Chapter Text
Stephen frowned at the numbers. They didn’t make sense. “Mom! It’s not working?”
His mother dried her hands on a towel and came over to look over this shoulder. He pushed the worksheet his 3rd grade teacher gave him toward her. The top was division problems that Stephen was sure he got right. So what was he doing wrong on the last part?
His mother ran her finger over the worksheet stopping when she got to the last exercise.
‘How many minutes until you meet your soulmate _______ / 60?’ ________ minutes
‘How many hours until you meet your soulmate _______ / 3,600?’ ________ hours
‘How many days until you meet your soulmate _______/ 86,400?’ ________ days
‘How many years until you meet your soulmate ________/ 31,536,000?’ _________years.
Stephen had done his best to squeeze the number into the blanks on the sheet but sometimes the zeros didn’t fit so he wrote them above the divisor. He had worked through all the answers until he got to the last one. He had written it down, erased it, tried again, erased it, until it was a gray smudge.
His mother smiled her sad smile. “Oh honey.” Stephen could see the tears in her eyes. “You got it right.”
Stephen looked back at the paper. “I didn’t. It’s wrong. It can’t be 90 years until I meet my soulmate. I’ll be dead.”
His mother knelt down to hug him. “You’ll meet them.”
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The Ancient One had once asked him “What kind of man will you be when you meet your soulmate, Dr Strange?”
Stephen had looked down at his wrist, 1,892,160,000, and gave the answer he always gave to such questions. “An old one.”
“Is that all?” She asked with her serene smile. “What would you like to be to them other than old?”
Stephen sighed and looked at the training yard in front of them. “A good man, I suppose.”
“You’re not very confident of that answer.”
“No, I’m not.”
She waited.
“I don’t want to wait to meet them. I don’t want to meet them when I’m 100, tell them that I’ve lived a good life, then kick the bucket.” Stephen closed his eyes. “I want time.”
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Stephen didn’t notice until two weeks after saving the planet from Dormammu. It had been a sad and fretful two weeks. Many sorcerers had been killed by Kaecilius and his zealots. The Ancient One was gone. Stephen had let a Master who specialized in mind healing blunt the memory of his time in the Dark Dimension. He couldn’t keep the memories of a thousand deaths but his brain equally rebelled at having them removed completely. So the Master Healer had essentially put them behind glass in his mind. He knew they were there but he couldn’t get to them. And they couldn’t get to him.
It wasn’t until he was sitting in what seemed to be the only comfortable chair in the sanctum he was now tasked with protecting that he glanced at his wrist and noticed his numbers looked wrong. He used his thumb to wipe away whatever was on his wrist covering the last couple digits. When it didn’t come off he ran a thumbnail over the skins to get whatever it was. Stephen brought his wrist right in front of his face going silently cross eyed as he read the numbers.
1,892,160
Stephen did the math. Twice to be sure. 22 days until he met his soulmate. He had spent 60 years dying in a time loop. And that meant that he was going to meet his soulmate in three weeks. He groaned very loudly into his hands. He didn’t feel like a good man, just a tired one.
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Stephen asked Wong how sorcerers dealt with their soulmates.
Wong had looked him dead in the eye. “We kill them.” Then burst out laughing at whatever look was on Stephen’s face. “Soulmates are part of the natural order of the universe. To deny them would be to deny reality. Your soulmate is welcome at the Sanctum and they are welcome at Kamar-Taj.” Wong stared at him for a moment. “I’ll get you one of those cakes with ‘Congratulations you found your soulmate’ written on it.”
Apparently there was nothing to stop him and his soulmate from living happily ever after. It felt unreal.
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5401…5400…5399
Today was the day. In an hour and a half he would meet his soulmate.
He stared at the skyline from the upper floor of the Sanctum. Stay or Go?
If he stayed in the Sanctum his soulmate would find him here.
If he left the Sanctum and wandered Greenwich Village his soulmate would find him.
If he portaled to the peak of Annupurna his soulmate would find him.
Not because his soulmate would be looking for him but because of fate. It was the order of the universe that they would both be in the same place at the same time.
Stephen decided to go for a walk. It was either that or pace the Sanctum until his soulmate showed up. He started going north past Union Square. His mother had loved to tell the story about how she had met his father at the Empire State building on a high school class trip. He stared up at it for a few minutes then kept walking.
He stopped in front of the library spotting at least two couples that were soulmates who had just met. A itching on his wrist told him that he was going to be part of a third couple any minute now.
Someone bumped into him from behind.
“Fuck, I’m late. How is that even possible?”
The man was wearing a three piece suit with sunglasses pushed up on his forehead. He was also Tony, mother fucking, Stark.
Stephen’s wrist stopped itching. “It isn’t.”
Stark looked at Stephen, looked at his wrist, then back at Stephen.
With a fragile hope in his eyes, he presented Stephen with a massive bouquet of roses. “Hi.”
“I think you’re right on time.”