had been something about knowing that there were superheroes who slept here, ate here, lived here.

Now, there are several penthouses on the upper floors of Avengers Tower, and no one to occupy them. Tony’s got one, but he’s not even here all the time, having the option between several homes that he can go to. Stephen now wonders if Tony is reminded of the time that the Tower was full of people to live with, and if that’s the reason he so rarely stays here now.

Most of the floors are rented to other companies or start-ups. There’s even some school children and university students doing projects here for their own projects, all courtesy of Tony Stark’s unending generosity. There’s two or three general labs, all with assistants and caretakers on Tony’s payroll, just to give options to those who don’t have any. Avengers Tower only has one Avenger left, really, and it’s one that is filling up the Tower with anyone else so it won’t go to waste.

Stephen tries not to think too hard about Tony, alone in a penthouse, surrounded by the ghosts of people that left him. Something in his heart twists at the very thought.

Tony himself isn’t as bothered as he stands in the elevator with Stephen. He goes off a couple of floors before Stephen does, and he leaves with a genuine smile. There’s some sort of meeting with investors about a project or other that needs Tony’s financing and his input; there’s no rest for the wicked, or for a Stark.

Stephen remains in the elevator a while longer, moving towards the restricted Avengers areas. Today, he is there earlier than he was last time, but he still finds Peter Parker in the middle of his project – currently, making the plans for the Death Star he was already in the middle of last time.

“I really should be concerned about what you’re doing with your spare time,” Stephen comments idly, leaning against the glass entrance. 

“Dr Strange!” Peter leaps up from his seat upon seeing him, an excited smile on his face. “I didn’t know you were going to be here! Normally it’s just me, and sometimes I bring Ned, but he’s got an exam tomorrow.”

“No Tony?” Stephen asks.

Peter beams. “He lets me go to his lab if he’s here,” he says. “It’s the same as this one, but he keeps all the suits in there. But I can’t be there alone because of safety regulations, and this lab’s amazing, too. Sorry, what are you doing here?”

“Checking out the Tower,” Stephen tells him. “Perhaps seeing what Tony’s technology is capable of.”

“Everything,” Peter says, with the firm belief of a young man who has been let down by life before but refuses to be knocked down by it, and then wavers a little with a self-aware grin. “At least, everything that’s necessary. It can’t, well, make lasagna, or something. Not that I think you’re here to – make lasagna.”

Stephen smiles. “Hungry, are you?”

“I could eat,” Peter hedges, which says enough. “But I wanted to finish this first. I have this bet with Ned, although that’s - well, that’s not why you’re here. What do you need the lab for, Dr Strange? Are you sure I shouldn’t get Tony for you?”

“I got here with Tony,” Stephen says, and waves it away. “I’m sure I’ll be fine. Now, what if I want to search for energy spikes that haven’t been categorized so far?”

Peter raises his eyebrows, but immediately abandons his project. He automatically drifts towards the digital map Stephen had used the first time. FRIDAY seems to have picked up on their intent, because it activates immediately, showing the entire globe and its energy signatures.

“Just New York,” Stephen murmurs, and it zooms in. The energy map is red and purple, picking up all sorts of readings. None of it is what Stephen is looking for, though. “Show me if there’s been a large spike somewhere between last night and right now. Particularly near Avengers Tower, but any information you can find will be appreciated.”

“No unusual energy spikes, Dr Strange ,” FRIDAY says. “ Do you want to widen the range of your search? ”

“What are you looking for?” Peter asks, frowning as he looks over the map. 

Stephen makes a noise. “A spell. It’s not an ordinary sort of spell, however. It’s older, powerful. I’m not sure it’s entirely human. I don’t know if any of Tony’s sensors can even pick up on it if it’s an unknown energy source.”

“Energy signature for spellwork found primarily in New York Sanctum, 177A Bleecker Street. Do you wish to see the overview of energy spikes for the last 24 hours?”

“Might as well,” Stephen mutters, rubbing his face. In front of him, he can see the map of the familiar Bleecker Street, the Sanctum lighting up with energy spikes compared to the other homes. He stands there, next to Peter, trying to figure out if anything is unusual. Most of the spikes are from the garden during the practical lessons, which is to be expected: the weather has been good enough for most of the sorcerers to take their lessons outside.

Nothing seems off. There are a few spikes, but nothing too powerful, and definitely nothing that Stephen is incapable of explaining. The overview comes to this morning, and a steady buzz of energy output is sensed for the moment Stephen is examining Tony’s arm.

Then there’s something. It’s not spellwork, exactly, but it’s hard to explain what else it is. It interacts with the magic, definitely, causing a large spike and then a sudden disappearance of the magic, like there is a black hole for not even a fragment of a second.

“Wait,” Stephen says. “Go back to that moment. Play it slowly.”

FRIDAY complies dutifully, and Stephen watches the moment again. It’s clearly happening when Tony was sitting there, and Stephen was working his magic to assess his health. The exact spot is in Stephen’s rooms, and there it is again – the odd energy spike, then the negative spike, and nothing.

That must be the exact moment of the time loop resetting. 

“That’s weird,” Peter decides, face fully fixed on the map. It illuminates his face in shades of blue and orange, making him look sharper and older. “That’s like – some sort of thing which eats your energy, almost. It must be something else, but it responds to that spell. What was happening, this morning?”

“That’s my spell,” Stephen says, and replays the moment. “It must be going somewhere – the spell can’t just disappear like that. It was harmless and barely powerful in the first place; it couldn’t do anything I didn’t mean for it to do.”

“Tracking what, exactly?” Peter asks.

A realization dawns on Stephen. “Tony’s been feeling unwell,” he murmurs, his fingers gripping hard on the cold metal from which the map is being projected. “The spell was to track anything in his system that might not belong there and, if possible, get rid of it. Viruses, or bacterial infections, some tumors, even. It’s basically a highly advanced and engineered spell that can bypass human cells if the human body is fighting itself. The spell must have encountered something in Tony’s blood stream and caused – something.”

“What could possibly do that?” Peter says, his voice pitched high with anxiety. “He’s had blood tests before now, right? Someone should’ve seen something.”

“It depends on what it is,” Stephen says, “but it’s definitely not good.”

Peter bites his lip, and Stephen just looks towards the map again, on which the energy spike of that exact moment is being replayed.

No, it’s definitely not good.

~*~

It’s afternoon by the time that Bruce and Tony join them in the lab. Stephen’s been going over the theories of magic with Peter Parker, who’s unsurprisingly enough shown a rather large capacity for understanding them and then adapting the implications from a biological perspective.

Tony seems annoyed to have been summoned, crossing his arms as he walks into the lab. Stephen only knows that Peter sent him a text telling him to come, without going into any detail. The sort of information that Stephen wants to divulge is best told in private instead of over the phone. Bruce is next to him, presumably having met up with Tony earlier. He hadn’t received a much more comprehensive text – just one that told him to come to the Tower promptly.

It’s still a little unusual for Stephen to see Bruce stuck in his Hulk form, a pair of round glasses on his nose. He doesn’t make any comment, though, as Bruce gingerly takes a seat. The chair he’s picked doesn’t even creak, and that seems to make Bruce breathe a little easier.

“Don’t worry, Mean Green Fighting Machine,” Tony says, and leans against one of the desks instead. “This lab’s meant for everyone, and that includes you. Nothing here’s as easily breakable as you’d think.”

“There’s nothing I can’t break,” Bruce says mildly. “I appreciate it, though.”

“ I’d appreciate it if we got down to business,” Stephen says. “We are on a clock.”

“We are?” Peter asks, but Tony raises his eyebrows.

“I feel cheated,” he says. “You’re not here at all to look at the Tower, aren’t you, Stephen? If you wanted access to the lab, all you needed to do was ask . You’ve got access , you know.”

“I didn’t have time for a discussion, and I especially don’t have time for it now,” Stephen says, and loads the map again, focused on the Sanctum. He replays the two-seconds-long footage, confident that Tony and Bruce will figure out immediately what is going on. He isn’t let down; both of them lean forward at the same time, and it would have been amusing in any other circumstance.

“That is –” Tony starts.

“Not possible,” Bruce finishes, and takes off his glasses to look at Stephen. “This is the Sanctum, so that – was that one of your spells, Dr Strange? Because for the readings you just showed us, I’m pretty sure – this is not meant to exist, still.”

“It was my spell, but definitely not what my spell meant to do,” Stephen says, and then frowns. “ Still ? What do you mean, still ?”

“When was this happening?” Tony demands, and when he leans more against the desk, Stephen can see his arms trembling. 

“This morning,” Stephen admits. “The tracking spell. This happened when you were there.”

Tony turns a whiter shade of pale, and stands up. The trembling is now even more obvious, but everyone remains silent as he walks towards the map, still lighting up with energy readings, replaying that one single moment into infinity.

“These kinds of readings,” Tony murmurs quietly, “we’ve only seen them once before. They shouldn’t be here. Not if we did our job right.”

Stephen turns to the map. A certain kind of realization that has eluded him so far is now crashing down on him; one that he preferred to not have had. He’d simply not thought of this option because it was too far-fetched, not even a possibility to him, who’d seen so many impossibilities come true.

“The Infinity Stones,” he says, and the echoing silence is answer enough.

“Yeah,” Tony mutters quietly, and rubs his own forehead. “The Infinity Stones.”

~*~

The green beam doesn’t come from Avengers Tower this time, nor anywhere near Avengers Tower.

It starts in the middle of the city, and Stephen watches from several stories up in Avengers Tower where it starts.

“Damn it all,” he murmurs, and turns back to where Bruce is still calculating. There’s not much to be done for now; in minutes, all of their work is going to be done, and Stephen will be back in the Sanctum.

He just needs a little more time. They were figuring things out, and there’s still so many questions that haven’t been answered. Tony’s blood has been drawn, and Stephen’s spells analyzed; nothing they do explains what has happened, exactly. The only thing that Stephen knows for sure is that somehow, some energy residue from the Infinity Stones encountered his spell.

It’s undoubtedly the reason that the time loop exists. What Stephen still doesn’t fully understand is how Tony comes into all of this. He needs more information, more context, more answers . He can’t fix the time loop, a time loop that could be fracturing the entire universe if Infinity Stones are involved, unless he knows what caused it.

But now the beam’s up in the air, coming from a few streets away. 

“Oh,” Stephen says, as yet another realization dawns on him today. He massages his own forehead; there is nothing to be done, at this point.

“What’s going on?” Bruce demands, and joins him at the window. When he sees the beam, his green skin pales significantly. “Oh. That’s – that’s a problem.”

“I’ll fix it,” Stephen says. He feels remarkably calm as the beam falls apart like before, and they’re up high enough that he’s above the shimmering green cloud when it tears apart the city, this time. There’s something like sand that reaches the upper levels of the Tower, and then the glasses break. 

Stephen trips in his haste to get back from the windows, and Bruce stands in front of him, protecting him as a reflex more than something he thought through. But then the wind picks up, and Stephen is blind in the face of the harsh spell raging against him, and then there is nothing.

~*~

“What I don’t understand,” Tony Stark says, and the tapping of his foot used to annoy Stephen, but now it’s just a reminder that he has a chance here, that not all is lost, that he gets to do it over , “is what the problem would be with moving into a larger complex. Not so old, maybe. Your stairs creak, and I don’t think your heater has worked since the ‘70s.”

“Sit still,” Stephen says urgently, and kneels in front of Tony Stark like a man praying. Tony tilts his head, his brazen and unfazeable demeanour dropping immediately. 

“What’s going on?” Tony asks. “Did you find something?”

“Yes,” Stephen says, and closes his eyes. 

He has read the works of Karl Popper, in med school. Popper has said that you cannot verify any theory: you can only prove that a theory is wrong, but never that it is right. The man died in 1994, but otherwise Stephen would’ve liked to call him up and tell him that falsification is a good point for any thought experiment, but that nothing gets done by only falsifying theories.

The life of a neurosurgeon lies in the practical, and coincidentally, so does the life of a sorcerer. And Stephen only wishes he could falsify his theory, right now, just to make his own reality a little easier. Being right is only fun when there’s also a way to solve the problem; otherwise it’s just a macabre reality.

But he’s not wrong, this time. Oh, if only he were.

The spell is intrinsically easy, really; even a novice could’ve hacked the power that is currently causing the time loop to remain in effect. As it were, Tony had the right of it. Something is going on, and it’s definitely not pretty, and Stephen was a fool to dismiss him out of hand so easily before. 

If Tony Stark says that something’s wrong, something is definitely wrong. Stephen closes his eyes and lets his most recent spell finish its search; he can feel it trembling under a far more impressive power, the tendrils of it smelling both burnt and rusty to him. He is the most powerful sorcerer currently on Earth, and he has no idea how to stand up to this kind of energy.

“What is it?” Tony says. Stephen opens his eyes again; Tony is pale but his eyes are determined, his hand stark white as he holds onto the arm of the chair. The scars on his chest have faded a little with age, but they still stand out clearly, a testament to Tony Stark’s trials in life.

Stephen lets his spell fall out of existence. For a few seconds, he sits quietly. There are no words to offer any sort of consolation: it’s far too late for that. He hadn’t known what he was doing, the first time he did this. And he can’t undo it, now. 

“I am sorry,” he says quietly. “I am so, so sorry.”

“Stephen,” Tony says. “C’mon. What’s going on? You’re acting like I’m going to die .”

Stephen gives him a long look. Tony closes his eyes, pressing his hand against his eyes, slowly shaking his head. Stephen slowly raises, his knees aching, and looks towards the windows. He is exhausted; does he need sleep, in his looped existence? His body is fine, but his mind has been going for days on end. It’s an odd experience.

“I’m sorry,” he mutters again. 

“Right,” Tony says, and exhales loudly. He, too, stands from his chair, quietly taking his blouse and dressing himself. “You’re going to – you’re going to have to give me a little more than that, wizard man. You said that I was going to be fine . You said it was the prosthetic, nothing I couldn’t solve, and that – that I should try getting some fresh air out of the city. That’s what you said, and now I’m dying ?”

“I know what I said,” Stephen says, although something’s wrong about that, and he can’t put his finger on it. “I didn’t know .”

“Know what , because guess what, you still haven’t told me what the fuck is going on!”

“Time loop,” Stephen says, and that, at least, stops Tony in his tracks. Outside, a bird chirps, and it’s like nothing’s off at all. “This is the – fifth? Sixth? I think we’re on five, so by my own account, today should’ve been next Monday. As you can see, it is not.”

Tony lets out a deep breath. “Alright,” he says. “Time loop. Whatever, I can work with that. Not really my area of expertise, but hey, fine. So what’s that got to do with anything?”

“I’ve got a theory,” Stephen murmurs. “You won’t like it.”

“I rarely do.”

Stephen huffs out a quiet laugh. “No, I can’t imagine you do. I think, when you Snapped Thanos’ army out of existence with the Gauntlet, traces of the energy of the Infinity Stone remained in your blood. For a second, you were the most powerful man in the galaxy; your body is not capable of dealing with that much power. Very few people are, so the Gauntlet must have made sure that whoever handled it wouldn’t die from the sheer strain of using it.”

Tony leans with the window against him, only a hair’s width apart from Stephen. Together, they watch the street for a second. The same people pass by that have passed by the last few loops, and Stephen’s heart aches.

“So the Gauntlet made sure I wouldn’t die using it,” Tony says. “Fine, that makes sense. Not really happy with the implication that I’m all that frail, but you know, sure.”

“One man against all of the Infinity Stones, and you’re worried about frailty?” Stephen asks, amused despite everything.

Tony’s lips tilt into a grin. “I’ve got a reputation to maintain, Strange. What I’m not sold on is what the Infinity Gauntlet did, afterwards. It’s been three years. I’ve been to check-ups, I’ve had my blood drawn over a dozen times. And how does a time loop figure into all of this, again?”

“I’m not sure,” Stephen says. “What I suspect is that the effects of the Stones were hidden in your blood, so as to assimilate with yourself and survive. The problem is that you’re getting ill. The energy’s too much for you to maintain, even with the alterations. It doesn’t really matter how it happened; all that matters is that you won’t survive it. You’ll continue to feel worse and worse, until the residue energy kills you.”

“Great,” Tony sighs. “But we’re in a time loop, so that’s – we can think about that later, right? If the universe keeps being reset –”

“Yes and no,” Stephen says. “Everyone but me is being reset, it’s true, but you’re the catalyst. I must have activated a part of the Time Stone energy when I ran that spell through you, and it caused the time loop to come into effect. The residue energy is what keeps this loop going, which means you’ll continue to feel worse every loop. Having the loop active is asking for more energy, which means you’ll get worse, and get worse fast . And you won’t remember why.”

Tony slowly nods. “Have you told me all of this before?”

“No,” Stephen says, and lays a hand on Tony’s shoulder. “I’ve only just figured it out. We’ll think of something, Tony. We’ve got to break the loop, so the energy strain won’t press you as much, and then we’ll figure out how to remove the Stones’ energy for good.”

It’s not a promise he can make. In all fairness, if the loop restarts, it’s not a promise Tony will remember. 

“So,” Tony says, and stands a little straighter. His bravery will never fail to astonish Stephen. “We’ve just got to figure out how to end a time loop?”

Stephen has some sort of idea about how this time loop might end. It’s not an option he’ll think about for long, though: Tony’s death might collapse the time loop, as the energy which maintains it would be gone, but it’s not the outcome any of them will be okay with.

Tony Stark will not die this Thursday, if Stephen’s got anything to say about it. 

He won’t die.

~*~ 

Another Thursday is spent in the library of the Sanctum. Tony’s sitting with his feet on a chair, leaning back comfortably as he peers at his phone. Stephen can’t see it from his angle, but he’s sure that FRIDAY is going over everything that can be found on time loops.

Stephen and Wong stick to the actual books.

He’s already looked through several tomes when he was researching with Nia Ochieng, several loops ago. Now Wong is assisting him, a concerned frown on his face when he learned what this was about. No one else has been involved: Stephen doesn’t know who could help, if not Wong.

Sometimes, he just wishes the Ancient One was still here. 

Wong had pointed them in the direction of some more obscure texts, not all of them to do with time travel at all, but containing more theoretical ideas about the multiverse and several layers of existence. Reality and Time have always been rather intricately interwoven, one incapable of existing without the other. Threatening Time means threatening Reality.

Altogether, there hasn’t been much that can help them, so far. There are some texts containing a few words on the existence of Time and the implications of time travel, but none of these considered time loops. The only book to have some information on time loops with use of the Time Stone is the Book of Cagliostro, which Stephen had used when he’d first used the Eye of Agamotto. 

Unfortunately, Stephen knows the Book of Cagliostro by heart already. He’d learned it when he’d started to wear the Eye of Agamotto full time, in order to ensure he was fully capable of mastering Time. There’s a warning for callous uses of the Eye, and a threat of being lost in time loops, but there’s no mention of how to get out of time loops.

If he’d cast this spell with the actual Time Stone, rather than some residue energy from three years ago in a human being, there would be no ending the loop, Stephen supposes. The energy would have lasted forever, and he’d be stuck.

“Look,” Tony says, and leans against the table. “There’s loads of theories about time loops and time travel. None of it has really been proven, because it just hasn’t been done before , except by the two of us . You had your Eye of Ago-whatchamacallit, and I invented actual time travel. Can’t we just – you know, hop out of the loop? Skip the rest of the Thursdays to come and go straight to Friday?”

“No,” Stephen and Wong say at the same time.

Tony sighs. “I’m sure you’re right,” he says tiredly, “but why ?”

“Because we’re not breaking the multiverse here,” Wong says strictly. “Breaking time loops is immensely dangerous for everyone involved, not least of all you .”

“It might take too much out of you, anyway,” Stephen says. “We’re not experimenting with the energy residue that’s still in you. If the residue’s gone, it’ll take you with it. We’re going to have to figure out another way.”

That settles that argument, at least. 

~*~

Tony’s grown more agitated. Stephen has, too, but at least he knows what’s coming. For Tony, all of this must feel like a new deadline, a nightmarish manifestation of reality, but nevertheless still in the future. For Stephen, it’s just looking back at yesterday.

“I’m missing it,” Tony says, eyes on his watch. “I can’t believe I’m missing it.”

It’s six in the evening. Stephen finds himself focusing on Tony Stark instead of the vellum he’s carefully been scanning for hours now. Wong and he are reaching the oldest books, the ones that are hard to read and harder to skim; the language is ancient and hard to translate, and the spells aren’t used often. They have little else left to check, though.

“Morgan’s science fair,” Stephen says. 

Tony sighs. “I know I shouldn’t be thinking about it,” he says wryly. “Yeah, yeah, I know, world to save and time loop to stop. I’m just – I promised her that I’d be there. My dad never was there, and he promised too, once or twice. After a while, I just stopped asking.”

“I’m sorry,” Stephen offers. “It doesn’t make you a bad father, Tony. You are saving the space-time continuum itself.”

But he’s sitting hunched, and taps the table impatiently. Tony’s lips are curled up in something more twisted than a smile, and Stephen doesn’t like to see it.

“Yeah. I know. Although that won’t make much difference to an eight-year-old girl, you know. All she’s going to remember is that Pepper’s in the front row and there’s an empty seat next to her.”

“Tony,” Stephen says, and changes seats so he’s opposite Tony, looking at him. “I know this isn’t what you wanted. None of us wanted this. But we’ve got to deal with this, so you can go home and make it up to her tomorrow. If you want to do that, we’ve got to make sure we have a tomorrow.”

“Yeah,” Tony says roughly. “Yeah, you’re right.”

But there’s nothing to be found, and Stephen finds himself watching the clock more and more.

~*~

“I’m not feeling great,” Tony says, with a face that’s several shades paler than it normally is.

They have spent the entire day in the Sanctum’s library, with all of the knowledge of the Mystic Arts at their fingertips. Tony has spent a day researching time loops from a more theoretical and scientific point of view, and has come up with nothing that can help them end the loop in a more practical way.

They are running out of time. Looking at Tony now, Stephen suspects they already have. He drops everything, falling to his knees next to Tony’s chair.

He was sitting next to him like this in the morning. It feels fitting that he’s doing it again, now.

“What’s happening?” he demands, taking Tony’s hand. The physical contact makes it easier for him to let the magic run through Tony again. There’s not much to detect; nothing that will help him to stop it from coming, anyway. Tony’s heartbeat is through the roof, and his skin is clammy and warm. Within him, hidden and more powerful than anything, the remaining energy of the Infinity Stones wage war on a mortal body.

“Shit,” Tony croaks, and ducks in on himself. “Stephen, I’m not – I can’t –”

“Come on,” Stephen says gently, and helps Tony on the floor, where he sits in pain. There’s nothing Stephen can do for him. This is it, and they’re past their deadline. Wong seems to notice the same thing; he crouches next to them, putting his hand on Tony’s forehead.

“He’s burning up,” Wong says.

“Quite literally,” Stephen mutters. “Tony’s the catalyst. What’s the time?”

Wong glances at the clock. “A little before eight thirty. Why? Is that when it happens?”

“Yes, around that time. Wong, there’s nothing here . What’s the next step? What do I do?”

Stephen has lived by finding his answers in books and knowledge. It’s rare that he doesn’t know where to go and what to do: the last time that had happened, he had spent all of his money on a ticket to Nepal to find a magic cure for his problems. It’d worked out then, but now, there is no higher power for Stephen to consult. No magical gods to pray to.

Wong sighs, and just shakes his head. 

Tony’s eyes fall closed, and the hand Stephen’s holding loses its grip. His concern immediately turns to alarm as he checks for Tony’s heartbeat again. Just as it’d been working overtime earlier, now it’s barely beating. 

“Damn it, Tony,” he says, and tilts Tony’s head. Tony’s breathing, but it’s shallow and uneven. “Come on. Come on , you can beat this.”

“By Vishanti,” Wong mutters, as Tony’s skin begins to glow green. Stephen takes a sharp breath. Tony’s skin suddenly starts feeling hot and prickly at the touch, and he runs his hand over Tony’s arm. Now, there’s an outburst of powerful, ancient magic – he can feel it. It thrums in Tony’s blood, and it’s killing him. 

Tony makes a wounded noise, and then falls quiet. The heartbeat that Stephen was checking stops, as does the breathing. One second onto the other, and Tony Stark is dead.

The green beam bursts from Tony’s body, shattering the roof of the Sanctum. Stephen instinctively throws a spell over their heads as the next floor comes falling down, the wood and metal trickling down his orange shield. 

“No!” Stephen yells. With one hand, he holds up his shield, while the other examines Tony’s body. It’s rapidly disappearing before his eyes, eaten up by the shimmering energy of the Infinity Stones, going up to the sky. Nothing will be left of him – and when it does, Stephen suspects, the beam will fall and destroy all of their world, leaving them again to relive the same day.

“Stephen!” 

Wong drags him away. He doesn’t go fast, because Stephen is still resisting. He can’t leave Tony like that, slowly disappearing like dust. Just ten minutes ago, he was alright. He was fine, and now he’s dead, and he’s died like this five times now. And Stephen hasn’t been able to help him, and he might not find the answer at all.

Tony’s eyes are still open, brightly lit green by the residue of the Time Stone. He looks towards him, empty and unmoving. Then that part of him goes up in dust, too, and the blast is enough to throw Stephen and Wong through the library wall.

Stephen is alive for long enough to consider how upset Wong will be at the destruction of all their manuscripts, and then he’s gone.

~*~

Tap, tap. A rhythmic beat of Tony Stark’s foot against the Sanctum’s floor. It’s quiet, compared to the sounds of destruction Stephen had been listening to only seconds ago.

“What I don’t understand,” Tony Stark says, “is what the problem would be with moving into a larger complex. Not so old, maybe. Your stairs creak, and I don’t think your heater has worked since the ‘70s.”

Stephen breathes slowly. Turns to look at Tony. He’s still sitting there, alive and well. His eyes are brown, and not lit up by an unnatural energy source. He seems a little tired, with rings underneath his eyes, but he’s fine.

“Tony,” he says, and his tongue is dry. He doesn’t know what else to say.

All his life, Stephen Strange has dedicated his time and knowledge to saving people. Here is a man to save: a hero, a dear friend, a wonderfully dedicated father. Here is a world to save: New York and all its inhabitants, living in a loop in Time that keeps going ‘round to the same morning.

And no one but him to remember what is wrong. 

“Hey,” Tony says, and frowns. He shrugs on his blouse, not even bothering to button up, and kneels next to Stephen. “Stephen, hey, look at me. Are you okay?”

It’s just too much. Stephen’s still breathing hard from the transition from today’s evening to today’s morning, Tony’s corpse disintegrating in front of him with the power of the Infinity Stones, and no one to remember any of it. He has half a day to fix it, and he doesn’t know where to start.

He promised Tony that he’d figure it out. Tony doesn’t remember that promise. Does it matter, then? Did Stephen really make that promise, if he’s the only one out of the two of them to remember it?

Is it real, if the universe is being rewritten like this? Stephen breathes hard, and squeezes the hand Tony offers. 

“Yeah,” he says eventually, and takes a few more breaths. “Yeah, I’m fine.”

“Okay,” Tony says, and shuffles closer. His body is still warm, but he’s not burning up like he was – a few minutes ago, actually. And yet, he’s a ticking time bomb, ready to go off and destroy the world yet again.

“I’m fine,” he repeats, and doesn’t know if it’s for himself or for Tony. It doesn’t matter; Tony sits next to him quietly, and when Stephen rests his head on Tony’s shoulder, it’s turned into a hug.

His breath shudders, and he remains there for what is far too long for a man who claims he’s fine.

~*~

He sends Tony home, promising that he’ll be fine, that there’s nothing going on. The lies burn in his chest, but he’s already made promises he can’t be sure to keep. He has no illusions about solving this problem within this loop, and so it doesn’t matter what he says. Tony won’t remember.

This is a reality only to him.

He snaps at Wong, and tries not to feel guilty about it. Wong won’t remember either, and Stephen won’t have to beg for forgiveness later. His friend’s look is sour but also oddly concerned, and when Stephen goes to sit in the garden an hour later, a cup of tea appears next to him.

He goes to Wong, and apologises, and they sit together. Wong talks about one myth or the other, and Stephen’s ears ring with the uselessness of it all. Normally, he’d be asking more questions, but now everything feels hollow. And the point is that he knows it’s not; this is the reality he’s striving for. This is as it should be.

He spends an entire day, and when the green beam rises up into the sky from near Avengers Towers and collapses in on itself, Stephen still finds himself making a shield, even though it won’t matter.

~*~

“What I don’t understand,” Tony says, “is what the problem would be with moving into a larger complex. Not so old, maybe. Your stairs creak, and I don’t think your heater has worked since the ‘70s.”

~*~

Stephen uses the portal to the Hong Kong Sanctum. Tina Minoru, its guardian, is vaguely suspicious of his presence, and unfailingly kind and helpful in spite of it. Stephen understands her very well; the fact that he’s here spells something that she does not like. All the most important tomes are with Wong, and Wong is with Stephen.

If he’s so urgently looking for something that Wong doesn’t have, it means disaster for them all. And yet, Minoru does not demand a single answer when he goes through her documents, asking for anything that might relate to Time.

“That’s the Book of Cagliostro,” she says, as she crosses her arms, “and we won’t have anything else on it.”

“Anything that can help,” Stephen insists, and he’s the highest-ranking Master, and Minoru does not protest. Without further ado, she brings him what he needs, and sits with him until the world is swallowed up in green, even on the other side of the world.

Stephen still can’t bring himself to stop bringing up a shield, holding Minoru’s lifeless body tightly against his own before he succumbs to the spell.

~*~

“What I don’t understand is what the problem would be with moving into a larger complex. Not so old, maybe. Your stairs creak, and I don’t think your heater has worked since the ‘70s.”

~*~

He’s running out of ideas of where to go. Tony’s spent an entire loop trying to find a more scientific approach; the Sanctum’s manuscripts don’t have the answers he’s looking for. Stephen sends away Tony, and rummages through the old artefacts of the Sanctum.

The Eye of Agamotto is an empty container now, and he runs his finger over it when he finds it. He’d worn it for a few weeks after they had defeated Thanos and so narrowly avoided the fate in which the world had only half its original occupants, only because he’d gotten so used to it. 

Tony had looked at it once, his eyes dark, lingering on the empty husk. Stephen had never worn it again after that, although he wouldn’t be able to explain why. Perhaps it’s a good thing Wong had never asked, because Stephen thinks the truth might only come to light spilling over his lips, the words only becoming real when the question is asked.

He’d been proud to master Time, once upon a time. He still does not regret what he’s used the Time Stone for, really. He can’t look at the Eye now without thinking of darker times, and is secretly glad the Stone’s been taken from him when he had no say in it at all.

No matter what the Eye of Agamotto means to him, now. The Cloak levitates over the other artefacts, as Stephen works out their meaning. He could have asked Wong to do this for him; his friend would have been quicker at it. 

He would’ve asked what’s going on.

The Sanctum goes up in a blast of green again, and it comes too unexpectedly for Stephen to create a shield.

~*~

“What I don’t understand is what the problem would be with moving into a larger complex. Not so old, maybe. Your stairs creak, and I don’t think your heater has worked since the ‘70s.”

~*~

An entire group of sorcerers can’t create a shield large enough to protect even the Sanctum from the spell. Stephen watches as Wong drags Nia Ochieng to safety, although something has cut right through her abdominal muscle, and it’s bleeding heavily.

He grits his teeth, and is thrown back by a flash of green.

~*~

“What I don’t understand is what the problem would be with moving into a larger complex. Not so old, maybe. Your stairs creak, and I don’t think your heater has worked since the ‘70s.”

~*~

He is losing count. Stephen sleeps through the fall of the spell, and it’s oddly disconcerting.

~*~

“What I don’t understand is what the problem would be with moving into a larger complex. Not so old, maybe. Your stairs creak, and I don’t think your heater has worked since the ‘70s.”

~*~

It should be starting to feel like a curse, to sit here with Tony Stark. As it is, it feels like the last slice of normalcy in Stephen’s life, the last remnant of a time he wasn’t living through Thursday a thousand times over.

At least the loops he’d spent with Dormammu had been short. He’d died far too many times to count, but he rather thinks he prefers the pain of the deaths over the agony of waiting for that green beam to tear apart the world, again, knowing there’s no plan to stop it. Knowing that Tony’s body is at the bottom of that beam, disintegrating because of powers too large for a mortal body to contain.

Sitting here with Tony Stark is a reminder that there’s always a way to fix it. Even if it takes fourteen million tries.

The world ends in green, at ten to eight thirty.

~*~

“What I don’t understand is what the problem would be -”

“Yes,” Stephen interrupts him. Tony blinks, oddly surprised at the interruption. There is little Stephen has not said to him yet, and at any rate, he can’t remember all of it. He’s never interrupted Tony before, though, and there’s the thrill of something happening a little differently.

It won’t stick, of course. But it’s a way of differentiating one time loop from another.

“Yes?” Tony says, and he’s not tapping the wood anymore. “Yes what ?”

“Yes, you do understand,” Stephen says. “If anyone understands the issues of having an empty home, it’s you.”

Tony winces. Stephen is both glad and ashamed to see it. He has never been the most tactile of men, but he’s always trying to be better. This time loop makes it harder to be the best person he can be: it won’t matter what he does. All his actions will be rewritten, and he won’t live with the consequences.

“Low blow,” Tony says, and shrugs, as if he doesn’t mind. 

“I’m sorry,” Stephen says. He shouldn’t have interrupted, not even for a change of pace.

“Nah,” Tony says too brightly, too quickly. “You’re right. I do know. It’s why I’ve always wanted everyone together, you know. Of course you know, you’ve been paying attention. Guess I shouldn’t have been trying to talk you out of yours.”

Stephen thinks of the Avengers Tower, and Pepper hurrying by him on the street. Peter and Bruce in a lab, and Tony, by himself, stepping out of the elevator for a meeting. Surrounded by people by day. Who’s still there in the evenings?

“You know,” he says, “maybe it’s a good idea, anyway. It’s not permanent, but I’ve found that the Sanctum can be – much, sometimes. For newer novices, but also for me. Having a more modern place to retreat to might be a good idea, from time to time.”

Tony beams. Stephen smiles back, more relieved than anything else. Just because Tony won’t remember it doesn’t mean that Stephen doesn’t mean it, after all.

“That’s what I’m here for,” Tony says lightly, and stands up. He tries to, anyway – he falls over before he really gets anywhere, and Stephen catches him in a reflex. Tony’s skin is cold and clammy to the touch, and his breath wheezes for a second before he gets himself upright.

“Tony,” Stephen says in concern, and helps Tony down on the floor to lean against the chair.

“Right as rain,” Tony says, and takes a deep breath. It rattles in his chest; Stephen can tell, and he doesn’t even need a stethoscope to know that there’s a war going on inside Tony’s chest.

Tony might be reset, but the Time Stone residue in his blood isn’t. Who knows how long they have before Tony’ll die on the spot? There’s not even the certainty that it will end the loop, at any rate, even if Stephen hadn’t cared. They might just forever live in that single moment, relooped into infinity into a single moment.

As it is, Stephen also cares. That doesn’t mean that the possibility isn’t slightly terrifying. If the time loop doesn’t run itself out, or if it doesn’t stop at a more permanent version of Tony’s death, Time itself might cease. That is the power of even the tiny bit of residue in Tony’s blood.

“You’re in no condition to leave,” Stephen realizes. How many loops has he sent Tony on his way when he was growing too ill? How many times has Tony collapsed now after leaving the Sanctum, while Stephen was worrying about other things than his friend?

Tony won’t remember, but Stephen grows nauseous at the thought. All lives, he’d once promised. He wanted to save all lives.

“Don’t worry ‘bout me,” Tony says, but his hands tremble and his grip on Stephen is weak. The scars on his chest stand out all the more, and Stephen gently hands him his blouse. Tony sends him a look of gratitude, even as Stephen helps him put it on. 

It’s not much of an armour, that navy suit of Tony’s, but it has to be better than sitting here half-naked.

“I do worry,” Stephen says. Tony grows silent and tilts his head to look at him. Stephen stands up, rubbing his own arm awkwardly. “Come on, we’ll find a place for you to rest a little. I need to discuss something with Wong, but the gardens are nice, in the morning.”

He helps up Tony, until he stands without wobbling. The walk to the garden isn’t so much slow as it is steady; Tony already seems a bit better by the time they find the first tree to lean against. Perhaps it was just the shock of the loop settling that caused him to be worse off than he seems now, Stephen reflects. At any rate, it’s an unwelcome reminder that he’s on a deadline – Tony’s deadline.

“Master Strange!”

It’s Nia Ochieng. Stephen turns towards her. “Yes?”

“The class this afternoon,” she starts, and then her eyes flit to Tony. She lifts her eyebrows. “I had a question about the curriculum, but never mind, I suppose, if you’re wandering the gardens with Iron Man.”

“I’m retired ,” Tony says, and rubs his mechanical prosthetic. “It’s up to you newbies now. And we’re not wandering the gardens, we’re just – walking. People just walk, you know.”

“You don’t look like you can take another two steps,” Nia says sceptically, and yes, Tony’s at least standing on two feet, but he’s still pale. The cold sunlight of the morning only highlights the creases in his blouse and the shadows under his eyes. Still, Tony grins.

“Two I could do,” Tony says. “Definitely two. Stephen, tell your pupils not to issue me any challenges. What do I get if I take two steps?”

“I don’t know,” Nia says. “Maybe you’ll suffer a heart attack?”

“I’m fine ,” Tony says.

Nia smiles wryly. “We all come to the Sanctum when we’re ill,” she says, “even if we’re not ill in the way we think we are, and we’re not always fixed in the ways we expect to be fixed.”

“Sit down, Tony,” Stephen says strictly, and Tony doesn’t really sit, but he does lean against the tree. The lack of protest isn’t as much Stephen’s authoritative voice, he’s afraid, but more of Tony’s exhaustion affecting him. He turns to Nia. “And don’t bother him. Stay here with Tony for a couple of minutes, won’t you, Nia?”

“Where are you going?” Tony protests. 

“Wong,” Stephen says.

“In the library,” Nia says, although he already knew that. “I think he meant to get the Book of the Vishanti for our lesson, and has gotten lost in it. He did that when we were talking about the Codex, too. About the Book of the Vishanti for today –”

“Save your questions for the lesson,” Stephen tells her. “And Wong’s not lost in the Book of the Vishanti, we can’t read half of it. We don’t even… know…”

“I know that face,” Tony says accusingly. “What’s the emergency, Stephen?”

“The Book of the Vishanti,” Stephen says, and runs.

~*~

He should have thought of it earlier, but he thinks he can be forgiven for completely forgetting to check the Book of the Vishanti. After all, there’s barely a tenth of the Book that they can access. All the information that’s in the Book is well-known and barely relevant for what’s going on.

If it hadn’t been written by the man who’d held a Time Stone, Stephen might never have thought of it. But there’s the unbreakable Seals, and centuries of thoughts of how to break them. Thousands of discussions on if they needed breaking. Stephen wonders what The Ancient One had thought of it; he’d never had the time to discuss these things with her, and he doesn’t want to ask Wong.

Using your best trick only once is the best way to keep it a secret.

What if Agamotto had used his best trick twice , and no one had even considered it? The Time Stone has only very specific uses, after all, and no one had used it in a long time before Stephen picked it up. Anyone who knows even the basics of the Mystic Arts knows that there are several types of energy to use for spell-crafting, and an Infinity Stones’ energy – no one would know how to use it, or even that if it could be used in the first place.

They don’t have the Time Stone anymore, even if Stephen could find the very specific spell that Agamotto might have used, if his theory is to pan out. What they do have, however, is some very annoying energy residue in Tony Stark’s blood.

And Tony Stark’s sitting right there in the Sanctum’s garden.

~*~

“Time loops,” Tony Stark says, just an hour later, in the midst of the Sanctum’s library. Wong is tapping the cover of the Book of the Vishanti, as if he’s forgotten it’s even there when Stephen began his tale. Nia, who hadn’t wanted to leave and who, in Stephen’s mind, is at least a little bit involved since she’s helped before, sits next to Tony.

Tony’s just pale, and it’s not only his exhaustion, this time.

“I’ve tried a lot of things,” Stephen says. “There’s no document on this Earth that contains any information, or else it’s very well hidden. There’s no spell I know that could ever undo anything that’s being done by an Infinity Stone, and there’s no way to forcibly combat the spell. Every day, a green beam collapses in the sky, and we start today over again.”

“Are you sure it’s a loop?” Wong says. “There are other things that it could be –”

“No, he’s sure,” Tony answers before Stephen can open his mouth. Tony’s eyes are heavy on his, dark and serious. 

“Yes, I am,” Stephen affirms. “I can feel it, and I’ve seen it. The entire world is reset. I’ve been to Hong Kong while it struck, and it reached even there.” 

“So what do we do?” Nia says, and glances at Tony. “If we remove what causes the energy –”

Tony shakes his head. “Wouldn’t work, right? That might kill me. It’s what keeps me alive, right now, the residue, and with me gone, the time loop would become static. The entire world, trapped in a single moment, forced to relive it forever.”

“He’s right,” Wong murmurs, and taps his fingers on the Book of the Vishanti again. Stephen nods, and crosses his arms.

“Time loops are,” Stephen starts, and hesitates for a second, “unpredictable. I’ve been in one once before, and that one was fully under my control. This one comes from Tony but was tripped by me, and there’s no one who can put a stop to it. Not like this.”

“Wait, hold on a second there,” Tony says. “You were in a time loop before? When ?”

“It doesn’t matter.” Stephen doesn’t want to think about that, right now. “The point is, a time loop is a crack in Time. It’s not something that occurs naturally, and it takes tremendous power to hold it. The fact that it’s not breaking is a testament to the power of the Infinity Stones’ residue, but it won’t hold forever. Tony won’t hold forever, and if the residue becomes strong enough to kill him, there’s no chance left.”

“So what will ?” Nia asks. “Even only theoretically?”

“Well, either Tony becomes more powerful than Thanos ever was,” Stephen says dryly, “or we learn how to control the spell through Tony’s energy. Both extremely improbable, and very difficult to coordinate, the loops being what they are. We need to find a way to use the loops against themselves, somehow, maybe. I don’t know how .”

“Theoretically, there’s a lot of paradoxes involved in any sort of time-related event,” Tony says, pinching his nose as he leans against the table, but then he breathes out and waves his hands around instead. “I’m not sure how any of them would work in a real-life event. Time travel, when I did it, caused alternate dimensions. That solves one paradox, but –”

“That’s not what happens here,” Stephen interrupts. “The Time Stone didn’t work like that. It overrode events in this dimension.”

“That doesn’t mean there still aren’t paradoxes,” Wong says. “Even more so, arguably. That doesn’t bring us closer to a solution.”

“I know,” Stephen mutters, and shifts a little so he can tap the Book of the Vishanti. “I’d hoped this might.”

Wong raises one eyebrow. “A Book that we haven’t managed to open since the passing of Agamotto? You know there’s Seals that we can’t open, Stephen.”

“Hey, hey, a second here,” Tony says. “What’s the Book, who’s Agamotto, what’s the Vishanti, why do they have Seals, and why do we need it?”

Stephen huffs out a breath, amused. “The Book of the Vishanti. The majority of it was written by the same man who created the Eye of Agamotto, which held the Time Stone for centuries. He created Seals in the Book, and we lost the ability to break the Seals, so there’s a lot there that we simply can’t read.”

“And because he held the Time Stone, you think he wrote about time loops,” Tony says slowly, frowning. “A bit of a leap to put the fate of the world on, Stephen, not going to lie. Especially because you don’t even know if he knew about time loops in the first place.”

“Oh, he knew,” Stephen says. “The real question is if he knew how to deal with the time loops if they aren’t your own. If there’s an answer, it’s going to be in the Book of the Vishanti.”

~*~ 

The garden’s lovely in the evening. Stephen has always thought so: he’s spent entire nights here, sometimes astral projecting, if he’s in a rush. There’s something magical about the warm summer nights that has never lost its appeal. The novices are all gone, and one or two Masters are practising their crafts.

This is the home that Stephen has sworn to preserve. This is the garden in which he realized he could be happy, in the Sanctum. It’s been years since he first came to Kamar Taj, waiting to be healed, only to find something to lead a life for.

“It’s going to come, isn’t it?” Wong says, when he joins him. Inside, in the library, Tony and Nia will still be sitting in front of the Book of the Vishanti. They’re a forceful team, that’s for certain, and Stephen would have called it the start of a worrisome friendship if only he didn’t know for sure that neither Tony nor Nia would remember knowing each other, in a few minutes.

“A quarter past eight,” Stephen says, and shrugs. “It falls apart a bit before eight thirty. And Tony’s here, so we’ll be right in the action.”

Wong lets out a deep breath. “So you’ve seen him die, before? From the spell?”

“Yeah,” Stephen mutters. 

“And you’re here, now,” Wong continues, “because you don’t want to see it again.”

Stephen straightens, and the Cloak wraps itself around his left leg. It’s comforting, in a way, and he pets the Cloak absentmindedly. He wonders if the Cloak remembers the loops, or if it’s just picking up his mood.

“I’ve started this Thursday sitting right next to him, as I’ve started a great many Thursdays now,” Stephen says. “I’ll see him in a few minutes, and he won’t remember anything I said this day at all, and I’ll have to explain it to him, and to you. I know I should be making these last few minutes count, Wong, I know . But I just –”

“Hm,” Wong says, and sighs. “It sounds like you need a few minutes to compose yourself.”

Stephen looks at him. “We still had half an hour, and I walked out. I shouldn’t have done that.”

Wong shrugs. “Half an hour’s not going to make a difference, Stephen. You should take care of yourself, if it’s all going to reset. Have you been sleeping, in the loops? Have you eaten anything?”

“My body resets, too,” Stephen says. “It’s not a constant state of being awake, although I don’t really sleep in between . It’s – I’m well-rested, even if I skip the nights.”

Wong nods. “The Book will still be here, Stephen. All of us will be, whether we remember or not. It’s true for me, and it’s true for Stark.”

Stephen doesn’t respond, and watches the trees. The sensation of the spell is growing heavier, again. He can feel it everywhere, and he just stands there, waiting for the world to fall away again. Wong stands next to him, and that’s more of a comfort than he can put in words.

At eighteen minutes past eight, a green blast destroys all of the Sanctum first, and the world next.

~*~

“What I don’t understand,” Tony Stark says, “is what the problem would be with moving into a larger complex. Not so old, maybe. Your stairs creak, and I don’t think your heater has worked since the ‘70s.”

“At least the ‘80s,” Stephen mutters, and sighs. 

“That’s still over thirty years ago,” Tony says, and leans back. “It’s not – ugh. Stephen?”

Stephen looks up. Tony’s blinking sluggishly at him, his hand gripping his seat so tight that it’s completely white. Stephen moves immediately, pressing his hand to Tony’s forehead and keeping him steady.

“Don’t worry,” he can hear himself say, although he’s not focusing on words at all, “You’ll be alright, you’ll be fine. Just talk to me, Tony, just say something.”

Tony’s pressing his eyes shut. “Something’s wrong,” he says. “I can’t – remember –”

“Don’t worry about that,” Stephen says, and frowns. “Breathe, just breathe.”

“Do I look,” Tony says, wheezing and clenching Stephen’s hand with a bruising force, “as if – I need to – be – reminded ?”

Stephen doesn’t comment on that, just breathes with Tony. He’s seen enough attacks to recognise one, and this doesn’t seem like a physical illness, but something else. Tony holds his hand tightly through all of it, and Stephen risks laying his hand on Tony’s knee. Tony doesn’t respond to that, so Stephen sits there with him.

Through the window, the morning sunlight falls again. Tony’s breathing slows, until he closes his eyes and leans back in his chair. His hair is matted to his face, and his chest is slowly moving up and down. Stephen watches him, and dares not to move.

“Are you okay?” he asks, eventually.

Tony cracks open one eye, and sits up. He’s still holding Stephen’s hand, and it’s an anchor for now, so Stephen doesn’t let go, either. It’s almost as if Tony is challenging him, except that Stephen knows that Tony would never let a challenge go unsaid.

“No,” Tony says, eventually. “How the fuck did you do all of this?”

“Do what ?”

“The time loops,” Tony says, and he’s pale and run ragged with exhaustion and more determined than Stephen’s ever seen him. “You said you’ve been in time loops before. I can’t – that’s – it’s painful . All the – we died . Every day, we died . Chances are we’re going to die again, tonight.”

Stephen’s heart beats loudly. “You’re an Avenger,” he says. “You understand how to sacrifice.”

Tony looks at him, something achingly concerned in his expression. “Not like that , Stephen. Never like that. We always save the day, in the end. We’ve never – not like that .”

Stephen nods slowly. “Why do you remember?” he asks. “Why now, why at all?”

“I think I already did remember,” Tony says. “A little bit, anyway. More importantly, what are we going to do?”

“Same thing we did before,” Stephen says, and nudges Tony carefully. “Find a way to fix it.”

Tony sighs. “Or die trying. Right.”

Stephen Strange, standing next to a Tony Stark who has died a grand number of forty-nine times already, smiles at him, and starts the fiftieth Thursday in a row.