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Stephen always had a couple of weird instincts that he could never quite explain.
The first was an innate sense of death, if you could call it that. One look at a person and he could tell if they were about to shuffle off the mortal coil anytime soon. He could look at someone with stage 4 cancer struggling to make it through their day to day and say they’d be fine while taking a look at someone who was seemingly fine and give them 24 hours. Lo and behold, the cancer patient would go into remission and the other would have an aneurysm and pass 16 hours later. Stephen was not quite sure how he could do it, but he did not truly dismiss it as odd coincidences. He was a man of science, yes, but there was proven accuracy in this…ability and even if he couldn’t explain it he used it to the best ability in his work. Turning down patients who wouldn’t make it for he knew that nothing he would do would help.
If he started seeing a dark figure in a black cloak lurking around in the corner of his eye, he wouldn’t dare tell anyone. Not willing to acknowledge anything that could ruin what he had begun to trust as something only he could do.
The other thing that was odd about Stephen Strange was his fascination and love of time. He could never truly explain it, but the concept was just brimming with possibilities and mystery that even from a young age he clung to the idea. Watches and clocks seemed to utterly enrapture the boy when he was growing up, something about how people could find a way to capture a concept and give it life and quantify it. Not that it was a flawless system, of course, but it still was amazing. As he grew up, he collected all sorts of means to measure time: clocks, watches, pocket watches. The ticking second hand of a clock was like a balm on his soul. Stephen also grew to appreciate music and its hidden measurements of time as well. It was more poetic, in a way, and just felt right .
The beginning of the end for Stephen Strange, of course, was his car accident.
There was an impending sense of something big occurring soon when he stepped into his car that night. There was no lingering sense of doom, but it was as if the weave of the universe was holding its breath as he drove in the steep and winding roads that night.
Despite having his entire world disrupted with the loss of his hands to tremors and pain, Stephen was still remarkably calm about the entire situation. Christine tried to get him to talk to therapists since he seemed to be incredibly too lax in his response. Something about disassociating due to trauma, he supposed, but Stephen didn’t really mind. He only asked for a clock to be placed in his recovery room. The man wasn’t even entirely sure for himself why he wasn’t raging against the world for taking everything away, but he wasn’t. As he laid in his bed at night, the gentle lull of the clock would be his lullaby as he drifted to sleep. It was only then that he could almost feel ghostly hands caressing his face, a woman’s voice whispering soon into his ear.
Stephen was also careful not to mention that he could see the shadowy figure more now. A hood disguising his identity, but the skeletal hands giving everything away. The figure never interacted with him other than to nod from a distance, but Stephen did not fear the grim. He knew it was merely…checking in.
After months of physical therapy and almost a shroud of apathy draped over him, the second big occurrence was hearing about Pangborn. At Christine’s insistence to look for more recovery options (and to draw him out of his newly found silence and level-headedness) Stephen looked for possible options. When he read about a parapeligic man now able to play basketball and walk as if it never happened, something in him pushed him to investigate.
So, after talking with the man, Stephen found himself on a flight to Kathmandu. His apartment at home would be cared for but he had sold his cars as he did not wish to drive himself ever again. He could have booked a first class ticket, but something told him to fly economy. He never really questioned these nudges anymore. Not when that feminine voice would curl around him and coo praises at him and like a surge of dopamine, he found himself craving for more of her, whoever she was.
Stephen found Kamar Taj easily. His black cloaked ‘friend’ stood waiting for him at the airport, holding a cardboard sign proclaiming ‘Strange’ and it was all Stephen could do not to laugh because he was the only one who could see the damn person. They did not board a cab or a bus but merely walked the streets of Kathmandu, Stephen following the being who had never steered him wrong before. He wasn’t truly worried about following the grim figure to his death. He had spent his entire life following the skeletal figure and trusting him.
Eventually they reached Kamar Taj and his friend knocked on the door. It took a moment before a bald headed woman in white robes appeared at the door. She almost looked startled to find Stephen’s friend at the door before bowing her head. The grim figure bobbed his head as well before gesturing to Stephen who was shocked that someone else could see the man.
In the second it took for the two humans to stare at each other, the man was gone.
“Welcome to Kamar Taj. I’m afraid you caught me at a loss, Doctor Strange, but with friends in such interesting places, you certainly know how to dance around fate.”
“I should probably be surprised that you already know me but with our mutual friend I really shouldn’t be.” He replied and the woman let out a warm smile and ushered him inside.
Where The Ancient One was expecting a cocky and arrogant doctor who did not begin to fathom the depths of magic, she found a Stephen Strange who struggled, yes, but not with the concept of otherworldly existences. He grew frustrated but did not lash out, was almost…distracted by something only he could hear but tried to ignore. She would have to look into that. He was nothing like the visions she had been given so long ago.
Stephen, for his part, fell in love with magic in a way he hadn’t since beginning to learn medicine. It was difficult, absolutely it was difficult, but he smitten with the fact that magic existed and it wasn’t his imagination for so many years. To be validated, even on something he never spoke aloud, was freeing. The Ancient One herself was his mentor and teacher. He became a friend and nuisance to Wong, the new librarian of Kamar Taj. He never needed to be dropped on Mt Everest to learn how to use portals though it did take him a while.
Every night, the whispering in his ear grew louder. Promising him that they would meet in person soon and that they would soon be together and wouldn’t be broken apart. Stephen never talked about the voice, but he was paranoid that his teacher and friend could tell there was something distracting him.
The library was filled with a siren’s song to him. Similar to Grim, as he called his silent companion (who he hadn’t seen since arriving at Kamar Taj), he began to see wisps of green rolling through the air caressing his skin. It completely destroyed his watch anytime it happened but he couldn’t find it in himself to care. He was constantly pulled towards the relic in the deepest part of Kamar Taj. Wong had smacked him away time and time again even if sometimes Stephen had no idea how he reached there in the first place. The Ancient One and Wong were becoming more and more concerned.
Then Kaecillius made his move.
Stephen gained a friend in the cloak of levitation but lost his mentor. The Ancient One gracefully took the hand of Grim who had reappeared to personally escort her to the next big adventure. Stephen merely thanked his mentor for what she had provided him and Grim for being there for her. He absolutely knew the figure’s name but could not bring himself to say it quite yet.
Then finally, Stephen got to use the Eye of Agamotto. Despite the dire need and risk in Hong Kong, Stephen was distracted by the fact that the time stone felt like coming home. It soothed an ache in his soul that he didn’t know was there. The voice had been the time stone all along. Her reassurance that he had been what she had been waiting for was a balm.
It was why he took on Dormammu with such calm and determination. The time loop was easy, even if Time whispered of consequence with almost an excitement to her voice. Stephen did not care if it would save his world and universe.
In another universe, Stephen would hold his ground through around a hundred deaths before Dormammu grew bored and gave up his quest to consume earth.
That was not this universe.
Stephen found himself trapped in a stalemate for over a million loops. Steadfast and determined, he endured every death imaginable from the rule of the dark dimension and his conviction never wavered. Time was his constant companion, as was the cloak, though his relic friend seemed to darken with age as the centuries went by eventually becoming a dark black. They may have been in a time loop but the physical consequences from harnessing the power of an infinity stone for that long took its toll.
Stephen, on the other hand, had other consequences. Time had murmured assurances that when he was finished, he would be free. That she would keep him forever and he slowly fell in love. It pushed him to keep going even as he slowly became more while becoming less human.
The visible mark that Time made on Stephen was his hands. The spell was looped through his hands and as each loop occurred, they seemed to wither away more and more until they became skeletal but still functioning while the rest of him was timeless and did not decay. It was her gift to him. It was that realization that had him laughing. The answer to the question he had wondered his entire life.
He was Death.
Stephen was forged by Time and sacrifice to become Death. An entity who could appear anywhere at any time. Like the time loop, his existence was a paradox. He would have never made it here unless he made it so. Time was his lover for they could be cruel or kind but both were impartial. The cloak would be with him as a companion but would not reveal his secrets and all anyone would see of him was his hands.
It was with knowledge that when Dormammu finally agreed to the bargain, Stephen asked his friend to add a hood to conceal his identity before returning to a world he had not experienced in over two thousand years.
The world would believe Stephen Strange was dead and they wouldn’t be wrong, per say. Wong met Death as an old friend as the entity returned from the dark dimension instead of Stephen. In exchange for the Time stone, Death would leave Wong with an old damaged watch and worn sling ring. Stephen Strange would be remembered as a hero and a martyr as well as a friend.
Death merely slipped into the shadows to begin what had already begun a long time ago.