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Chapter Text

The ricochet of the double propulsor attack was spectacular.

Both Tony and Rhodey were thrown on opposite sides of the mansion as the glass shattered around them. His ear rang from the blast, vision completely white for enough seconds that he seriously worried he had lost some senses in the explosion.

Even though he was in the armour and it had thus cushioned his fall, he definitely felt the pain in his back and in his body from that crash. Not terrible as some of the other pains he had felt in his life, no. But still, he knew he was going to be sore the next morning.

Still, Rhodey forced himself back on his feet as soon as his eyes made out the HUD again, and he tried to focus on where Tony was still slumped on the ground.

He doubted that the attack had hurt him any more than it had hurt Rhodey, but Tony had been pretty drunk all throughout the night, and was thus more disorientated than Rhodey was.

And there was the other thing.

Rhodey could have taken the suit and flown away, at this point. Tony was in no shape to stop him, and it wasn’t as if he was going to. This fight had had less to do with Rhodey putting on Tony’s armour without permission than people thought.

Rhodey could have flown off with it, and Tony could/would not have stopped him.

But Rhodey did not fly off.

Instead, he forced himself to his feet, and gingerly walked back towards Tony, trying not to destroy the mansion any more than it already was.

“What, here for round three?” asked Tony, when he saw him approaching. He did not move from the ground, but his tone held that fed up note Rhodey could only detect because he had been looking for it. That fed up tone of ‘what more do you want from me’ Tony had employed a lot back at MIT - with people other than Rhodey - and that he had not heard in many years.

He wondered if it had been there, throughout the fight, that tone. If Tony had been as done with the entire thing from the beginning, but Rhodey had been too focused at how angry he was at him to hear it.

He hoped it hadn’t, but he had a feeling it maybe had.

He had a feeling he had been so focused on his own work, on his own feelings, on himself, that he had not heard Tony’s call of help - a call for help meant for Rhodey only to understand. 

But that was then, and this was now, so Rhodey bent his legs - bent his legs - as well as the suit allowed him, and then pulled off his helmet to look at the point where Tony’s eyes were, behind his own helmet.

“Talk to me,” he ordered.

“What is there to talk about? You ruined my birthday party. You-”

“Five rum and cokes,” interrupted Rhodey, and Tony fell silent.

Five rum and cokes.

Something akin an oath, that they had created back at MIT.

It had taken five rum and cokes for Tony to admit Howard’s physical and psychological abuse of him, and it had taken five rum and cokes for Rhodey to admit to Tony the first time he had considered killing himself.

Since then, it had become their promise/vow to each other.

If one asked the other for five rum and cokes, they were asking for the truth, and the whole truth. They were asking the why , for the real reason behind it all, and they were swearing that not only would they not repeat the information to anyone, but that they’d also not judge them for it. That they were going to listen to everything being said, and that they were going to be there for them after it, in whatever way they could.

It was their promise to one another. A promise that they very rarely used, that was mostly a last resource; but that existed between them nevertheless, and that they had promised themselves and each other to always honour.

Rhodey wondered why he had not asked, before.

Perhaps, part of him had not really wanted to know.

Tony’s helmet snapped back, and there was an inscrutable light in his eyes that had not been there a few minutes ago. Any performed drunkenness was now missing from his eyes, replaced by a serious expression and eyes trying to figure out what had changed in the past few minutes.

“Five rum and cokes,” he repeated, as if to make sure, as if it was a question.

Rhodey nodded. “Five rum and cokes.”

“I am dying,” said Tony, without needing any further prompting. His eyes were still fixed on Rhodey’s face, as if he was afraid to look anywhere else. His fists were clenched beside him, and he was doing his best to keep his expression blank. “The arc reactor runs on Palladium, and it is poisoning me the more I use it. But if I take it out, the shrapnel in my heart will kill me way faster than the palladium ever would. I have been trying to find a solution or a way to lessen out the effects, but there is nothing. So, since I am dying, I have come to the conclusion that I might have some fun before it.”

The last time Rhodey had been told Tony was dying, he had been nearly dying himself, with Vanko using his suit to try and kill Tony. He had been so high on adrenaline he had barely processed it, instead focusing on the part where Tony was no longer dying.

He had quelled the panic before it could form, and had not really understood the emotional toll the entire affair had taken on his friend until his legs had stopped working and, for the first time in years, he and Tony had been forced to slow down, sit down, and finally really talk to one another about everything.

This time, even though he knew better, the fear clawed at his chest immediately, horror clear in his eyes and face. He knew better, he knew how to fix this, but he still couldn’t quite stop himself from grasping at Tony’s hand.

He also did not really want to stop.

Because last time Rhodey had had to choose between his duty and Tony, and he had chosen wrong (Tony might have let him leave with the armour, but it had taken months if not years for the small fracture in their friendship to be fixed).

Because Rhodey had lived in a world where Tony Stark had died, and he knew what that was like. He knew what it was like to live without Tony, and he had decided he could not do that. He could not do it, the world could not afford to do it, and so he had come back in time with one vow: he would never again let Tony kill or sacrifice himself.

Never again.

Time travel.

Rhodey could still not quite believe that it had worked. Could not quite believe that they had managed to do it – again – this time without using the machine or the Pym particles. Could not believe that he was now somehow inhabiting a body thirteen years younger than he was, a body without the injuries the years had made accustomed to, and with fully functioning legs and spine.

He had long since resigned himself to the fact that, unless he was wearing Tony’s braces, he was never going to be able to walk again. It had taken a long time, and a lot of talks from therapists as well as his mother’s love and Tony’s existence, but he had accepted it, understood it.

And now here he was, upright once more, running a broom over the destruction he and Tony and the party had reigned on the living room, with Tony helping him out.

With Tony alive. With Tony whole. With Tony younger than he had been, with all that bravado and arrogance that Rhodey had not even noticed SHIELD, the Avengers and the world had snipped away from him, piece after piece.

He remembered himself, at this point in time.

He had been flying towards the Edwards base, angry at himself and angry at Tony, angry at being put in a situation where he had to choose between friendship and his career, doing his best to control an unfamiliar suit Tony had only ever let him play around with in his workshop, and wishing that Tony would, one day, grow up.

His phone was still buzzing in his pocket, but this time Rhodey had no interest in making the choice he had made before.

He had lived in a world where he had been given an honourable discharge because of injury for more than seven years, and he had lived in a world without Tony at his side for about a week.

He knew which one was worse, which one he was ready to sacrifice the other for.

“Are you not-” started Tony, when his phone vibrated again, and Rhodey shook his head.

“No. Actually,” he then added, pulling said phone out. But he did not answer it, instead turning it off without even checking to see who was calling. He knew who was calling, and it could wait.

“Rhodey,” said Tony, looking slightly conflicted.

“No,” reiterated Rhodey, pausing the sweeping to look him in the eyes. “There is nowhere that I need to be more than I need to be here. I don’t care what you think on this particular topic or what you want to say: you are the most important thing to me right now.” He glared at him. “You are my best friend, and have been suffering alone for far too long already. I won’t let you suffer for any longer, not if I can do anything to help.”

Tony blinked a couple of times, much more quickly than he needed to, and Rhodey kindly decided to not bring any attention to it.

When he spoke again, he seemed to have gotten some control over his emotions again. 

“I’ve tried, Rhodey,” he said, and now he sounded more resigned than anything. “Why do you think I gave Pepper the company? Why do you think I promoted Happy? Why do you think I had a super suit that fit you like a glove just waiting in my workshop for you to take?” He shrugged. “There is nothing I can do, nothing that I haven’t tried already.”

Was this how SHIELD had found him? Rhodey had only gotten the bare bones of this story, and Tony had purposefully skated right over all the injured feelings and depression, only focusing on the science and his own genius.

Rhodey did not know if he had not noticed back then, if Tony had fully distracted him with the brand new element or if he had just had not had the emotional capacity of asking the relevant questions.

He and Tony had wronged one another in their lives – it was basically unavoidable, when they had known each other for that long, when they had been best friends.

But after seeing him die killing Thanos, after seeing him being the one to make the last sacrifice… all he could focus on was his own wrongs, his own mistakes, his own regrets.

“You need to survive long enough to figure out a cure,” said Rhodey, the emotion in his voice not fabricated. “Hemodialysis might not be a final cure, and I know how much you’d hate having to suffer that, but it can help you long enough to figure out a cure. Right?”

Last time Tony had not considered that, and Rhodey had called him a dumbass over it.

It seemed that it was the case this time around too, considering the expression that appeared on his face.

It quickly faded back to the resignation, however. “It might help me, yes. But Rhodey, there is no cure. This is it. This pony’s got no more tricks-”

“Don’t you dare give up on me now, Stark,” said Rhodey, letting go of the broom and turning to his best friend once more. Tony startled, but did not move out of the way as Rhodey approached him, putting both hands on his shoulders. “You will not quit on me. If there are no more ticks from this pony, pull one out of your hat. If there are no more solutions out there, create one. Do the impossible. I don’t care who you hack, where you steal, or what you do: do anything you need to do, anything you can do. 

“But do not quit on me, Tony Stark. Don’t you dare give up .” He pointed a finger at him, almost laughing at the way Tony went cross-eyed, trying to keep it in his line of sight. He didn’t, because nothing about this discussion was funny. “You do not get to die before you hit fifty, and you do not get to die before me. You ride with me, okay? If there are no more miracles, you will make one. Right?”

“Right,” repeated Tony. The fear that last time Rhodey had not even guessed at was barely hidden in his eyes, but he nodded. “I will just make one more miracle. What’s one more?”

“What’s one more,” agreed Rhodey, smiling.

This close, Tony looked so young.

It was weird, because he wasn’t really young. He was on the wrong side of thirty already, and he had more than enough scars and wrinkles from his less than healthy lifestyle throughout his teenage and early adult years.

But the age from New York, from ULTRON, from SHIELD, from the Avengers, from that damned Civil War, from Thanos and those five years from hell were gone.

It was shocking how much that had changed and aged him.

Rhodey wondered how it was going to feel, looking at himself in the mirror later on and seeing the same.

“If you’re not going to kiss me, you should probably stop breathing in my carbon dioxide,” pointed out Tony, one eyebrow raised.

Moment broken.

“In your dreams, Stark,” said Rhodey, even as he stepped back from him.

“How did you guess?”

“Three words: Summer of 89.”

“You are not supposed to bring up summer of 89!”

“I did, bitch!”

Getting Tony to tell Pepper the truth of things took a lot of convincing, but Rhodey had dealt with Tony’s stubborn ass for a few more years than the stubborn idiot was aware of.

It still took him dragging him physically into the company and stopping him from buying the strawberries Pepper was deathly allergic to .

But it was worth it. It was worth it for the way Pepper broke into tears in Tony’s awkward arms right after she was done being horrified and angry for how long he had suffered in silence, for the way her love for him was stronger than her upset, and she wasn’t afraid to show him. And it was worth it for the surprise in Tony’s face, who somehow still did not understand people actually liking and caring for him.

Rhodey could not really fault him, with the experiences he had had.

Looking at Pepper’s tear stricken face hurt.

Pepper was one of the people Rhodey felt the worst about leaving to the past.

The whole time travel business was not super clear to him, in terms of the difference between travelling via Time, Soul and Mind stone vs using Tony’s quantum machine, but if he had understood his companion correctly, their jump in the past meant that the universe from which they had originated was now gone.

Which meant that his goddaughter was gone.

Morgan H. Stark.

If there was one person he had mourned for as much as he had mourned Tony, it was his daughter. 

He mourned what her life could have been like. He mourned what she had lost, with one snap of fingers. He mourned her life without Tony, who had loved her so much (“I think we are going to win this thing, Rhodey. Morgan loves me 3000: we cannot lose with those odds.”). 

And he mourned that now she risked never existing, all because of Rhodey’s actions.

Because there was a chance that even if he lined up things perfectly and managed to get Tony and Pepper together, Morgan could still not be born.

And that was just… fucking terrible.

He had loved his goddaughter, and she had loved him.

It sucked to think that he’d left her without saying goodbye, just as her father had. It sucked to think that he might never see her again.

“You will find a cure,” said Pepper, and Rhodey turned to focus on the once couple.

She wasn’t asking, and Tony forced a smile. “I’ll definitely try,” he offered.

“Do or do not,” quipped Rhodey, insistently glancing at the Stark Expo model in the corner of the room, “There is no try.”

“Thank you Yoda,” said Tony, rolling his eyes. “But speaking of do or do not… I was thinking about Rushman.”

Pepper raised an eyebrow, confused. “The spy?”

Rhodey did his very best to not appear too surprised or shocked by the easy way in which Tony nodded, as if it was somehow common knowledge that the woman was a spy.

He had been thinking of how to subtly nudge him into firing her and cutting off any possible contact from SHIELD (he was not sure of when exactly they had gotten to him, but he knew it had been at some point after he and Pepper had stepped back from him because of his behaviour), but apparently they had always known?

Was this a new development? It did not sound as if it had anything to do with his time travel, but-

“Oh, we never told you,” said Pepper, noticing his expression. “We are not sure what agency she is from, but the red head employee you’ve seen around Tony at the party is probably a spy. Between her bogus resume and the fact that she just so happened to be the next in charge notary to be sent to us even though she has had maybe one week of experience at the company at that point…” she rolled her eyes. 

“Plus the bugs,” helpfully added Tony. “Every time she comes by, JARVIS finds a bunch all over the place. We are currently trying to figure out where she is from.”

Damn.

Perhaps that was why Romanoff and Fury had struck so quickly. Between Tony’s recklessness and the way he was catching up to them, they’d had to strike as quickly as they could, to dangle ‘the only solution’ before him and convince him to throw his lot with them, convince him that he ‘owed’ them.

But now they wouldn’t be able to. 

The one thing SHIELDRA loved more than power was living in the shadows, existing without the rest of the world noticing them. They wouldn’t dare attack Tony while he was with a high ranking member of the military, that was too much of a risk both because of who he was to Tony and who he was to the military.

Apparently, the only thing he needed to do to ensure that SHIELD did not get their dirty claws in Tony’s back was be there for him and have his back.

It stung, a bit. But what had been had been, and things were going to be different now.

“Hey,” he said, interrupting the discussion between Pepper and Tony, and doing his best to sound nonchalant. “That’s the model that was in your dad’s video for the Expo, right?”

“Uh, yeah,” said Tony, frowning at it. “Why is it here? I should-”

“Funny,” said Rhodey, tilting his head slightly.

“What’s funny?”

“If you ignore the trees and those useless stands, does that not look a bit like an atom?”

Was it a little risky, coming out and saying it like this?

Most certainly. But he had no idea of how SHIELD had helped him figure it out, and Rhodey was not letting them get anywhere near him anyway. Also, Tony did not have the time to figure it out all by himself.

Pepper frowned, clearly not seeing it all.

But Tony’s eyes widened, and Rhodey decided it had been worth the risk.

Watching Tony create Badassium was much more exciting than hearing about it had been.

Especially since Tony had severely understated and undersold the entire thing.

Intellectually, Rhodey had known that Tony had created a new element. It had changed the colour of his reactor slightly, and helped him retrieve those little slices of sanity that the belief he was going to die had taken from him.

He had seen the articles, following the event. He was science savvy enough to understand the utter awe and shock from everyone in the scientific community as another letter was added to the periodic table. He had been appropriately proud and shocked to see it.

And he had even been the one to push him to re-create the element in this timeline.

So yes. Intellectually, Rhodey was perfectly aware of the fact that Tony had created a new element all by himself (fuck Howard Stark, he was not getting a shred of credit for this, as far as Rhodey was concerned).

He was aware of all of this.

But it was quite another thing, watching him actually do it.

It was another thing helping him destroy his workshop to create a particle accelerator. It was another thing physically helping him balance and move things around, elements and objects alike. It was another thing, being able to watch from the front rows as he turned numbers, calculations and a dream from an Expo model into an actual element.

By the time Tony was holding the new triangle shaped reactor core, Rhodey had long since lost his ability to talk.

“Congratulations sir. You have created a new element,” said JARVIS, and yeah.

Yeah, he had.

“Sir, the reactor has accepted the modified core. I will begin running diagnostics.”

“Wow,” said Rhodey, trying to tamper down some of the shock he felt.

He had known Tony could do this. Tony had done this before, even if he would never know.

But it was one thing for him to do it after whatever proof SHIELD had given him and the videos he said he had watched of Howard.

It was another thing entirely for him to do it after Rhodey made one comment about the Stark Expo model.

It was another thing yet for Rhodey to be there and be able to watch him do this all by himself.

Tony turned to glance at him, and his expression turned from awe to something that was trying to be smug but couldn’t quite manage it. “You told me to make a miracle,” he said, shrugging. “Happy?”

“General approval,” said Rhodey, coming closer to him. “You have almost impressed me.”

“Almost impressed you,” said Tony, rolling his eyes. “I’ll show you.”

“Sir!” called out JARVIS, as Tony started to exchange the reactor for what he had inside.

“Woah, shouldn’t you run some tests?” added Rhodey, equally as worried. Had this happened like this the first time around? If so, Rhodey had missed a chance to kick his ass for being so damn impulsive.

“If you and JARVIS want to run some tests, run them,” said Tony, shuddering at whatever the reactor felt like, as the light in it grew brighter. Rhodey was starting to become concerned too.

“We are unclear as to the effects,” tried JARVIS.

“Either I die or I don’t,” said Tony.

“That is a terrible philosophy,” complained Rhodey. 

“It served me so far,” pointed out Tony. “Damn. That tastes like coconut. And metal. Oh wow, yeah!”

“Tony?” asked Rhodey, as the brightness reached blinding levels of brightness.

But then it started to dim again, and Tony remained standing on his own two feet, looking a little wide eyed but as good as always.

His skin was already less pasty than it had been before, and he did not look as if he was about to keel over any time soon.

“Miracle,” repeated Tony, and even though he was not back to 100%, the ever present grief, the tiredness, the exhaustion that had been in his eyes prior to this was gone, replaced by his signature smugness.

He was alive, and Rhodey and Tony now knew he was going to stay alive.

He had survived this.

Rhodey clapped his shoulders. “I knew you could do it,” he told him, and his voice was not gruff at all.

Tony smiled, putting a hand on Rhodey’s arm. “Yeah,” he said. “You did. Five rum and cokes, right?”

Rhodey smiled. “Five rum and cokes.”

It took Rhodey a little longer than he’d have preferred to take care of the last loose threads, so it wasn’t until hours later that he returned to the Mansion.

Taking Vanko and Justin Hammer off the chess table had been easy, with his prior knowledge of their activities. 

The duo had not seen him coming, and all it had taken was an anonymous leak to the right people.

Luckily, Vanko had not yet done working on his drones, and Justin was a baseline man with no redeeming qualities: caught by surprise as they had been, they had not stood a chance.

Hammer had been arrested as in the previous timeline, though with no reckless endangerment and manslaughter charges, but Vanko had killed himself before anyone could get their hands on him – this time actually dying.

Rhodey was actually quite glad for it.

Vanko had been the only other person alive who knew the secrets for the arc reactor; with him dead, Tony was safe, until he eventually got the thing out.

And that was what mattered to Rhodey.

That was the number one reason he had come back to the past. Sure, he agreed with Wong’s saying that Thanos should have been defeated the first time around, and that the repercussions of the lack of Infinity Stones plus the quantum time travel to their universe were going to be big and possibly universe ending, of course. Saving the universe was important.

But Tony had been Rhodey’s number one priority, and he continued to be Rhodey’s number one priority.

Though the idea of having to keep him alive with the limited information the man had given him regarding the next 10+ years of his life was quite horrifying.

He had barely managed the first time around, and considering the chaos theory… yeah, this was going to probably give him grey hair faster.

And let him not start on the part where he had to keep this entire thing a secret from Tony. 

It was going to be-

Rhodey stopped in the living room doorway, frowning at the sight of the television and Tony on the couch watching. Less about Tony’s position in front of the television and more about the contents of what Tony was looking at, actually.

“Tones,” he said, frowning. “What are you doing?”

“Preparing,” said Tony.

“Preparing?” echoed Rhodey. “What could you be preparing for, by watching Back To The Future ?”

“I am mentally preparing myself to understand the time travel secrets that have brought a future Platypus back in time to me in 2010,” explained Tony, turning to grin at him. 

Shit.

Rhodey quickly prepared himself to push past the initial panic and laugh and ask him if he was crazy, but Tony spoke before he could. “Please don’t insult my intelligence by pretending otherwise, Honeybear. I’m more interested in the how you managed to come back in time and why you did not bring me with you, and how and if you are going back to the future at any point in time. Because I don’t think you are a bodysnatcher, but you are also not my Rhodeybear. You are, actually. But your eyes are older than that of my Rhodeybear, and you look more tired and upset and emotional. Like crazy emotional, and that is not you and it’s not us.”

He smiled, patting the spot beside him. “So… how accurate is Back to the Future?”

Rhodey considered him.

Tony was one of the smartest men in the world. With nothing but a rough idea, Tony had created a new element, a time travelling device and a gauntlet capable of handling the might of the Infinity Stones. All of these things had taken him no more than a few days of work.

Tony was a genius. And he was also one of the people who knew Rhodey best in the whole world. Tony had known him better than his own mother did by their second year at MIT.

In retrospect, thinking that he would or could have somehow missed the subtle changes in Rhodey, no matter how hard he tried to hide them, had been rather silly of him.

If the situation had been reversed, Rhodey failed to imagine a universe in which Tony would have come back from the future and he , after days in each other’s company, wouldn’t have noticed.

It was stupid to imagine the opposite could have happened.

Most importantly, Tony had trusted him. Rhodey had clearly not been the man Tony recalled, and he had been steering Tony into some specific directions since he had arrived into this universe.

If Tony had realised that Rhodey was not really the same 2010 Rhodey he was used to, he’d have to have noticed this too.

He had to have realised.

And still, he had trusted him.

And still, he had listened to him.

And still, he had given him a chance.

Rhodey had come back in time to protect Tony, and while keeping the secret was a good way of doing this, lying was not.

If he told him he could not tell him, he was pretty sure Tony would respect it.

But Rhodey was not going to do that.

He was his Tony. 

“Depending on the time travel method, both very and not at all,” said Rhodey in the end, sitting beside him. “Man, Wong is going to kill me. For now, I think I’m safe from her, though. Why do you have to be so smart?”

“It’s a curse,” agreed Tony, coming to cuddle closer to Rhodey. “And who is this ‘Wong’? Or this ‘her’? Should I be jealous?”

Rhodey snorted at the mere idea, fingers going to Tony’s wild and unkempt hair.

He held him a little bit closer.

Then, he started talking.

Chapter Text

Wong was pouring out the pot of tea he had just prepared when the Ancient One walked in the small study room.

She did not immediately say anything.

She closed the door behind her, and then proceeded to sit down across from him, taking one of the two cups on the table and letting him pour out the drink for her.

Wong knew how she liked her tea, so he did not bother asking her before he handed her the terrible caster sugar she liked to put in her drink and that he had put aside just for her.

“You knew I’d come,” she eventually said, ignoring the look on his face as he was forced to watch her stir the contents of her drink.

“I would think you a terrible Sorcerer Supreme if you hadn’t,” he said, picking up his own cup. “And while I have opinions on you and your actions, I don’t think you were a bad Sorcerer Supreme.”

“Oh?” She looked at him over the rim of her teacup. “Opinions on me and my actions?”

Wong ignored the light warning in her voice. “I think that staying under the radar during the age of superheroes was a terrible idea. I think teaching us to stay away from corruption and dark magic while you made use of it – no matter for what moral reasons – was a bad call. I think seeing sorcerers go down the wrong path and yet not stopping them, all in the name of a future that you know might still not happen the way you saw it happen, was a bad decision. And I think manipulating a man who just wanted to save his hands into watching you die without being able to save you and then shoving your mantle on his shoulders because he is - quote and unquote - ‘the best of us’ is an idiotic decision.”

The woman looked as if she wasn’t sure she was impressed by Wong’s words or offended. “I think this is the very first time you have ever spoken to me this way.”

“I watched the entire universe be snapped in half by a madman,” said Wong, and finally he looked at her with a serious expression. “I saw Stephen being forced to make a decision that ripped him in half. I watched a man be dragged back into a fight after he had made his peace with life, and then lose his life on the battlefield. I felt the magic of the universe ruptured and fractured all around me. I saw those returned lost, and those who had been spared even more lost. I saw orphaned children, and widowed spouses, and childless parents, and people returning to suicide notes, seized properties, and replacements. I saw the universe on the verge of collapse.

“I saw a universal apocalypse. And then, I saw the universal apocalypse that came five years after, in the name of ‘fixing’ things. I did not stay to see the death of the universe, too.”

Not when all he could think about was the little things that could have been done to stop this. The amount of idiotic decisions that had been taken by too many people, the assumptions and decisions made by short sighted people who Wong did not respect one bit.

That was the worst part of it.

The fact that the universe’s destruction, Stark’s death, the Titan’s win... all of it could have been avoided. And you wouldn’t even have needed to go as far as Wong and his two companions had decided to go, for that.

But this was also the perfect time for Rhodes and his crusade to save his white boy, so here they were.

Wong had been told the story from Rhodes and from the others, so he wasn’t just assuming. He had seen the guilt, the ‘he was right’, the ‘he told us’, and he was not impressed by any of it.

All they meant was that it could have all been avoided, and it pissed him off more than a little to know the why it had not.

“And so you decided to break the rules,” she said.

There was no judgement or hint of an opinion on her voice, so Wong explained.

“I decided that the so-called chosen ones of the universe have suffered enough. I decided that we tried to do things the way of the Tony Starks, and Stephen Stranges, and Thors, and T’Challa’s of the universe, and it did not work. So I decided to go ahead and try doing things my way.” He shrugged. “If they can break the rules for the greater good, then so can I. And I can try and do a good job at it, because one thing about the chosen ones? They never seem to have the foundation years of knowledge they need to have.”

Strange might have been incredibly talented, but Wong had been brought to Kamar Taj at age four by Hamir.

Seniority often meant things.

The Ancient One took a sip of her drink, still looking considering. “My successor fails?”

“No,” he said, because, at the end of the day, Stephen had not failed. Arguably, Stephen had won.

After all, not everyone had returned from those five years broken. Some had been reunited with families who had never given up on them. Some had been snapped together, and had returned together. Some had returned to better things than they had left.

Many had lost, but not everyone had lost.

“Strange did not fail. But the deck was stacked against him from the beginning, and by the time he came around, it was too late. We lost too many to consider this a win, for me to consider it a win. So, we decided to fix it.”

The woman frowned. “We?”

“Right,” said Wong. “I forgot I did not mention this. I did not come back alone. But, before we go through the who, what and how of it all, we need to talk about Asgard.” His expression became pinched. “I have thought through all the information I have been given, and from what I can see, the fate of the universe rests on them.”

“The Asgardians?” repeated the Ancient One, sounding definitely disturbed by the notion.

Wong could relate.

Having to rely on the Asgardians for anything sounded frankly horrifying.

But, as Strange had once said, if it was easy, everyone would do it.

“You know, while incredibly interesting, this isn’t very exciting.” 

Wong sighed. “Don’t you have literally anything else to do? You’re the Sorcerer Supreme.”

“I do and I am,” she agreed, getting more comfortable on the chair. “But nothing this interesting and unexpected has happened to me in some decades. I must see how it ends.”

Wong understood, even if he’d never say it out loud. If nothing, before the whole Thanos and universe ending mess, Strange had brought along some random and quite interesting shenanigans to Kamar Taj.

It had been a pleasure watching him fuck things up from a corner of the room while giving him cryptic advice, judging looks and refusing to do anything to help him. Or do anything to stop him.

Yes, as shocking as it may sound, it had finally happened.

Wong was missing Stephen Strange.

He did not let this show on his face, turning to the mirror before them once more.

“Unfortunately, my companions were removed from the situation too,” he explained. “We have no idea of what exactly happened with the Asgardians. Just that SHIELD managed to get their hands on the hammer first, and then somehow managed to forge a bond with Thor. And, right after that, the series of events that ended up with the destruction of the universe started.”

“Loki.”

“Loki,” repeated Wong. “All we know is that, by the time he attacked on behalf of the Titan, SHIELD already knew who he was. We also know that they did not know of him before they found out about Thor. We get a hold of Thor and we can, hopefully, steer his brother away from whatever poisonous road he’s upon.”

“A situation that you know nothing about,” clarified the Ancient One.

Wong glared at her. 

“Again, you are welcome to leave.”

She made a cup of tea appear in her hands, getting even more comfortable on the chair. “No. I believe I will remain here for a while longer.”

“You are-” he started, cutting off as Mordo walked in the room.

It was odd, seeing Mordo as he was now.

Mordo had been... something of a friend for much longer than Stephen had been. They had not spent much time alone together, but they had known one another for years. Wong had been at Kamar Taj when Mordo had joined, and they had trained - both in battle and in magic - with one another for years, before the fallout.

His shunning of them after the whole ordeal with Dormammu and subsequent acts of villainy towards the Order and his fellow sorcerers had been a big blow to Wong.

But this was not the same man he remembered.

This Mordo had not yet been tainted by any of those actions. 

As weird as it was thinking of him as such, this Mordo was... innocent.

“Ancient One,” he said, startled by seeing her sitting with him. “Wong. Good afternoon. I did not know you were here.”

“I am keeping Wong here company,” she said. “Would you like to sit? We are watching the mighty hammer Mjolnir and waiting for the god of Thunder, Thor of Asgard, to storm this criminal secret agency in an attempt to retrieve it.”

Mordo frowned, looking over at Wong for explanation.

Wong did not offer any.

“Er... what?”

“Oh, there he is,” suddenly said the woman, noticing the blond demigod as he appeared at the facility, immediately attacking men left and right.

He did not even bother asking anyone anything.

He looked very different from the man Wong had seen before he and his companions had gone and claimed the Infinity Stones. He had expected this, of course: it had been many years, and by the time of Stark’s death, Thor’s face had been marred by the loss of his brother, his mother, his brother again, his father, his hammer, his eye, his planet, half of his people, his brother yet again, another half of his people, and the depression he had fallen into after.

The loss had made him grow as a man and as a King.

But while Thor was one of the people fate had chosen for their most arduous battles, Wong failed to see why letting him suffer what he had was a smart idea. Or useful to anyone.

The more pain and loss he spared everyone, the better Wong believed things would go as a whole.

“Wait,” said the Ancient One, when Wong made to create the portal they’d need to get him out of SHIELD.

“I was asked to get him out of there before SHIELD could even try to speak to him and figure out who and what he was,” said Wong, frowning at her.

“I know,” she said, watching as Thor struggled to get a hold of Mjolnir. “Just wait a moment more.”

“Are you enjoying his failure?”

“A little, but that’s not-”

“The sniper,” said Mordo, pointing at a figure Wong had not noticed in the mirror of sights. “She wants to confuse them. Why risk it?”

“The time to stay and watch from the shadows is passing, Mordo,” she said, as the man Wong now recognised as Clint Barton released his weapon. “Wong.”

He did not need her to say anything more before he was making the portal appear under Thor’s feet.

Mordo was frowning at the Ancient One’s words, and Wong asked, “What of Mjolnir?”

“The hammer is bound by a spell of Odin’s,” she said, waving him off. “I will get it safe and sound in Kamar Taj in a moment’s time. Now, where is the crown prince of Asgard?”

Wong summoned a cup for himself, unconcerned. “Learning a lesson in patience and in being less impulsive.”

Mordo looked even more concerned, but the Ancient One clicked her cups with him, eyes twinkling. “Interesting,” she said. “Very interesting.”

Wong was too busy drinking his tea to try and figure out what she was being cryptic about now.

+++

It turned out that his meeting with Strange in 2017 had not been the first time Thor had met or heard of the sorcerers of Kamar Taj.

He recognised the Ancient One as soon as Wong saw it fit to make him stop falling through his portal, and instead of angrily attacking him for the whole falling thing, he actually bothered to greet her.

“Sorceress,” he said, not bowing but keeping his voice respectful. “I am gladdened to see you well. Did my mother send you for me?”

“No,” said the Ancient One, and Thor’s face immediately fell. “We thought it prudent to get you and your hammer away from that organisation’s claws.”

“It is a most foul organisation!” agreed Thor. “They stole my friend Jane’s hard found scholarly material, and refuse to return them to her.”

“Jane?”

“Aye. Her name is Jane Foster, and she is a scholar of the beyond with a title of healer. She has helped me much since my arrival on Midgard.”

“Doctor Jane Foster,” nodded the Ancient One. “I can-”

“No,” said Wong, pulling out the phone from his pocket. “I have people better suited for this job.”

“I want to know more about that as soon as possible but, Prince Thor, care to tell me what has brought you to Earth without your powers or your godhood, unable to lift Mjolnir?”

Thor’s shoulders fell down once more, the upset look returning. He sat down, and started what Wong suspected was a biased re-telling of how he ended up starting a war on his coronation day and how Odin had reacted to the whole thing.

Needless to say, by the end of it, no one was particularly impressed.

In fact, Wong was having a hard time reconciling the picture of Thor he had in his brain and the spoiled child in front of him.

Seriously, how could this snivelling child who had started a war because he had been called ‘Princess’ end up being the powerful King who landed on Earth with a raccoon, a tree, a glass eye and a weapon capable of killing Thanos, and completely changed the course of the battle? Had he not missed, he - and they - would have won the first time around.

But this man was very clearly not him.

“Jane’s things will be returned to her, yes?” he asked, looking at Wong with barely any hope left in his eyes. Wong nodded, and Thor smiled, bitterly. “I managed to do something right after all, I guess. May I ask where you teleported Mjolnir to?”

“This way, Prince Thor,” said the Ancient One, guiding the depressed crown prince away.

Wong and Mordo watched as the big man let himself meekly be led by the much smaller woman.

“That... was something,” said Mordo, once they were gone. “I don’t know what I expected but I expected... more.”

“Yeah,” said Wong.

The fact that the Asgardians and their drama were integral for Earth to survive Thanos actually made Wong a little sick.

Life was not fair.

Instead of voicing that, he shook his head, moving towards the relic room.

“You have anything to do or can you lend me a hand?”

“Recruits to train,” said Mordo, apologetically. “If you’re not done sorting by the time I am, I’ll come help.”

“Thank you, my friend.”

Mordo smiled at this, before disappearing in the garden.

Wong hoped that he’d manage to change enough that the sorcerer never left their ranks, and then started working on sorting and clearing out the relics in the living room.

This would have been done much more easily if people stopped leaving relics in the living room after using them, but of course that was too much work.

He missed being a librarian. He could yell at everyone and nobody could hold it against him because he was simply doing his job. He could also yell at Strange, and the man was forced to take it.

Good memories.

He was still dealing with the relics when Loki appeared in the Sanctum.

Just like Thor, the man looked far younger than Wong remembered him being the last time he saw him.

It was weird. They were immortal, and only a few years had passed between now and the time Wong had first seen them, and yet they had aged far beyond reason.

Life and the Vishanti had not been kind to either of them.

Wong knew that, just like Mordo, Loki was not guilty of any crime against Earth or anyone, right now. That he was... again for lack of better word, innocent.

But it was weird seeing him standing in front of him and no alarm blaring to make sure people were aware of his presence there and ready to attack without provocation.

“Prince Loki,” he greeted, inclining his head.

“Sorcerer,” greeted Loki, looking vaguely curious. “I thought the Order of Kamar Taj had long since hidden away from the rest of Midgard.”

“Times are changing,” explained Wong, shrugging. “The time for hiding is now going past us. I believe you are here for your brother?”

“Yes, Thor,” said Loki, and his eyes shifted at the admission, a fleeting look of pain that, had Wong not specifically been looking for it, he would have missed it.

Wong was not a genius in the way Stark and Stephen were. He was not even a genius in the way James Rhodes was.

But what Wong lacked in book smarts, he made up for it in common sense and street smarts.

Rhodes had not had much information about Loki and Thor and their general situation, how they had gone from being these two... boys in front of him to the destructive forces he had noticed during the battle of New York.

But he had had enough facts for Wong to draw what he believed was an accurate picture:

1. Loki was adopted. This was a remark that Rhodes had commented on, a remark given by Stark and stated by Thor himself to the Avengers when he had first met them. However, whenever Loki claimed that Thor was not his brother, Thor looked absolutely stricken, and he rarely ever brought up the adoption himself.

Conclusion: the adoption was something that had been learnt of recently, and something neither of them had had the time to work through.

2. SHIELD had known about Loki before the Invasion, but not before knowing of Thor. They had recognised him as soon as he had arrived - Selvig in particular. 

Conclusion: Loki had been on Earth when Thor had been banished. Maybe not for long, maybe they hadn’t even see him face to face, but they had heard/seen him and knew who he was.

And there was a third conclusion being formulated in his head, but he needed more proof before he could state it. 

“We heard of what he has done,” continued Wong, as he moved towards were the Ancient One and Thor were. “Despite our relationship with them, he will be safe from the Jotnar’s retribution.”

Loki, as expected, frowned. “Relationship with them?”

Wong gave him a confused look. “Yeah. The Jotun sorcerers and the Order of Kamar Taj have long since been friends.”

“Jotunheim has sorcerers?” asked Loki, pausing mid step, looking completely shocked. “And are friends of Midgardians?”

“Yes. Just because Asgard decided we were no longer allowed on their Realm doesn’t mean we are not allowed on the other Realms,” pointed out Wong. “Earth in general and Kamar Taj in particular have been long friends of Alfheim and Jotunheim.”

Loki looked as if Wong had just told him something insane.

“But they tried to destroy you?”

“Certainly not,” said Wong, frowning. “Where did you ever hear any such nonsense?”

Wong knew where he had heard this nonsense.

Loki did not reply, so Wong continued. “I know Asgard and Jotunheim were at war for a long time, but Jotunheim and Earth were never at war with one another. Jotunheim is rich in resources and culture, and Laufey and Farbauti are fair rulers.”

He made to start walking again, and Loki stopped him.

“Fair rulers? You would not call them that if you knew what they did to their child,” he said, and now he looked more like the Loki Wong remembered. Angry, angsty and very dangerous, from the wild way he was looking around and at Wong. “For the sin of being a runt, they-”

“Let me stop you right there,” said Wong, one hand raised. Loki looked offended at the interruption, but that slid over Wong’s back like oil on water. He had worked with sensitive divas before. “I have known Laufey and his wife for a long time. It is nothing, in contrast with how many years they live, how many years they have lived. It’s been, even for them, a long time since the war ended.

“And yet, the grief and the love they had for their firstborn child who died at the end of the war remains.”

Loki’s anger extinguished very fast, replaced by confusion. “What?”

“You are right in saying that they had a child, before Helblindi and Byleistr,” continued Wong. “But they never did anything to him. I mean, they might blame themselves for leaving him in a temple so that he was protected, but they never did anything but love and cherish him. A firstborn child, born so little, filled with so much magic, arriving right as the war was letting out its final breaths? They knew he was a blessing.”

“They... didn’t kill him?” asked Loki, now appearing completely lost.

Wong felt a little bad. How much would things have changed, had Loki found out the truth the first time around? If whoever it was who had filled his head with lies had never done that?

But it hadn’t been so, and that future was now gone.

“Of course not,” said Wong. “They could have never. Laufey was never a violent man, though his tongue might be cutting, at times.

“But the child did die,” continued Wong, as Loki’s expression turned even more confused and thoughtful. “Laufey says Odin murdered him, but that is just his word, and as much I trust him, I cannot trust his word on this. They were at war: they are bound to spread malicious and untrue words on one another.” Loki frowned again, so Wong pressed his luck a bit. “That’s how war works. Making someone into your enemy, and convincing everyone to hate him too. No room for searching or formulating your own opinion, just blind belief that your King and general would never lie to you.”

And sink.

Wong kept his hope or satisfaction to himself as Loki fell thoughtful behind him and they went to find his brother.

Even as he spoke to Thor of how he had been banished by their father and Loki could not, thus, return him to Asgard, it was clear that he was thinking, trying to make sense of what he had been told of the Jotnar his whole life versus what Wong had told him now.

Perhaps it was not enough to radically change his opinion. Perhaps, it would not change his view of them and Laufey. But it was the truth, and Wong hoped that it would create enough doubt in his head that Loki would not follow in his actions from the other timeline.

“What did you do?” asked the Ancient One, as Thor tried to speak to his very distracted younger brother.

“People tend to forget that he is not the god of lies,” said Wong. “God of mischief, yes. Chaos, also true. Fire, for whatever reason. But not lies.

“So I did what he deserved: I told him the truth.”

She smiled, looking at him strangely again. “Uh. Well done, Wong.”

He glanced at her, and her suspiciously innocent expression. “You are up to something.”

She said nothing, and proceeded back towards Loki and Thor.

Wong was not fooled: she was planning something, and he knew it spelled only bad things for him.

Rhodes got to the Sanctum after Loki was gone.

Correction: Rhodes and Stark got to the Sanctum after Loki was gone.

Wong hoped that the judgement was clear on his face when he opened the door after receiving the man’s text.

“What?” complained Rhodes. “He’s sort of a genius. This was in no way my fault.”

“Hi,” said Stark, grinning at Wong in a way he had never done before. 

It was weird. Both the smile, and seeing such an easy-going expression on his face, none of the doubt, grief, and fear that he had become accustomed to seeing on the other man's face.

He looked younger, like everybody else did, but there was something on his shoulders that was almost… light.

This was right after the universe had decided to start fucking with him. Before he had realised that, no matter what he did, he would never lead a peaceful life.

Back when he still had hope.

It was jarring.

“He tried very hard to keep his secrets, but I am too smart for either of our goods, and he is too easily read. By me, not by everyone else, so don’t worry. So: magic?”

Wong glanced at Rhodes. 

“I thought he was taking it extremely well too, but you know. No Scepter, no evil demigods, no red magic of destruction...” he shrugged, like it was that simple.

It sort of was.

“You are bound by secrecy regarding our cause,” said Wong, turning his eyes back on Stark. “We are trying to keep the universe from imploding and our earth from being destroyed. These are not facts that you can share with whoever you want. Rhodes already went too far by letting you know at all, but you must keep this a secret. If not for your own sake, then for the sake of humanity.”

“Heavy there with the responsibility talk, Buddha,” said Stark, but while his tone seemed irreverent, Wong could tell he was not.

And when Rhodes nodded again, he sighed, before opening the door and letting them both in.

“So, you and Rhodey are like friends, uh?” asked Stark, eyes fixing on everything he could find around him. “Should I be jealous? Have you guys exchanged matching bff bracelets yet? Cause Rhodey won’t get matching bff bracelets with me.”

“The last time I said yes to that, you put cuffs around both of our wrists and actually threw away the key.”

“I thought it’d be funny!”

“How would you know, when you have never been funny one day in your life?”

“You know what, you are no longer my friend. Wong can keep you.”

“Our only shared common interest is that we are two unfortunate common sense laced individuals stuck with emotional support disaster white boys,” said Wong. “Hardly what one would call friends.”

“Oh, so you’re going to set up a play date between me and your emotional support disaster white boy any time soon?” asked Tony, looking more curios than offended.

“No. You look like you bite.”

“He does.”

“Hey!”

They then reached the sitting room, where the Ancient One was waiting.

“Oh,” she said, eyes twinkling in recognition as she saw the two men behind him. “Tony Stark and Colonel Rhodes.”

“G.I. Jane monk version,” answered Stark, putting his hands in prayer position.

“Uh. He is more of an asshole than I recall,” mused Wong.

It reminded him of Strange.

He really did miss Strange, this was disgusting.

The Ancient One smiled. “I like him.”

Of course she did. Of course.

Stark and Thor becoming friends was not unexpected to Wong, but it appeared to be so for Rhodes.

Wong couldn’t fathom why. From his short and potentially biased observation of these two people and from what he had seen of their interactions, they liked the same things: their family, drinking, and kids. They both also had (had) dead parents, guilt complexes, and a complicated relationship with their fathers.

Yet, as soon as he introduced them, Rhodes had started looking at Thor in suspicion, insistently observing him as he interacted with Tony, and doing so for way too long for both of them not to have noticed.

But by the time Tony was telling the blond of how he and his lawyers had gotten Foster her stuff back and then offered him to share his sorrows about his ‘evil dad who didn’t just let him kill innocent people’ (Wong was not paraphrasing, that was exactly how Stark had put it), even Rhodes had relaxed.

By the time Loki returned, a few days later, with news that the All-Father was awake once more but hadn’t lifted his banishment, Thor, Tony and Rhodes had become great friends and were planning on moving to Stark’s Malibu mansion until he “built his futuristic tower, or Thor passed his All-daddy mandated Earth sanctioned moral code of ‘genocide is bad, Thor’, whichever comes first” (again, Wong was quoting Stark).

This invitation was extended to Loki, too, but the would be dictator did not seem to find the thought of hanging out with a bunch of Griffyndors all that appealing.

As a Ravenclaw, Wong could relate (what? Rowling might not have been a sorceress – or necessarily a good person – but she had gotten a remarkable amount of things right).

Instead, Loki decided to stay with the sorcerers at the Sanctum, ostensibly on his Mother’s orders that he keep an eye out for his brother and to escape his father’s bad mood.

But Wong did not have to be a seer to know his words had gotten into the mage’s head, and that was the real reason he was sticking around.

It did not matter. All that did was that Wong was almost 100% convinced that they had avoided the situation that ended with Loki working for Thanos, and having him around only meant extending the amount of time Loki would stay away from Thanos' ship.

A win.

Chapter Text

“How many houses does Stark have?” asked Wong, as Rhodes walked into the room.

“Uh,” said Rhodes, closing the door behind him. “I have been his friend for years, but I don’t actually know. Because obviously there are the houses he bought and the ones he built himself; but then there are also all of the residences he inherited, from his father and from his mother. I am pretty sure that if it wasn’t for JARVIS, not even he would know how many homes or hidden places to lay low he’s got.”

“Speaking of JARVIS...”

“Not in here,” re-assured Rhodes. “Though he’d been a great asset in whatever we are doing. Your main view of AIs might be coloured by the whole ULTRON mess, but JARVIS is not ULTRON, and ULTRON came along due to many things that were not even all under Tony’s control. We can trust him, if needs come.”

Wong nodded. Despite their short acquaintanceship, he found himself trusting James Rhodes and his insight on things.

Like him, James Rhodes had found himself thrown into what was basically another person’s story by virtue of knowing them, despite both of them having plenty of talent and knowledge of their own.

Wong had been a sorcerer for a lot longer than Strange had, with all of the knowledge that that brought with; Rhodes was a trained Air Force member, who’s position, leadership and skills had often been overlooked because of how shiny Tony looked beside him – in or out of his armour.

“Are we touching base?” then asked Rhodes, sitting down in front of him and handing him a can of soda. 

“Yes. I think we have, for the moment, stopped any chance of Loki ending up with Thanos and deciding to invade Earth,” started Wong. “Obviously we don’t know what exactly has caused him to go fully to the dark side, so I was hoping to keep an eye on him for a little while longer, just in case.”

“Be careful,” said Rhodes, warningly. “I don’t think he’s the kind of person who’d take the news of someone ‘looking out for him’ very positively. I think you know the type.”

Strange’s annoying face appeared in Wong’s mind, and he nodded with a slightly grimace. Stubborn universe heroes and almost-villains with fear of showing weakness and trust issues were the worst.

“But that’s why we are going to tell him what we plan to do,” said Wong, getting back on topic. Rhodes frowned, and Wong clarified. “Loki knows of the Ancient One, but he does not know her or her powers and talents very well. I am planning on making her tell him that she has seen something in his future that makes her worried about him going down a dark path. While he is here, he will be surrounded and influenced by us and the other sorcerers here on Earth, similarly to how his brother is being. It might take Loki a while longer to actually listen to anything we do, but I have high hopes that we will make enough of a change on him that when he eventually decides to go to Jotunheim, he will not go alone.”

It might sound like a long shot, but while grief and mourning explained some of Thor’s changes throughout the years, they did not explain them all. Especially, they did not explain the rapidity with which Thor’s morals were changing by virtue of him being around Tony and talking to Jane Foster.

Wong had some theories about Asgardian development, and while Loki might not be fully Asgardian, he seemed to have mollified in a similar way to his brother already – though he mostly stuck to hanging out with the sorcerers, rather than Stark and the non magic humans.

“I thought we were avoiding letting too many people know about the Infinity Stones and where they are?”

“I would not be surprised if Loki already has his suspicions about the Eye.” The man might appear to have ‘mellowed’ but he was also the god of Mischief and very smart. It would not do anyone any good to underestimate him. “But the Ancient One wouldn’t need to say that she saw his future by perusing the Time Stone. His mother, Queen Frigga, is a Seer: talk about people seeing the future or having terrible visions won’t shock or surprise him. Rather, he is more likely than most to heed the warning.”

“Right,” said Rhodes, looking a little disbelieving. “Because we have traveled back to the past twice already in a short period of time, so why would the idea of seeing into the future be at all surprising or confusing for him or anyone?”

Wong did not laugh at his expression. “Regarding the future would be main villains of Kamar Taj, things are going well. I am... dealing with Kaecilius, and I am leaving the task of dealing with Mordo to the Ancient One. I can help a deluded mind from going through an evil downward spiral, but I cannot do anything about someone who is too set in his beliefs and almost too moral.”

“Too moral,” repeated Rhodes. “There is such a thing?”

“Captain Rogers?”

Rhodes scoffed. “Too moral is not how I would describe Rogers. Or the Rogers I knew. Unless, of course, we are talking about him subscribing to his own morals.”

Wong thought back on what he had gotten from Strange’s breakdown after their fight about Rogers’ future intentions. Yeah, he supposed ‘too moral’ wasn’t the best way to describe him.

“You?”

“Everything is going better than it did the last time around,” said Rhodes, a satisfied expression on his face. “Pepper and Happy are a bit angry at Tony for the lying thing, but they are going to come back stronger from it. Romanoff was removed without anyone being hurt, and she has no idea of whether this is because she was discovered or if this is Tony being impulsive again because of the palladium. SHIELD is scrambling, between Thor disappearing, Tony not acting as they had expected/wanted him to and still being alive, and Tony helping Foster with her research. They don’t think he is capable enough to have figured them out or anything, but they are closing ranks and doing their best to find him. They have no idea of him being in New York yet, and are more than a little confused about his and SI’s latest actions.”

“And you are sure treating SHIELD like this is what we need?”

“Yes,” said Rhodes, and now he looked less amused and more serious than before. “SHIELD has, full offence, done almost nothing right in all of the years we have known them. Between breaking into Tony’s home multiple times, injecting him with an unknown substance, trying to control the enhanced community, using the Tesseract to make WMDs, being infiltrated by HYDRA and letting Rogers and Romanoff cause thousands of agents’ dead... All I can say is good riddance. And, despite what they might believe, there are ways of getting rid of them without resorting to burning agents and killing innocents.”

Wong shrugged. “I defer to you on this topic. So long as you are not letting personal bias colour your vision of things–”

“Maybe I am not fully objective when it comes to SHIELD,” admitted Rhodes. “But I have thought it out with Pepper and Tony as if it was an investment, with them having no understanding/knowledge of what it was a metaphor of, and they agreed with me. SHIELD cannot be trusted, and half of the problems we had to deal with were originally caused by them.”

“Fine,” said Wong. He meant it, with the deferring comment. Whatever his personal feelings for them were, he knew that Rhodes would never put his personal feelings and opinions above saving the world. Maybe if it had something to do with Stark he might be less than objective but, in that case, he would try to not put himself in a situation where he had to decide to begin with.

It was why Wong was so comfortable working alongside him in this sort of self-appointed mission.

“What about Hulk?” 

“Hulk?” asked Wong, confused. “What about him?”

“Hulk could be a great ally,” said Rhodes, even though there was something in his expression that indicated a not complete liking of the man. “And there are tons of advantages to getting Hulk - and Banner - on our side before the military or Ross or SHIELD can put down any claim on him.” He grimaced. “Hulk hated feeling owned or claimed.”

“Doesn’t everyone? But you think he can be reasoned with and convinced to join us? I don’t know much of anything about the Hulk. Only that he was with the Asgardians before the battle and he looked very weird during the final battle, after he snapped everyone back.”

“We don’t talk about professor Hulk,” said Rhodes, shuddering at the mere thought. Then he sighed. “Hulk is a good guy. Too big and doesn’t understand things unless carefully explained to him, but he’s a good guy. Banner, on the other hand…” He made a face. “He is a little more difficult to deal with. He has this idea of Hulk being a curse, and spent years trying to kill and/or destroy him. What he really needs, in my opinion, is some therapy and a way of understanding what Hulk is, how to come to terms with him, and what his meaning in his life is. This time, preferably without killing him in an attempt of making himself and him one and the same.”

“You are suggesting Kamar Taj,” realised Wong.

“A mix of Tony, Thor and Kamar Taj,” corrected Rhodes. “Tony has always really liked Doctor Banner and his work, and he was never scared of the Hulk, right from the beginning. He saw something of himself in him, I don’t really get it, but he is weird like that. Thor is from a land of warriors and was also more intrigued than scared of the Hulk. He didn’t enjoy Banner as much as he did his counterpart, but he had what I’d call a bond, with the green bean. And Kamar Taj, well. You guys are right up his alley. You are like a walking zen ad.”

“That’s stereotypical.”

“You are the ones who decided on monk robes and a temple where you teach martial arts and drink tea to pass time.”

“Point,” said Wong. “Would Banner even agree to this, however? Because at Kamar Taj we make it a habit of not kidnapping people. And of making sure the people we do allow within our walls aren’t going to bring the destruction of the place.”

“I think we can probably swing it,” said Rhodes, a calculating light in his eyes. “I know just how to convince him.”

“I am starting to realise just how much SHIELD messed up by alienating you and Stark as they have,” said Wong, watching as Stark spoke to the large behemoth that was the Hulk.

He was much bigger than professor Hulk had been, or than what Wong remembered from the news. He also looked much more dangerous and loud - enough so that even Rhodes had looked a touch tense - but Stark had approached him without an ounce of fear.

Either he was incredibly good at masquerading it, or he was born with zero self preservation skills.

“Yes,” agreed Rhodes, eyes fixed on his friend and Hulk. “Why in particular?”

“It took Stark and you minutes to track Hulk down,” pointed out Wong. “SHIELD and Ross have apparently been trying for years, and they still ended up finding his hiding places too late or ended up losing him before time. You and Stark sat down for an afternoon and got to his doorstep. Imagine how easy things would have been for them if they had just asked.”

“I am pretty sure Ross did ask. However, he asked for weapons to capture Hulk, and Tony destroyed his favourite bar in retaliation.”

“Of course he did,” said Wong, not at all surprised.

He was finally getting a picture of who Stark was, and the more he understood him, the more he understood Rhodes’ attachment to the man.

It was similar to Wong’s own attachment to Strange.

But things with Strange were far more complicated, and Wong could not just portal over to his place to have a chat or an argument with him.

He was not due to become a sorcerer until a few more years down the line, and he hadn’t known Wong since he was a little kid, the way Rhodes had Stark. 

Chances were that, were Wong to approach him now, Strange would not give him the time of the day.

Big shot millionaire neurosurgeons in their prime did not befriend monks without a dime to their names, especially when the doctor mentioned was Stephen Strange (no, Wong did not feel any sort of way about this).

No. Wong was going to have to wait about six years and some months to meet the man who had, at one point in time, become the closest friend he had, and that was... that was fine.

Wong was a sorcerer of Kamar Taj, after all. He could be patient.

He did not miss Strange that much.

That man had caused more problems at Kamar Taj since his arrival than Wong had suffered in all of his years of living in the Sanctum. 

The longer he stayed away, the longer Wong’s mental health would be spared. He should probably savour the rest of his free–

“Hey!” called out Stark. Wong focused back on him and on Hulk, who was standing beside him and looking a little less threatening – and a lot more confused – than he had a few moments before. “Hulk wanted to see Kamar Taj before he becomes Bruce again. Just to make sure there is no Ross or guns around.”

Hulk growled in agreement behind him.

Wong glanced at Rhodes, who simply shrugged.

But he had also become less tense, and worse came to worse, Wong could put Hulk in the mirror dimension. Abomination had never been strong enough to escape it, and he had never met anyone strong enough to physically break out of that prison. He hoped Hulk wasn’t going to be the exception to that rule.

Stark put his arm around Hulk’s wrist in a friendly manner, and Wong shook his head once more before he opened a portal large enough to fit them and the Hulk.

The creature paused, looking at the flamey borders of the portal with a growl raising in his throat.

“Fire,” he let out, distrusting, but Stark quickly patted his arm in reassurance.

“It’s fine, big guy. It’s like the top of a cave– so long as you keep your head a bit down and don’t touch it, it won’t hurt you. Look.”

Rhodes took the signal for what it was, walking through the portal by carefully avoiding the flame edges of it, and Wong followed after him, also being careful in not touching them.

Hulk watched their actions very carefully. Then, once they had both stepped through, he nodded.

As Wong watched him carefully lift his arm and the Tony attached to it and put them with extreme caution through the portal, he realised that Hulk was probably far smarter than Wong had previously considered him.

Especially as he imitated their actions as well as his large limbs would allow him, and stepped inside of Kamar Taj.

This was certainly not the mindless creature he had sometime seen advertised on the news. He had been extra careful with Tony, and then with himself, and had imitated Rhodey and Wong with an almost scary degree of accuracy.

He was smart. Young minded, perhaps, and too strong for his own good.

But he was smart.

That made him dangerous in a different way than the media had implied for many years.

The sorcerers had been warned of Hulk’s impending arrival, so while many of the ones around stared at him in confusion and wonder, nobody attacked.

“See?” said Stark, pointing around the place. “All nice and calm. Big space for you to wander around if you need, but no threats. And my friend Thor is also around. Thor!”

“Friend Tony,” said Thor, approaching them with his brother in tow, eyes fixed on Hulk in marvel. “What is this mighty beast?”

Hulk growled, while Loki hit his brother’s shoulder.

“Not a creature,” said Tony, looking at Thor in disappointment. “Didn’t we have a chat about how we interact with people who look different from us last week?”

“Right,” said Thor, cringing slightly. “Apologies, friend of my friend. I am Thor, god of thunder, former prince of Asgard, brother of Loki.”

Loki crossed his arms, not quite looking at Thor - like he did, whenever Thor said they were siblings. “I am Loki, god of chaos and mischief. Who are you?”

“Hulk,” said Hulk, still looking at Thor with distrust. 

“An honour to meet you, great berserker Hulk,” said Thor. “I can hardly wait to train alongside you. I am sure we will become great shield-brothers.”

“Train?” asked Hulk, looking confused.

“Like fighting and smashing,” explained Tony. “But for fun. Not to get hurt.”

“For fun,” repeated Hulk, sounding marvelled by the concept. 

“Yep! Oh, there is so much you are going to enjoy,” continued Stark, and Wong exchanged a glance with Rhodes, who looked very smug.

“SHIELD fucked up,” he repeated.

“SHIELD fucked up,” agreed Wong.

Indeed SHIELD had fucked up because, after Banner woke up post transformation, he did not run away.

The man had definitely been worried and freaked out when he had woken up in a monastery-like place with Tony Stark and a guy who claimed himself Thor, god of Thunder, sitting beside him; but despite the confusion and general wariness, after Tony had explained and generally proven to him how he had gotten there, Banner had not run.

Instead he had listened, first with disbelief, and then with curiosity and hope as the Order of Kamar Taj was explained to him by Tony and then the Ancient One. His disbelief and scepticism of Thor’s claims of being both the god of Thunder and a friend of Tony’s turned quickly into scientific curiosity and intrigue, after some proof from Wong and the Ancient One.

It had a lot to do with their claims about being able to help him ‘deal’ with the Hulk and help keep them both in check, Rhodey was sure.

“Do you not like Bruce Banner or something?”

Rhodey turned to Tony, who’s eyes were still fixed on the laptop he had brought with him.

“Why do you ask?” 

“It was there even with Thor, at the beginning,” explained Tony, still typing. “You act like you want to give them the benefit of the doubt and trust them, but you are also just waiting for them to say the wrong thing or take the wrong step. You are not that good at hiding it.”

“Not good at hiding it from you,” corrected Rhodey, with a huff.

Thing was, Rhodey might have told him a lot about the future in order to make him understand why he was there and what he was trying to do (what was at stake), but he had not gone into all of the details – and Tony hadn’t asked him to.

Thor and Banner’s actions towards the other Tony had been among the details Rhodey had decided to spare his friend from.

Mostly because he knew Tony had never really held a grudge against them for their actions, but also because he knew that he would never allow the situations that had caused such reactions to happen again.

No choking, no abandoning, no pretend friendship. Rhodey would not allow it to happen.

Their relationships were having a completely different start, this time around.

This time, there was no SHIELD manipulating them all from the beginning. Tony had now met Thor with them being both on equal footing, and protected Thor’s future girlfriend from SHIELD (who he was currently trying to figure out a way to get to their current residence without alerting SHIELD to what he was doing). 

And Bruce and Tony’s relationship was also different too: Tony had now helped save him and become one of Hulk’s first friends, this time without the threat of aliens or too nosy secret agents hanging over them. Hell, this time Tony was not even acting weird and offering a man he barely knew – and who wasn’t, because of that, used to the ‘Tony Stark Effect’ (copyright of Happy Hogan) – a full apartment in his tower and access to his labs.

The starting points were different than they had been. 

Chances were that the journeys would also be.

“They were your friends,” he ended up saying. “And they fucked you over. You ended up forgiven them. I decided to hold the grudge in your name since.

“But they are not the people I remember, so I am trying.”

Tony was looking at him with a frown, pausing his work. “Do you think it will happen again?”

“No,” said Rhodey, almost certain. “As long as I’m around, and we are together, I don’t think it will.”

“You won’t always be around, though,” pointed out Tony. “Which brings me to my next point: are you sure you want to be here for this? You are Air Force.”

“Ross is a piece of shit, and SHIELDRA is not any better.”

“I agree,” said Tony, “But you are risking your career here, honeybear. Is it really worth throwing away something that you have worked on for so long? I mean, I am not planning on selling you out and I am way too good at what I do to let what we are doing be traced back to me, but... The AirForce was your dream. Is your dream.”

It was.

Rhodey had slaved for years to get to where he was now. And this current course of actions risked undoing everything he had worked so hard for, for so long.

It was risky.

But Rhodey had made his peace with this the moment he had chosen to stay with Tony instead of flying out with the armour once more.

He would not quit the Air Force. He was not going to self sabotage himself in any way.

But if they asked him to leave, he was not going to fight them on it (and he doubted they would; Rhodey was aware of the weight he had, now, between the suit Tony had gifted him - not the AirForce: him - and his long standing relationship with SI).

“I know what I’m doing,” said Rhodey, pressing a hand on his shoulder. “Let’s do this.”

Tony studied him for a few seconds longer.

“If you had died,” he then said, “I would have destroyed any timeline or Infinity Stone to save you too. Fuck Iron Man, or SI, or anything else.”

Rhodey had not told Tony that he had died in his universe. 

But Tony was not an idiot, and he knew that there were few things that Rhodey would consider more important than the job he had worked towards for years.

“I know," he said, running a hand through Tony’s messy hair. "You would have probably destroyed the multiverse.”

Tony tried to slap his hand away, and Rhodey snorted.

He had a feeling that while they would have been able to fix it, Tony and Strange going back in time like he and his companions had would have ended in some freaky disaster or change that no one could have foreseen or looked forward to.

“I would have improved it,” complained Tony, even as he went back to his laptop. 

“According to who?”

“According to me,” said Tony. 

“The world according to Tony Stark,” mused Rhodey. He wondered how Wanda Maximoff and Rogers would have survived it.

They already thought they lived in it, so probably not well.

“I would have made you President and Pepper Queen,” continued Tony. “Happy would have helped me with security, and we would have probably taken over the world ethically. World domination, but in a cool way that everyone would have been super happy about.”

“And that’s why you were not sent back in time,” said Rhodey, shaking his head.

“But I would have done this anyway,” said Tony, pressing the enter key with a satisfied look in his eyes. “AKA leaking a bunch of very interesting information about Ross to the media and on the internet. He is not seeing anything that isn’t a court martial anytime soon, let alone the position of Secretary of State. Seriously, how did he make it, the first time around?”

“Bruce did not want to testify and SHIELD helped him cover his tracks for dibs on the Hulk,” said Rhodey, feeling both infuriated and satisfied as he read the information Tony had managed to unveil. 

The amount of shit this man had gotten away with...

But not this time.

He smiled back at Tony. “Let’s give Hulk and Banner the good news.”

Tony and Rhodey were sat across from each other at a donut place when SHIELD - Fury and Romanoff - walked in.

“Hey, look at that,” said Tony, watching as they came towards their booth. “The secret assassin spy that we fired and the pirate guy who broke into my Mansion. Shouldn’t they be in jail?”

“They should be in jail,” agreed Rhodey, keeping his eyes on them as they sat in the booth next to theirs. “And they look nothing like the red velvet donut I ordered.”

“I did not order them either,” agreed Tony, resting his cheek on his palm. “Should we call the police?”

“You don’t want to do that,” smoothly cut in Fury. “We are, after all, here to help you.”

Tony turned to look at Rhodey, wide eyed. “They are here to help me, Rhodey.”

“I heard,” he answered, in that same tone of voice. “Do you need help?”

“Not that I know of,” said Tony, turning back to the two annoyed spies. They didn’t look annoyed, but Rhodey knew enough about who they were as people to know they were. “What would I need help with? Retrieving the data that the itsy bitsy spider stole from me?”

Romanoff did a good job at pretending she was not surprised or startled by the fact that Tony knew exactly who she was. “I did not steal any data from you.”

“Who’s going to believe that an agent from a group I had already told no to entered my company under false credentials and didn’t steal from me, while actively trying to fuel my most self destructive traits? It stinks of honeypotting.”

“You wouldn’t put an innocent person in prison f-”

Tony and Rhodey bursted into laughter at the same time, something that seemed to catch the man by surprise. 

Rhodey kept chuckling, turning to look at Tony. “He’s saying that the former Russian spy accredited with god knows how many assassinations under the Red Room is innocent.”

“The woman he has sent on dozens of missions himself and who he handed and asked to hit me with a shot of Lithium dioxide before coming in, whether I want it or not,” added Tony, just shaking his head at them when both tensed. “You are funny.”

“And you know a lot,” said Fury, eye turning a lot less smug than it had been when he had walked in.

Retracing, recalculating.

Not good enough.

Tony shrugged, innocently. “I am a genius.”

Fury’s eyes went to Rhodey. “And you are an AirForce Colonel.”

“An AirForce Colonel with the only other iron suit in the world,” added Rhodey, cutting off the threat before it could even come into existence. “A suit every faction of the military loves a lot. What’s your point?”

Fury’s eye went from Tony to Rhodey, some sort of self awareness seeming to start entering his brain.

“Look,” he said, putting both hands on the table. Romanoff did the same, dropping the lithium dioxide on the table too. Tony kept smiling, but Rhodey did not miss the slight clenching of his jaw at the truth of what Rhodey had told him they’d do, at the fact that they would have gone ahead even though they had no idea of what the situation with the poisoning was anymore. “We clearly started off on the wrong foot. But Stark, we were simply trying to help. Your father-”

“Helped create SHIELD,” interrupted Tony. “He also warned SHIELD off ever coming anywhere near me. And somehow I doubt Romanoff was trying to ‘help me’ when she advised me to get wild when I thought I had hit rock bottom and was going to die. Or when she brought that thing in here.”

“We were attempting to help,” insisted Fury. “Maybe we could have done things better, but your father’s legacy-”

“You know what the one thing I was waiting for them to do and that they did not say throughout this whole thing was?” interrupted Rhodey, glancing at Tony again. “‘I apologise’.”

“Funny, I noticed that too,” said Tony, shooting them a quick disgusted look. “I guess giving them a second chance was as useless as I thought it was going to be.”

“Stark-”

“Go ahead, Happy,” said Rhodey, speaking into his ‘watch’. “Send our friends in blue in. Me and Tony are going to stay here to make sure they don’t make a run for it or injure anyone.”

“Director,” spoke Romanoff, pointing at the window where the previously hidden cops appeared. 

“Stark, you don’t want to do this,” said Fury, and it was funny how he assumed Tony had done all this. How he assumed Tony had found out the truth, and Tony had prepared the ambush, and Tony had made sure to arrest their extraction team out there, and Tony was the mastermind behind all of this.

For spies, they were incredibly short sighted.

But, like Wong had said, there were the people who the story seemed to exist around, and then there were people like the two of them.

And it worked, being people like the two of them, because nobody looked at them until it was too late.

Even so called superspies ended up falling for their own biases and overlooking them.

At times it was annoying, but it worked right now. It worked very well.

“We know how to save your life from the poisoning,” threw out Fury, as he and Romanoff allowed themselves to be cuffed.

Neither he nor Tony had any illusions that they’d stay imprisoned for long, but at least they’d think again before ever trying to attack either of them again.

“The poisoning?” asked Tony, one eyebrow raised. “That was so last week. Me, Thor and Bruce fixed that issue like this,” he finished, snapping his fingers and grinning at the shocked expression on Fury’s face as he was escorted out.

“Was that last part really necessary?” asked Rhodey, shooting Tony a look.

“They like to think themselves all knowing,” said Tony, shrugging. “I just wanted to make sure they knew they got nothing on us.”

Rhodey just rolled his eyes.

Chapter Text

“Sorry,” said Wong, putting his phone away. “Loki stuff.”

“No worries,” said Rhodey, handing him a to-go cup. “How is he doing anyway?”

Wong accepted it, glad to see it was his favourite blend of chai instead of one of the drinks the AirMan preferred. If anyone had told him before that big bad Colonel Rhodes, the War Machine, liked drinking the most bizarre and unpronounceable frappucinos for breakfast, he’d have never believed it.

But here he was, forced to watch it happen before his eyes.

No wonder Stark had such strong feelings and opinions on coffee, if he was forced to see this sacrilege on an almost daily basis.

“Better,” he answered, taking a sip. “He’s still in no mood to return home or to listen to Frigga or Odin’s explanations, but Laufey is not threatening war with Asgard anymore. And he has allowed Thor on his planet again.”

As previously said, neither he nor Rhodey had a clear idea of how things had gone the first time around. Neither of them had been around and, back then, neither of them had cared or been interested enough to ask.

All they knew – and even that was an assumption – was that Loki’s adoption and the way he had discovered and dealt with it had led to him becoming a puppet general for the Mad Titan. They had no timeline though, no idea of when exactly this had happened, or of the minor things that might have happened to lead to this.

Still, Wong was hopeful.

One thing he had realised, while hearing of how everybody had fucked up everything, was that a lot of this ‘fucking up’ things was due to two main things: lack of trust, and lack of common sense.

So many things would have been resolved if only people decided to use their brains and to not keep sensitive and important information to themselves and away from the people who needed to hear about it.

Wong had the common sense, and knew better than to lie to potential allies about things that concerned them specifically.

So, he was hopeful.

With some light prodding, Loki had eventually decided to tell Thor everything about his hidden heritage and the how he had come about the information. Thor, mellowed out by the underhanded lessons in inclusivity and diversity everyone on Earth he’d call a friend had been teaching him since he had landed, had thankfully not reacted poorly.

He had not reacted well, either. Loki might be his brother who he clearly loved, but he had spent his entire life hating the Jotnar. As unfortunate as it might be, they all knew he was not going to jump in joy immediately at the news.

But while he had taken a few minutes to parse through this newfound knowledge of his brother being blue and not Aesir, he had decided that, in the end, it did not matter. He had been confused by the lies from their parents but had told Loki, in no uncertain terms, that his skin and change in heritage did not change the centuries they had spent at one another’s side, and did not make them any less brothers.

And when Loki had changed in front of him for the first time, daring him to say it again while looking at his blood red eyes, Thor had studied his new look for a few seconds, and then mused that, even in this form, Loki was shorter than him.

Apparently, from the way Loki had immediately relaxed, this had been the correct thing to say.

Somehow this had also been the moment Thor had become worthy of Mjolnir again, something Tony and Rhodey had both loudly boo-ed as too convenient and ‘bare minimum’.

Instead of going back to Asgard, however, Thor had ended up accompanying his brother back to Jotunheim, despite the fact he knew that the Jotnar would kill him first, ask questions later.

The Ancient One had gone with them and, from what she had told them later, things had gone as well as one expected. But nobody had died, and nobody had turned evil and joined Thanos, both of which Wong considered wins.

“He and Laufey and his other siblings are still getting to know each other,” continued Wong, “And he refuses to go to Jotunheim alone. But I think there have been improvements.”

“It’s so weird,” said Rhodey then, shaking his head.

“What is?”

“The fact that, once upon a time, he was the worst threat we had ever faced; and now here we are, making sure he is well and caring about him for more than the bare ‘let’s ensure he doesn’t try to enslave Earth again’ minimum.”

“Things like these tend to happen when you go back in time and change the timeline,” said Wong.

Theoretically. Contrary to popular belief, the sorcerers of Kamar Taj did not make it a habit of messing with time.

“Speaking of things changing,” said Rhodey, as they walked out of the coffee shop. He was tapping on his to-go cup, not quite looking at Wong. “I have been meaning to ask you. Do you... is there any way to find out if... is it possible to erase a person from the timeline?”

Wong frowned, confused. “If you are talking about Maximoff,” he started, but Rhodes shook his head.

“I am hoping that stealing half the Avenger rooster and making sure that the Scepter doesn’t fall in SHIELD’s – and subsequently HYDRA’s – hands will mean no powers for her, but that’s not the problem.” He sighed, giving Wong a serious look. “Pepper and Tony are still not together.”

“Uh...” started Wong, confused. Then the meaning clicked, and his eyes widened in realisation. “Oh. Oh.”

“Yeah,” said Rhodey, expression grim.

Wong had not made it a habit of listening to celebrity gossip, so he would not say he understood or knew the timeline of Tony Stark and Pepper Potts’ relationship.

But he knew that it ended up with the two of them married and with a daughter, and that it had started around the time Tony had given her the company (he was pretty sure, because he remembered the news and the media being particularly vicious towards her at the beginning, accusing her of gold digging and the like, before falling suspiciously quiet on the topic not even a week later).

But it had been almost a year since her company takeover, and if Rhodey was right, their relationship had not proceeded the way it was supposed to have.

“They got together right after Vanko,” continued Rhodey, lips thinning. “And she was mad at him for lying about his poisoning and they kissed badly on a rooftop I was already standing on. But this time I made him tell her, and I got rid of Vanko, and there was no rooftop and no kiss.”

“You think you erased their daughter.”

“No kiss, no Pepper and Tony 'will they won’t they' dance, and no Morgan,” he said, shaking his head despondently. “I removed my goddaughter from the timeline.”

“It is not so easy to remove someone or their story from the timeline,” said Wong, carefully. “And have you considered that, even if you had not been the reason Pepper and Tony never kissed, with no Thanos or Loki being a threat in the future, they might have still never had her?

“What are you saying?”

“I’m saying that you alone cannot erase a person from the timeline,” said Wong, opening a portal. “And you never know what might happen in the future. It might not be the Morgan you know, but perhaps–”

“What the fuck?!”

Both Wong and Rhodey paused at the sight in front of them.

They were walking into the not yet completed Tower of one Tony Stark, as they had many times, so a degree of weirdness going on was to be expected. Once, Wong had walked in on Thor, Tony and Hulk playing something that looked like Just Dance.

It had also looked like Hulk was somehow winning.

Weirdness involving Tony Stark was to be expected.

“What the fuck is that?! Where did you come from?! How did you- how did you get in?!”

“Damn it, Wong!”

Rhodey turned to look at Wong, his eye twitching slightly. “Did you step on an ant? Because that looks like–”

“How did you get in here?!” demanded Doctor Stephen Strange, pulling a blanket over his naked body while Tony cursed in the background, clearly more annoyed about being interrupted and falling off the couch than about people seeing him half naked.

The doctor pointed at the open portal behind them, cheeks flushed and confusion apparent on his face. “What the hell is that?!”

“A portal,” said Wong, turning to look at Rhodey. “Since-”

“Don’t look at me,” said Rhodey, putting both hands up. “I was just complaining to you about the whole M. H. S. thing. Tony never told me he was seeing anyone.”

“I'm not seeing anyone, this is not a thing,” protested Tony, putting a hand on Stephen’s shoulder, which he immediately shrugged off. “This sort of just happened, and look, babe-”

“Don’t fucking babe me, Stark,” said Strange, with that withering look Wong was so familiar with and had not realised he had missing for so long. “What the fuck? What the- am I having a stroke? I am having a mental break of some kind... right?”

“Would that make you feel better?” wondered Wong, making the portal disappear with a hand movement. Strange made a strangled noise at the sight. “Maybe it was just a hologram from Tony. Maybe we are just holograms from Tony.”

Strange’s eyes narrowed.

Rhodey caught the tissue box the doctor then threw at him, while Wong opened another portal and made it fall on the table beside him.

Strange jumped, looking at the box in shock, and when Rhodey glanced at him judgingly, Wong just shrugged.

Still, he allowed himself to take a look at the would be most powerful sorcerer of his time.

The man that had been, once upon a time, Wong’s closest friend.

It wasn’t as if Wong had not seen pictures of him before. Strange was a famous man, and even in the previous timeline, the Ancient One had kept an eye out on the coming and goings of the man.

The streaks that he had never figured out if they were a fashion choice or a genetic mutation were ever present - if less pronounced. His eyes, even panicked and confused as they were, were the same confusing shade that he had disgustingly listened to more than one sorcereress - and sorcerer - swoon about, and shone with that familiar intelligence that should not be underestimated.

Though it was hard to do, right now, as he watched the man try and fail to rationalise the portal to himself.

“I have hit my head,” was currently saying the doctor. “I am having some sort of very vivid dream or delusion. Something must have happened, something-”

“Maybe I fucked you so good that it broke your brain,” offered Tony- no, for this comment he was back to being Stark.

Strange gave him a disgusted look. “That is even less likely than... than...”

“Magic,” 'helpfully' supplied Rhodey, looking over at Stark. “Tones, what is this? Who is this? And since when has this been going on? I thought you and Pepper...?”

Tony shrugged, pulling up his pants. “Remember that event I asked you to be my plus one to and you, evilly and filled with malevolent spirits, said no?”

“I said I had something else to do.”

“Evilly and filled with malevolent spirits,” repeated Stark. “Since you rejected me and my love without an ounce of pity or affection, I asked Pepper to be my date. She accepted, but then, because those malevolent spirits went from inside you to inside her – a hot image, to be fair – she decided to stand me up for a date with my ex company. Heartbreaking, truly, but I guess to be expected. Her priority will always be SI, and my priority will always be Iron Man. Why ruin a good thing with romance?

“I considered drowning my sorrows and choking my pain in alcohol, following that. But then I saw Mr long legs over here being a bitch to his colleague and looking hot while doing it, and I thought to myself ‘how about I drown in those eyes and choke on that dick instead?’. And here we are,” he finished cheerfully.

Stark had no idea of what not pursuing Pepper Potts meant for his future, for the future Rhodes had seen and lived. His friend might have told him a lot, but he couldn’t have told him everything, because telling someone everything about the future was the number one way of ensuring that future imploded.

He understood Rhodey’s grief about it, but he couldn’t really do anything to change this.

He could and would not do anything to interfere or change Tony’s opinion, and he decided that he was going to ensure that Rhodey did not either. Yes, Morgan might, because of this, never come to be. But this wasn’t a decision either of them could make for Tony. And telling him what might be in terms of children at this stage would be counterproductive too.

Now, keeping Stephen away from Tony, that was possible and probably a very smart thing to do for everyone involved.

“Magic doesn’t exist,” said Stephen, glaring as if Wong had just cursed at him.

It was very reminiscent of early days Strange.

“How do you explain the portal, then?” asked Wong, one eyebrow raised.

“Brain damage. Not caused by sex with you, Stark.”

Stark pouted.

“And why are you not freaked out by this?” then demanded Strange, rounding up on him. “How are you so calm? This monk broke into your house... somehow!”

“Wong is the friendly neighbourhood sorcerer,” explained Tony, picking up his clothes now that he realised there was not going to be any further nasty sex business. “He might look grumpy but he’s not an evil sorcerer.”

“Wong,” said Loki, appearing in the living room with Thor in tow. Stephen let out a gasp, nearly falling backwards and dropping the blanket, while the dark haired mage completely ignored him. “I seek your– Stark, why are you naked.”

“What the fuck?” demanded Stephen, voice shrill, one finger pointed at Loki and eyes fixed on Thor’s hammer. “What the fuck?!”

Tony made jazz hands to indicate the two men. “Magic.”

“What the fuck?!"

One thing Wong had hoped for, when he had returned to the past, was that Stephen would not have to ruin his hands in order to arrive to Kamar Taj.

He had seen the impact of that injury on the man – or at least the aftermath of it. The self consciousness, at the beginning, over what had once been his biggest pride. The way he had hidden them behind soothing – but ugly – yellow gloves for months. The terrible shaking he had tried and failed to hide from everyone. The pain he’d wake up with, some days, that rendered him unable to even hold a spoon and had him relying on the Cloak (the only being he had felt comfortable showing weakness around).

If only for the physical pain it had caused him for years, Wong had hoped to spare him from it. 

Both he and Rhodey had agreed to dismiss most of the timeline they had come from from the moment they had landed back in 2010. The entire point of them returning was that they thought things had not gone as well as they could have (and that sometimes, the so called ‘heroes’/‘chosen ones’ made dumbass decisions).

They had known that they could not control the ramifications that’d come from keeping Loki out of Thanos’ clutches and his brand of convincing, but they had done it anyway. Because it was the decent thing to do, and they had reasoned that it was better to have allies and reunite brothers who’s drama had definitely ended up causing disasters throughout the Nine Realms, than ‘knowing’ what would come from the Invasion.

Especially since they knew where the Space Stone was, and they knew that the best offence often was defence. They were an AirMan and a sorcerer who had been protecting Kamar Taj for years already. They knew how to fight and win battles.

If saving Loki from Thanos’ clutches was possible, why shouldn’t he also try and save Stephen from the terrible car crash in his future? Sure, it had led him to Kamar Taj; but first it had broken him, mentally and spiritually.

Many people came to Kamar Taj broken, but Wong had always thought that was a terrible way of recruiting.

The problem had been that, with who Stephen was, professionally and as a person, Wong had not been able to figure out another way of bringing him into the fold.

As he had said before, big shot millionaire neurosurgeons in their prime did not befriend monks without a dime to their names.

He had still thought that, in time, he’d figure out a hopefully non violent and non painful way to get him to join their Order (... Stark was right, when he thought about it like this, it did sound like a cult).

But he had not expected... this.

He had imagined many ways in which Strange would react, following his discovery of magic.

A lot of his thoughts had involved the Ancient One coming to him and telling him that Stephen Strange’s future had disappeared forever from her sight. Or that she had seen the future and while they might beat Thanos, they would never be able to defeat Dormammu because Stephen would never become a sorcerer again.

That had been what Wong had expected.

That was not what had happened.

“What.”

“He doesn’t believe magic is real,” explained Stark, looking very excited in front of him. “He is adamant that it doesn't, actually. He spent a few days checking his brain for signs of physical or psycho-something damage, and a few more proving to himself that he was awake and was not having a very vivid dream of some sort. Then he came to the conclusion that you, Rhodey, Loki and Thor performed some sort of illusion act or something that is equally as fake, and has come all the way here to prove himself right and you all wrong.”

Wong turned from Tony to Stephen, who was standing at his side and squinting and glaring from the doorway in general distaste.

Wong might not have greeted him, but he had been around, when the man had joined Kamar Taj. He had seen him come in with Mordo and the Ancient One, with his scruffy beard, shaking hands, and haunted expression.

In contrast, this Stephen was freakishly clean shaven, as haughty as he looked in any journal he was published in, and wearing clothes that actually fit him and looked way too expensive for Wong’s tastes.

He turned to Rhodey.

Rhodey shrugged.

“The Ancient One will be the one to decide if you get to stay or not,” said Wong, opening the door further so that they could come in. “And the secrets of Kamar Taj must remain secrets.”

“Trust me, I am not planning on telling anyone that I joined a cult,” said Stephen, rolling his eyes.

“It’s because he has no friends,” told him Tony.

“That is not- you know what, Stark?”

Wong walked a little farther ahead with Rhodey, and shot him a look. “Since when is this still a thing? Are they friends?”

“I could not tell you, but it freaks me out as much as it bothers you,” admitted Rhodey, glancing back at the bickering duo. “He even introduced him to Pepper, who seems to like him well enough, and he her, but it’s just... weird, man.”

They looked like they were bickering. But Wong had seen Stephen really angry or annoyed with someone, and it was not what he was seeing between the two of them. He wasn’t sure of what it was, and he was not certain he wanted to know either.

It was one thing realising that their meddling had probably broken up Stark’s future family.

It was quite another to see this... unholy union begin.

Rhodey’s ‘weird’ did not begin to cover how dark sided this duo appeared to him.

He hoped that this was not the price they had to pay for what they had done. Sure, the price always came due, but this was a too steep price for anyone to pay.

Stark and Strange alone could be insufferable.

But together? The Earth was not ready, and Wong doubted an individual able to handle them both at once had been created yet.

Maybe Pepper Potts. She was a scary individual herself.

He found the Ancient One sitting in one of the empty rooms of the New York Sanctum, a teacup in front of her.

She did not look particularly startled when they came in, though her gaze was immediately fixed on Stephen.

“Uh.”

“It’s a long story,” said Wong. He saw Stephen bowing behind him, and then quickly straightening up and shooting a glare at the giggly superheroes beside him, and rolled his eyes. The future-would-be Avengers were so childish. “This is Doctor Stephen Strange. He wishes to learn magic.”

“To disprove magic, actually,” corrected Stephen, arrogantly straightening up behind him. “It’s all a trick. So I’ve decided to take the afternoon off to prove it to myself and to everyone else.” He noticed one of the chakra maps on the walls, and his lips twisted in even more distaste. “Maybe I should have only bothered to take my lunch break.”

The Ancient One looked even more amused than before. “Don’t like that map?”

“It’s... it’s fine, I guess,” said Stephen, the looks on his face not budging. “But I’ve seen better ones. In giftshops, you know.”

“Fascinating,” said Tony, looking intrigued. “Is this what I sound like to you all?”

“You are not nearly this arrogant or bull-headed,” said the Ancient One.

“Hey, watch it,” complained Stephen.

“It’s true,” said Wong. “I think it’s because you trust Rhodey more than you trust sense, and decided that if he tells you magic is real, you are going to believe him wholeheartedly.”

“80.2%,” corrected Rhodey. “Tony always leaves room for reasonable doubt.”

“And that’s why you’re my better half.”

They high fived without looking at each other.

It was funny. Wong and Stephen’s relationship and Tony and Rhodey’s were completely different. And yet Wong would put his soul and his magic on the line for Stephen Strange with the same ease Rhodey would put his job and life on the line for Tony Stark.

And while this Stephen would not do the same, the Stephen Wong had left behind would have moved Heaven and Hell for him. But at the same time Wong would have willingly chosen to die before he high fived him, and Stephen would have killed them both before he let him have a single chip he had bought for himself.

“You’re a man who’s looking at the world through a keyhole, Stephen,” said the Ancient One, making several cups of tea float before him. “And you spent your whole life trying to widen that keyhole.”

Stephen did not seem at all impressed, even as he accepted it. “Some sort of machine,” he said, sounding certain of it. “The fake portals were more believable. And interesting ‘read’ of me. You figured all of this out by speaking to me once?”

“Tony, Rhodey and Wong might have mentioned you before,” she lied. “And you are not that hard to read, Stephen Strange. I can see it, in your eyes: you want to see more, know more. It’s why you are here, truly. And yet, at the same time, the mere idea of magic, of thinking that you can widen the keyhole frightens you so much that you reject the possibility.”

“No,” said Stephen, flatly. “I reject it because I do not believe in fairy tales about chakras, or energy, or the power of belief. There is no such thing as a spirit. We are made of matter, and nothing more. We’re just another tiny, momentary speck within an indifferent universe.”

“Is she gonna do the thing?” whispered Tony.

“You think too little of yourself,” said the Ancient One.

Stephen scoffed, and Rhodey nodded. “She’s going to do the thing.”

“You think you see through me, do you?” asked Stephen, annoyed and incensed at the same time. “Well, you don’t. But I see through you! You’re just another charlatan-”

The Ancient One hit his chest with the palm of her hand, sending his astral form on a trip across the multiverse.

“She did the thing,” said Wong, catching Stephen’s body before it could fall to the ground.

Tony watched him move him to a chair and shuddered. “He looks so dead. Was it so creepy when she did it to me?”

“You looked dead,” said Rhodey.

Wong grimaced a little. Rhodey had not taken the sight well. Apparently seeing Tony die in front of him once before had caused him some trauma.

Bruce Banner appeared on the staircase then, and smiled when he saw them near the door.

“Tony, hi.”

“Brucey,” said Tony, waving at him. “How are you? How is Hulk?”

“We are both fine,” said the man, coming towards them. He frowned at Stephen’s still body. “What’s going on? Oh, did you do the thing?”

“She did the thing,” confirmed Rhodey.

In the past few months, Wong had gotten to know the man and his alter ego. He had many demons, and had struggled at the beginning.

But, safe at Kamar Taj, without having to fear the Hulk’s damage or people trying to steal his blood or kidnap him, he had found some form of peace. And with the Ancient One, Wong and Mordo’s help, he had learnt to speak to his other self, and come to a sort of understanding and acceptance of the Hulk.

Wong did not have much to compare it to, but according to Rhodey, he was much more settled than he had been in the previous timeline.

Which meant hopefully no Professor Hulk. Now that Wong had gotten to know the Hulk, the thing seemed even more of an abomination.

Stephen came to suddenly, eyes wide and panicked, face paler than usual.

He put a hand over his chest, looking around wildly. “What did you just do to me?!?”

“Hey, you’re back,” said Tony, putting a hand on his shoulder. “You’re okay. Breathe.”

“I pushed your astral form out of your physical form,” explained the Ancient One, taking a sip of her drink.

“What’s in that tea?” he demanded. “Psilocybin? LSD?” He noticed Bruce, and turned suddenly more confused than panicked. “Is that Doctor Bruce Banner?”

“Hi,” said Bruce, waving at him. “Doctor Strange, right? And she just puts a little honey in it. Nothing dangerous.”

Stephen stared at him, blinking slowly and catching his breath.

“What happened?” he ended up asking.

“For a moment, you entered the astral dimension,” explained the Ancient One.

“What.”

“I sent you to a place where the soul exists apart from the body,” she explained.

“But that... that doesn’t make sense,” said Stephen, looking around at Tony and Bruce in particular, frustration and fear apparent in his eyes. “Magic isn’t real.”

“Stephen-”

“It doesn’t make sense,” he insisted, looking lost. “It just doesn’t. Magic isn’t supposed to exist, it’s-”

“Pull yourself together,” said Wong.

Stephen glanced at him, still looking very lost, and Wong gave him his best disapproving expression.

“We get, you’re a man of science. You’re a man of logic, and reason, and numbers, and magic being real does not fit in with all of the perfectly made and crafted pieces of your life. 

“But so many things don’t, and it does not make them any more or less real. Cancer makes no sense. Why do so many cultures that according to archeology and history could have never come across each other share so many traits? That doesn’t make sense. According to all known laws of aviation, there is no way that a bee should be able to fly.”

“Bee Movie, Simon J. Smith, Steve Hickner, 2007,” he automatically said.

Wong did not smile. “Point is, life just is, Strange. Things are, whether they make sense or not, whether they fit into the tiny box you call ‘reason’ or not. Once upon a time, the medicine you practise today made no sense to you. You might be smart,” he added, when Stephen opened his mouth, “But you did not understand the new methods of cutting people’s brains that you have today back when you were just getting into biology.”

Stephen closed his mouth.

“But you read on it, and studied, and a lot of things that did not make sense suddenly made sense. Some other things, your teachers said that scientists have not yet found a solution or a reason for it, and are still being investigated/understood, and you also accepted it. Like the placebo effect, or whatever.

“So, you can cry and whine about magic not being real and not making sense despite all of the proof we have given you so far. Or you can accept that you will never understand it but it exists, and move on with your life.

“Or you can come with me and read through our beginners books on magic and try and understand it and how it shapes our universe.” Wong shrugged, crossing his arms behind his back. “Your choice.”

Stephen stared at him, and it was a bit like he was only now really looking at Wong.

“Has anyone ever told you you have terrible bedside manners?” he ended up asking.

“I know you’re not talking, Doctor Strange. Your reputation precedes you.”

“Stephen,” corrected Stephen, standing up. “Call me Stephen. You?”

“Wong.”

“Wong,” repeated Stephen. “Just Wong? Like... Adele?”

Wong stared at him. 

“Or... Aristotle.”

Wong kept staring.

“... Drake,” tried Stephen, now cringing a bit. “Bono... Eminem.”

It was good to see that certain things did not change.

“Library,” he said, turning around and starting to walk away.

“Oh thank god,” said Stephen, following after him.

If he had looked behind him then, Wong would have seen the smug look on the Ancient One’s face, but he didn’t.

Chapter Text

“Rhinoceros!”

“Corre-”

“Hell no,” interrupted Rhodey, glaring daggers at the two men smirking in front of them. “No way. No fucking way, you two have to be cheating.”

Wong gave him a look filled with superiority. “Don’t hate the players, James Rhodes, hate the game.”

“No,” echoed Tony, equally as offended, pointing at the terrible drawing on the board. “There is just no way you got rhinoceros from that. That’s not even a drawing, that’s a bunch of lines.”

“That is actually quite rude,” said Stephen, pretending to be offended. “No need to diss my artistic talents just because you are bitter that you are losing.”

“You are cheating,” repeated Tony, scowling. “I know it, you know it, and everyone else knows it too!” He turned to Rhodey. “I know they are cheating; do you also know it, Rhodey?”

“I know it,” agreed Rhodey, the same mulish expression on his face. “You two are cheating.”

“You know where cheaters go, Stephen Strange?! To Hell!”

“Dante never mentioned it, but there is a circle of Hell dedicated to just cheaters-” started Rhodey.

“And then another dedicated to just the two of you!” finished Tony.

“Wow,” said Jane Foster, pausing mid sip of her drink. “I am pretty sure pictionary games are not supposed to break down into threats and fatalistic prophecies.”

“This is nothing,” said Pepper, passing the charcuterie board to Happy and Mordo. “You should see what happens when Tony, Rhodey, Happy and I play monopoly.”

Rhodey shuddered at the memory of the last time that terrible idea had taken place. He was pretty sure there was still a mark on the wall of the Malibu mansion from where Happy had smashed a chair over the glass table and made shards fly all over the place.

Then he frowned, realising that she and about half of the group were sat on the couch, chatting, drinking, eating, and generally seeming to not be all interested in the game they were meant to be playing.

“Are you guys not playing?”

“No,” said Mordo, taking a sip of rose. “We’ve all decided it’s funnier to watch the six of you compete than risk being in the line of fire.”

“We are placing bets on who we think is going to win,” explained Darcy. “My vote is on you and Tony.”

“Thank you-”

“But you are on our team, lady Darcy,” complained Thor, looking at her in betrayal. 

“Don’t worry, I’m on your team, Thor,” said Jane, smiling at her boyfriend. “You and Loki have it in the bag.”

“And without cheating,” said Loki, giving Stephen and Wong a very disapproving look.

“See?” said Tony, moving towards Loki. “Even Loki can tell you are cheating, and he hates you for it. How does it feel, being hated by a god? Shame on you both. Bring it here, dude.”

“Don’t call me dude,” said Loki, even as he high-fived Tony.

Sometimes, Rhodey still found it weird. 

At no point in the previous timeline would a group like this have ever existed. And even if the individuals had, they would have never been found playing pictionary all together.

Tony, Rhodey, Pepper and Happy together, maybe. Bruce and Thor, depending on what point of their friendship/journey/relationship they were in. Darcy Lewis and Jane Foster, as far as Rhodey knew, Tony had never met, despite them being close to Thor. Stephen and Wong they had not known until it was too late. And Mordo and Loki had both been considered enemies for different reasons.

It was surreal thinking that they were all sort of friends now – or at least friendly enough to sit together in Tony’s penthouse with freshly ordered sushi, charcuterie boards and drinks, playing pictionary and getting dangerously competitive because of it without anyone seriously worrying for their lives.

Wong and Rhodey would not take all the credit for it, but their intervention definitely had helped a lot more than it had injured.

Though, he could not deny that it was still a little weird and borderline sad to see Tony and Pepper completely fine and healthy despite not being together (and showing no inclination of ever getting together). Even more weird was that instead of their weird romantic antics, he was forced to see Tony and Stephen becoming...  something, which was simply very... well, strange. 

He supposed that, at the very least, they were all happy, and that counted something.

But it was still odd.

Rhodey had heard Tony’s recounting of the doctor after his return from Titan, and it had not sounded as if he had liked him all that much.

And yet, they had been doing this... thing they were doing for over a year, at this point.

Neither he nor Wong were sure of how to think of it, but everyone else seemed to find their relationship normal and expected, even Pepper. 

Maybe not losing his hands and finding magic the way he had in this timeline had drastically changed Stephen Strange. Maybe no SHIELD in his life had drastically changed Tony.

Rhodey could not begin to guess, but he was generally happy with the way things were.

Barring, of course, “You are cheating, and I will prove it,” he said, pointing a finger at Wong.

“Are you going to allow him to speak to you like that?” asked Mordo.

“Good luck with that,” said Strange, scoffing.

“Oh, Tony, are you going to take this?” asked Darcy.

Tony turned to the instigating bunch. “You people either help us win or hush.”

“I’m not playing with you,” said Happy, glaring at Tony. “You said my emu looked like my hand had just seized.”

“And you know how sensitive he is about his drawings, Tony,” added Pepper, chidingly.

It did not work that well, in Rhodey’s opinion, given how pink her cheeks were from drinking.

“Yeah, Tony,” said Jane. “You know how sensitive he is.”

“That was uncalled for, Tony,” said Bruce, shaking his head.

“Yeah, Tony,” mocked Stephen. “Not only are you a sore loser, but you also hurt your own teammates’ feelings.”

“First of all, despite your witchcraft-”

“It’s sorcery,” said Stephen, Loki and Wong at the same time.

Tony ignored it.

“Despite your witchcraft, Rhodey and I are still currently in first place, so the sore losers are not us.”

“And jot that down,” added Rhodey.

Loki scowled. “I still believe that we should have been awarded points. We are not Midgardians, how would we have known that the word polish has several meanings? I would have not wasted my time trying to depict a man from the Eastern part of Europe, had I known you meant the nail thing!”

“We let you have your runes,” said Strange, crossing his arms. “Let’s try honesty, for one.”

“Honesty?” said Loki, in a ‘dangerous’ tone.

Wong heard the threat for what it was, as did Rhodey.

“Strange-”

The unveiling of their deception was unfortunately cut off by the Ancient One, who decided that was the perfect time for her to open a portal into the penthouse.

Happy, as usual, glared at the security risk that portals represented, but nobody was surprised by this anymore.

Wong and Rhodey had kept things vague, but the people closest to them knew enough to not pull a Stephen at the sight of magic.

“You are late,” said Tony. “I mean, team sorcerer could not have won even if you had helped them, but-”

“Tony,” interrupted Wong, eyes fixed on the old sorceress. She looked unusually serious. “Is it time?”

The Ancient One nodded. “It is time.”

Well. Pictionary - and finding out from Loki how Wong and Stephen had been cheating - was archived for the time being.

+++

Wong and the Ancient One stole the Tesseract on the same day Tony and Rhodey went to confront SHIELD. Nobody but Rhodey, Wong and the Ancient One had known of this, and then nobody but Wong had known where the man had hid it.

“So this is the Tesseract,” said Stephen, watching the glowing cube with a curious expression. “The second Infinity Stone.”

“Yes,” said Tony, also watching it with intrigue. “This is so weird, but I think I remember seeing this before. Don’t know how or when, but I have definitely seen it before.”

“SHIELD had it, and your dad worked for SHIELD for a while,” pointed out Rhodey. "Maybe there?"

“I also remember this,” said Loki, keeping his distance but watching the Tesseract with a very interested expression. He did not look crazed or anything, but there was no way Rhodey was ever leaving the Tesseract and Loki alone in a room together.

“Father had it in his treasure rooms,” agreed Thor. 

“Did it glow and make ominous sounds while in your dad’s treasure room?” asked Stephen.

“It did not.”

“Did not think so.”

“So this is it,” said Tony, turning to look at Rhodey with his arms crossed. “The big bad. Evil McEvil.”

“Barney’s older and meaner brother,” agreed Rhodey, nodding at his best friend.

Two years had passed since Rhodey and Wong had opened their eyes in the past, and still Tony looked... young. He did not know how else to explain it. 

He just knew that the last image he had of his Tony was of him dying in a blaze of glory because of Thanos; and now Tony stood beside him, years younger, tense but without a lick of the fear he should have for the Titan.

This Tony had not seen New York as it was overrun by aliens. He had not carried a nuke through a portal and seen the battleships on the other side. He had not lived the following six years as Cassandra, and lost everything because of what he had predicted from the beginning, just to end up dying at the end.

Rhodey had not even told him everything they had gone through originally, so Tony did not even know that this was a possibility.

He had had different experiences, which Rhodey had to admit might have made him more arrogant and less wary than he would have preferred.

But he could not begrudge him this happiness, in comparison to the anxiety and nightmares and borderline alcoholism he had dealt with the time before.

At least Thor and Loki looked a little anxious. Nowhere near as angry as the Thor Rhodey remembered, but they definitely knew better than to underestimate their foe.

Rhodey found himself deciding that if that rage had been a response to Loki dying, it was fine that Thor didn’t have to feel it.

“What are we waiting for?” asked Mordo, looking between Rhodey, Wong and the Ancient One. “Should we not just go in?”

“No,” said Wong. “We are waiting for a signal. Rhodey, have you informed the military?”

“Many will not fully believe us until we bring them footage of the fight,” admitted Rhodey, “But the brass tends to listen when War Machine brings in two Norse princes of different planets to tell them of an upcoming invasion from another alien madman.”

Between Tony and Rhodey and the general lack of SHIELD, the introduction of the world to the so called age of heroes had gone far better, smoother and in a less bloody/secretive manner than it had before.

Loki had not entered the planet as a villain, and Thor had been presented from the beginning as an ambassador from Asgard to Earth, rather than a prince kicked off his planet by his father for starting a war born out of xenophobia and a wish for genocide. Between Loki, Tony, Jane and the sorcerers of Kamar Taj, Thor had learnt his lesson (because apparently ‘genocide is bad’ was a lesson he had to learn) eventually, and gotten his hammer back (too conveniently for Rhodey’s tastes, but he had always known Odin was corrupt).

The Sorcerers of Kamar Taj were not exactly known, but they had been taking less and less care of keeping themselves hidden. 

And after this, they would not be hidden anymore – something the Ancient One had made sure to speak to all about, and to not force.

According to Wong, while he did not believe Kaecilius fully reformed, this had done wonders for Mordo and him both.

“Who are we waiting for?” asked Bruce, sounding a little anxious.

He and Hulk had not been in a fight in a while, despite the new understanding between them. 

Tony patted him on the shoulder, and he relaxed a fraction.

“Wong came back to," prove a point and protect Stephen Strange, "Save Kamar Taj,” explained Rhodey. “I came back to save,” Tony, “New York and my family. But we are not the only ones who came back.”

"The third mystery time traveller," recalled Mordo.

“She’ll open the door when the time is right,” added Wong.

“You’ll meet her when we get there,” said Rhodey, smiling just thinking about it. 

Sure, Tony was different than he had been, and she would be different too. But he did not see any type of universe existing in which Tony and her did not end up friends.

“Come on,” said Wong, before anyone could question them more. “We need to get ready.”

“When the Tesseract doorway opens, it will send a shockwave strong enough to take down a building,” said Rhodey. “Bruce, Tony, Stephen and I have made the calculations, and if we are in the mirror dimension when this happens, our side will be fine.”

“Theirs won’t,” continued Wong. “I don’t know if it will hurt them badly, but they still won’t expect it. It will cause some chaos. The Ancient One should walk in first, with maybe Loki and Thor alongside her. Between Mjolnir and your magic, you can keep yourselves safe from the Scepter.”

Loki nodded.

“I have extracted a promise from Father that the Aesir army will be ready when and if I call upon them, and Jotunheim will stand with Loki,” said Thor. He still looked nothing like the King Rhodey had fought alongside, but he found himself trusting and liking this version of him more.

“As soon as they attack, we will open portals for the other sorcerers and for the rest of us,” continued Wong. “Stephen, you should stay behind.”

“Wait, what? Why?”

Wong moved to speak to the sorcerer, and Rhodey took that chance to move towards Tony.

“I am not staying behind,” said the man, before Rhodey could speak.

Rhodey snorted. “I doubt you would have. I wasn’t going to ask you that.”

“Oh. What’s up then, Platypus?”

Tony was smiling, but Rhodey was not anymore.

“You are not an idiot,” he started with. “And you are a grown man. I will watch your six forever, but you are not the little 14 years old kid that I saved from a beating at MIT. You survived Afghanistan, and saved yourself, and are perfectly capable of keeping yourself safe and sound.

“So please, do. Fight, like you always do. Don’t be a soldier, but be Iron Man. Protect your planet and your people. Just don’t... don’t die doing it. Don’t throw yourself in the line of the fire.” Rhodey squeezed his arm. “You have done it too many times already.”

“That wasn’t me,” pointed out Tony, tone serious.

“Maybe. But at this point in time you have sacrificed and hurt a lot more than others have. I am not expecting you to sit this one out. But I am hoping that I did not risk the universe just for my best friend to-”

“Kill himself again,” finished Tony, eyes knowing.

Rhodey had never told Tony that he had killed himself, the first time around.

He was also not that surprised that Tony knew anyway.

“It’s out of my hands, at the end of the day but for you, Platypus?” Tony hip checked him, though his smile remained genuine. “I’ll do it. Five rum and cokes.”

It really did not mean a lot.

But Rhodey would take it.

"Five rum and cokes," he agreed.

“Stark,” said Stephen, approaching them with an annoyed expression on his face.

“Yes, babycakes?”

Stephen ignored his words. Instead, he stopped in front of him, and glared.

Then, before Tony could ask what that was about, Stephen bent down and kissed him.

Wong, beside him, shook his head. “Still weird.”

“So weird,” agreed Rhodey, as Stephen broke the kiss off before it could become R rated.

“Wh-”

“Come back alive, and I will let you take me on another date and do the thing that we were talking about,” said Stephen, still looking highly disapproving of Tony and everything he stood for.

He was good at masking his worry, but Rhodey was good at seeing it.

Tony lit up. “Wait, are we talking about the pole thing, the tie thing or-”

“We do not need to hear about that,” interrupted Mordo, grimacing.

“Speak for yourself, I wished to hear more,” complained Loki, much to his brother’s obvious disapproval.

“You are very depraved individuals.”

“Mordo, talk dirty to me.”

“We-”

Rhodey and Wong’s communicators rang at the same time.

It was time.

Nebula was not a hero.

She had never cared to be one, never even pretended. Ever since leaving Thanos’ side, she had fought selfishly, for material gain or out of personal revenge.

If she had killed soldiers, it was not because they were ‘evil’ or because it was the ‘right thing to do’; but rather because she hated them or needed them dead.

Her brain was not fully machine, but her logic was very simple.

She was not a hero.

So, when she realised Wong and James Rhodes were planning to go back to the past to ‘fix things’ there should have been no need or reason for Nebula to go with them.

They were going to ‘save the world’ and ‘fix what had been broken’.

Nebula had no interest in that.

But she had interest in three particular things, and those three things were the reason she had woken up several years in the past, to the horrifying sight of the Titan, once more alive, once more scorning and commanding Nebula and the rest of his (still alive) children again.

It took Nebula everything inside of her to not attack the Titan at first sight.

She had always been a believer of swift punishment, and having to wait for Thanos’ demise, when she now knew he could be killed, was not her idea of fun.

Least of all, having to follow his plans and orders without letting him know how much she despised and wished him dead.

But one thing stopped her.

And that was the sight of her sister standing by him, the hint of defiance that she and Thanos had both been too blind to see the first time around in her eyes, and the fact that she was alive and well, with little to no information on the Soul Stone’s position.

Alive.

And the reason Nebula had agreed to come back – one of the reasons she had agreed to come back – was her sister. Because Rhodes' real reason had been going back to save Tony Stark, and Wong had wanted to make sure Stephen Strange did not have to make choices that shot his sanity, and Nebula wanted her sister alive.

Gamora.

She had been alive then, and already against Thanos and his orders.

And Nebula was not going to attack Thanos and risk her sister’s life, so she had bid her time.

She had a little difficulty proving to Gamora that she was on her side, that she too wanted Thanos gone – mostly, because her sister had not really believed Nebula’s story about time travelling and seeing the future.

But eventually she had convinced her that, at the very least, they both hated the Titan and wanted him dead.

And now, watching the shocked expression on her face, as they hid behind the wall, she felt a little smug.

“You really weren’t joking,” said Gamora, looking at the chaos behind them, as portals opened a little like they had in the final battle, and some familiar and unfamiliar Earth heroes came through.

“I told you, I cam back in time for three reasons,” said Nebula, pulling out her weapons. “Kill Thanos again. Save you. And introduce you to Tony Stark.” She cocked her gun. “Don’t you dare die.”

Gamora’s shock was replaced by an eye roll. “I am a better fighter than you are, Nebula.”

“I have several years of advantage.”

Gamora considered this. “Most Chitauri?”

“Without harming an ally,” agreed Nebula.

“You have an unfair advantage, I don’t know my allies!”

“I guess being you has its disadvantages, after all,” said Nebula, proceeding through the battlefield.

 +++

The battle was more chaotic than it had been on Earth, but thankfully not harder.

There were no Outriders on the ship they descended on. Rhodey could see Thanos, and he could see some of the generals he had fought twice over at this point, but not many Leviathans and no Outriders.

Only Chitauri, which meant that this had been meant to be nothing more than a first attack to test Earth’s power and take the Tesseract with ease. Or maybe, without Loki talking about invading the planet and becoming King, all Thanos knew of the planet and its power was old pre-industrial era information.

Rhodey was glad.

He was also incredibly glad for the sorcerers of Kamar Taj, as they mowed through the Chitauri with extreme prejudice and terrifying displays of strength.

Rhodey had seen footage of the battle of New York, after (once he had convinced himself that Tony was still alive and not on the other side of a wormhole; he should have trusted his gut then, and separated Tony from Rogers and Romanoff from that very moment). 

They might have won in the end but, apart from Tony, Thor and Hulk, nobody else had come close to achieving the same one hit multiple deaths combo.

Romanoff had quickly figured out the limits of their armours and their weak spots, but that did not mean it had made it all that much easier for her to defeat them. She was, at the end of the day, a human with a proficiency for hand to hand and guns.

Barton was able to destroy any Chitauri he aimed for with one hit, but he was not that quick with it – he had, after all, a limited amount of arrows at his disposal.

And without his shield, all Rogers did was punch very hard.

This was not a problem, here.

Rhodey and Tony’s suits were as spaceworthy as Loki’s explanations of space and their 2012 technology could make them, and that was a surprising amount. And considering Tony’s suit had been able to destroy a Leviathan before he had made any real alteration capable of making it go toe to toe with aliens, it was easy to see how powerful the two of them fighting back to back were.

Loki and Thor were scarily powerful and efficient. It was clear watching them face off against Thanos’ generals, that they had been taught to fight probably before being taught to walk. And if watching them fighting one another was nerve inducing, it was quite another thing watching them fighting with each other. They combined attacks, foresaw what the other wanted to do, and covered each other’s back without needing to speak more than a single word.

It was still a little nerve inducing – especially with the matching deranged smiles they had on their faces at the carnage they were creating – and Rhodey was very grateful they were on his side.

Hulk was clearly having fun. They had taken time to explain the Chitauri to him before the Invasion, and given him and Bruce both the choice to join or not. After a one sided conversation with Bruce, Hulk had agreed, claiming himself ready to ‘smash the bad guys’. And smashing the bad guys he indeed was.

And the sorcerers... Rhodey never truly understood just what they were doing. But he understood that they were powerful, did it right, and no Chitauri stood back up following their attacks.

Thanos might have been terrifying in 2018, holding almost all of the Infinity Stones and going through them like they were cards stacked and ready to fall at the hint of a breeze.

He might have been scary in 2023, when he appeared out of nowhere already knowing their weaknesses and powers, with an army several times this size ready to kill them all.

He looked mostly pathetic, right now, fighting an enemy more powerful than he was, without having seen them coming.

Especially since he had been sabotaged from the inside.

“Stark, Rhodey, down!” 

Rhodey pulled Tony down immediately, giving Nebula a chance to fly over their heads with a kick aimed at the head of the General that had been coming for them next.

Gamora landed alongside her, and sank her sword in the chest of said General before he could say or do anything more.

“Damn,” said Tony, watching as the man dropped.

Nebula wiped her bloodied hand on her forehead, and turned to Rhodey. “I have saved Gamora,” she informed him.

“I saved Tony,” said Rhodey, and smiled at her. “Good to see you, Nebula. Nice to meet you, Gamora.”

“Tony Stark,” said Nebula, turning to look at him while her sister waved at Rhodey from behind her. 

“Nebula,” said Tony, opening his helmet.

She stared at him for five seconds, not blinking.

“This is my sister, Gamora,” she then said.

Tony took it in stride, grinning at the other alien. “Hi, Gamora.”

She waved at him too, with the same polite smile.

Nebula studied her sister and Tony for a few more seconds, and then nodded in Tony’s direction. “Don’t die again. It’s inconvenient.” Then she turned to Rhodey. “Thanos. Let’s go.”

Rhodey turned to Tony. “Tony-”

“Gamora and I will deal with the Chitauri and look pretty,” said Tony, nodding though he did not look happy about it. “Get back to me safely. I need to ask your advice about how me and Stephen should approach this Pepper thing.”

“You can’t just say things like that,” complained Rhodey, even as he started to move. “Give me like five minutes. Don’t go anywhere.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it!”

+++

Killing Thanos was, in the end, much easier than they had expected.

Maybe, he had underestimated them. Maybe, they had overestimated him. Maybe, he had not been ready to face them when they had shown up. Maybe, Gamora and Nebula’s betrayal had been so unexpected that he had lost his usual edge.

Maybe, they simply knew him and his way of fighting way better than he did theirs.

Maybe it was a combination of all these factors.

Whatever the case, by the time Nebula, Wong and Rhodey were done, the Mad Titan had become past tense, and was laying in a pool of his own blood, dead as the last of his troops tried to escape.

“We did it,” he said, staring at the dead corpse in shock. “We won.”

“Of course we did,” said Wong, seeming very satisfied. "I told you, the so called heroes just made things a lot more complicated than they needed to be."

“And I have the Mind Stone,” added Nebula, turning the Scepter in her hands. “The Other, Ebony, Corvus, Proxima and Obsidian are also all dead.”

“We did it,” repeated Wong, putting a hand on Rhodes shoulder. “Good for us. I’m going to find Strange.”

“Tony,” said Rhodey, turning around to look for his friend.

Tony, despite his earlier promise, was not that far from him, though he was not fighting anymore, but talking to Loki. 

He still had his armour on. It was old, but it was all in one piece and Tony was breathing with no sort of problem.

Nothing was singed, let alone burned.

Thanos was dead, the New York Invasion had been stopped, no Infinity Stones had been lost, and Tony was alive.

Rhodey was surprised it was not until later, after they had returned to Earth, and Tony and Stephen reunited with a surprising hug from the sorcerer, that a tear managed to trick its way out of his eyes.

“It’s just too weird,” he said, when Wong put a comforting hand on his shoulder.

“Yeah,” said Wong, as Nebula stared at the two of them bemused. “So weird.”

The government and the military were obviously spooked by the show of power of both Thanos and their so called superheroes.

Rhodey was not surprised. He was also not surprised when Tony came to tell him that he was thinking about getting ahead of some stipulations and ideas that were starting to float around about keeping the enhanced under control.

He wondered, when Bruce and Thor both seemed to understand Tony’s opinion and no one started a so-called superhero civil war over it, if this would have been the same, had they been on Earth when the Accords had happened. After all, original Thor had been closer to Rogers than to Tony, at the beginning, and original Bruce tended to run away at any slight provocation - and the name Thaddeus Ross would have been a provocation.

But it did not matter, in the end. It did not matter, because Thor, Bruce and Loki were not the same people Rhodey had met once upon a time. They were different men, with different relationships and different ways of thinking, and he would only be grateful for that.

This Thor would never choke Tony in front of him while Rhodey was too concussed to help, and this Bruce would never escape when Tony needed a friend the most – and not only because this Tony had many other friends he could rely on other than Bruce.

One of whom was Stephen Strange. Who was more than just a friend.

“I did not see this coming,” admitted Wong, coming to sit on the couch with Rhodey and Nebula. His eyes were fixed on the balcony of Stark Tower, however, where Stephen Strange and Pepper Potts were currently standing.

And kissing.

“I don’t think anyone saw this coming but them,” said Rhodey, watching as Tony’s camera flash broke their kiss off, and the man tried to protect himself from their twin disapproving expressions with a pout. “But I don’t hate it.”

“I do,” said Wong. Rhodey looked at him in question, and Wong’s scowl grew. “That makes Stark a permanent fixture in Strange’s life, and since the Ancient One had the incredible idea of making me Sorcerer Supreme, that makes Strange and Stark my problems.” He glared at Rhodey. “The deal was I deal with my white boy, and you deal with yours. Why do I have to deal with yours too, now?”

“Hey, it goes both ways,” complained Rhodey. “Strange just became Tony’s problem, and Tony’s problems always end up being my problems, whether I like it or not.”

“You have more pressing problems than Stark and the sorcerer,” reminded them Nebula. “The Mad Titan’s disappearance has created a vacuum, and three Infinity Stones are now in the Nine Realms, but last sighted on Earth. Ronan and the Collector were both looking for the Power Stone, at some point, and the Reality Stone was also on Earth and Asgard. Gamora still might know where the Soul Stone-”

“Shh,” said Rhodey, putting a finger over his lips. “That’s a problem for the us of tomorrow.”

“She’s right,” said Wong. “SHIELD has defrosted Captain Rogers, and you mentioned something about a hydra-”

“Not today,” groaned Rhodey. “HYDRA is less of a problem with Tony, Hulk and Thor not working for or with SHIELD, and SHIELD having no access to the Mind Stone. Half of the world does not even believe SHIELD has the real Captain Rogers. I don’t know much about the Winter Soldier, but we’ll deal with him and HYDRA when it becomes time to deal with it. After all, we have something all of these people do not.”

“Knowledge of the future?” asked Nebula.

“That, and common sense,” said Wong, nodding. “We will be fine. What will not be fine, is whatever thing is happening between your sister and Loki. I don’t think the universe will survive that.”

“The godling is putting moves on my sister?” said Nebula, jumping to her feet immediately.

“Rest in peace, Loki,” said Rhodey, as she marched away from them in search of the duo. “You will be missed.”

And he was not even lying.