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The battle was over.
The Avengers as well as The Order were celebrating their victory over the group of odd assortment of different alien species, most of which seemed to specialize in some particular form of magecraft? That had decided to attack The Central Park this fine evening. Their target had actually been Earth’s sorcerers for reasons still being deciphered by the said sorcerers, but the offending group wasn’t nearly skilled enough, nor enough in numbers to hold against two of the Earth’s strongest defense teams. Tony may even go so far as to say, it had been overkill. Those poor bastards.
His intervention really wouldn’t have been necessary. Which was why, as soon as the dust settled, he found himself flying away from the main group over to the other side of the lake, to sit behind an unassuming tree and brood over the fact that he had missed Morgan’s science fair, no thanks to a certain dumb group of evil sorcerer aliens deciding to book an appointment.
He hadn’t been sitting there for long when he heard the familiar crackling sound of a portal opening somewhere behind him, much closer to the lake. Just as he was getting ready to flee, thinking people had noticed his absence and had sent the sorcerers to fetch him, a much more familiar grunting sound snapped his attention and he peeked from the side of the tree.
It was indeed Strange, getting dragged by the wrist out of the portal by one Wong. The other sorcerer roughly pushed him forward before releasing his hand, letting Strange stumble forward; not that he stumbled a lot, as the cloak was there, just like always, supporting its master.
“What the hell, Wong?” He rasped.
“You tell me,” Wong replied evenly, his poker face giving away nothing, as always.
“What?” Strange asked, this time with more confusion than exasperation.
“I have seen you do many foolish and stupid things—”
“Look, if this is about the maze—” Strange tried to interrupt, but Wong barrelled on.
“—but I have never seen you being sloppy.”
Strange paused, looking affronted. “It was nothing. I was only momentarily distracted—”
“If the spider boy hadn’t showed up, you would have died, you know it and don’t you dare deny it.”
That seemed to shut Strange up, though he didn’t drop the metaphorical daggers he was glaring at Wong.
Tony wasn’t aware it could’ve been that bad. He had seen Peter pull the sorcerer out of the direct line of a spell an alien had hurled towards Strange, though it hadn’t left any collateral damage in its wake.
Then maybe it wasn’t meant to hurt him in the physical sense, Tony realized with a sickening feeling settling in his stomach. Knowing magic, it could have been anything from literal hell.
“Stephen, what is going on with you?”
“Nothing’s going on with me,” Strange scoffed. “You’re unnecessarily turning this into a bigger issue than it ought to be.”
“Don’t think I haven’t noticed,” Wong pushed. “You’ve been slacking off. You’ve shut everyone out, like you did after Dormammu. You barely leave the Sanctum unless a disaster comes knocking at Earth’s door.”
Okay, there was a lot that needed elaboration there, but Tony also immediately understood that he was unintentionally eavesdropping on something that was probably very linked to Strange’s personal life.
He turned away from the two sorcerers and leaned away from the tree half sheepishly. He should haul ass and give them privacy. Preferably without letting them know of his presence. So with two quick taps at his Arc Reactor, he let the nanosuit flow back into the housing unit on his chest. It glowed bright and blue, standing out in the darkness of night, as did the azure lights on his prosthetic arm, but he knew it won’t be a big problem as long as he didn’t turn around. They probably wouldn’t even see him walking away while they’re busy with their own conversation.
Speaking of conversations.. it had been 7 long seconds of silence, save for the team’s loud conversations on the other side of the lake. Did the two sorcerers leave already? He peeked around the tree for a quick glance and found Strange sitting on a bench, a bit farther away in his perspective but not in the sorcerers’. Strange’s back was turned on Tony, but from the hunched posture he could tell the sorcerer had his face buried in his palms. Wong walked over to his friend and wordlessly took a seat next to him.
Yeah, if there was a time to leave and let them have privacy, now was the time.
Tony propped a hand on the bark of the tree to pull himself up.
“I love you 3,000.”
The words — said from Strange’s voice — knocked all air out of his lungs and he fell on his ass.
Befuddled, he peeked around the tree to find Strange still hunched over, though not as much, while Wong stared down at him with an expression that Tony couldn’t quite see.
“Are you confessing your crush on me? I am straight, Stephen.”
Tony almost snorted out loud, stopping himself at the last millisecond.
Strange, though, groaned in reply, craning his neck towards his sorcerer friend. “You’re the one who asked me what’s going on. At least let me have this without interruption?”
Wong just hummed noncommittally.
Strange sighed and continued, looking up at the sky. “It’s the words Morgan says to Tony, to express her love towards him.”
How does he know that!? Tony suddenly felt a surge of anxiety. Morgan and Strange had never been in the same building, let alone the three of them being in the same room for the sorcerer to ever notice that. Could Strange be spying in his personal life!?
“3,000 is also the number of outcomes where Morgan existed.”
Tony’s eyes widened as he took in the statement. Strange was talking about the 14 million.
After the Great Battle of Earth as they had come to call it, more than a few people had tried to ask the sorcerer about the 14 million, some just curious, some asking if there truly was no other way, some (Peter) asking if very specific solutions hadn’t yielded any result, like de-aging Thanos or somehow telling Thor to go for the head. Strange had shot down every single attempt of people trying to interrogate him. He’d declined to say a single thing, spare a single detail about the 14 million outcomes except for his same old sentence, “It was the only way”, which was spontaneously turning into a meme thing thanks to Peter and his Spider-Man official twitter.
“3,000 out of 14 million,” Strange continued, “and she loved him in every single one of them. I didn’t quite realize the significance of that simple statement until I’d run out of permutations and counted the number of outcomes where she existed to exactly be that.” He huffed — or perhaps it was a sigh — as he looked down again. “Even now I still don’t know what it means, or what it was meant to mean...” He trailed off.
Tony was no longer aware of how unashamedly he was eavesdropping on a personal conversation as his complete focus went into absorbing the information. He didn’t know what to think about that. He was indeed beyond happy to know that his little girl loved him in all of the possible outcomes ever. But the total number of those outcomes were 3,000. 3,000 out of fucking 14 million. Not quite as low as 1 in 14 million, but that was still some really slim odds. To think that the 1 in 14 million was also conveniently part of the 3,000... He had somehow hit the universal jackpot or something and had no idea what he’d done in his life to deserve it.
Nonetheless, he was beyond thankful. Morgan was his world, and he couldn’t envision a world where she didn’t exist.
“However..” Strange continued, his voice a lot quieter as compared to a few seconds ago, “It was also in those 3,000 that I couldn’t have him.”
Have what? Tony was thrown for a loop. Did he miss something while he was lost in thoughts?
“It wasn’t the only way, Wong,” Strange said, barely in a whisper.
What!?
It took all of Tony’s strength to not stand up and barrel into their conversation, grab the infuriating sorcerer by the shoulders, and shake him vehemently, demanding answers. Why did you pick this? Why did you let Nat die? Why did you leave half the world stuck in the soul realm for 5 fucking years!?
“There were.. other ways. Some happening a few years early, some a few years late, some with different set of people dying..”
Tony’s body was practically vibrating, whether in anger or disbelief or incredulity, he wasn’t sure. He had nothing to take his energy out on, so he ended up gripping at the grass as he turned away from the sorcerer duo to try and clear his mind before he did something he would regret.
“It could have been reversed sooner, but they weren’t different by a long shot in terms of sacrifices. It was just.. different people and different dates. I had to make a choice.”
When silence followed for the next few seconds, Wong gently prompted, “And you chose this outcome, because..?”
“Because this was the only one where Morgan existed.”
Tony’s breath hitched as his grip on the grass loosened. All the rage in him, all the infuriation he’d always festered against Strange, everything melted away in one fell swoop, warping into an odd ache in his chest he didn’t know how to interpret.
“I saw it, Wong. I saw how much Morgan meant to him, three thousand times over. I could have easily chosen a different outcome, one where she didn’t exist, where The Blip had happened a couple of years early, where I.. where I could have had him. But I saw how much he loved her, how much she brightened his day, how much she mattered in his life. And I couldn’t unsee it.”
Tony couldn’t believe what he was hearing. This man, the one he’d thrown nothing but snarky comments at, had treated like Steve 2.0, had kept far far away from himself except for mandatory professional work, was the one to thank for them being in an existence where the universe was restored and his daughter existed.
Although, he didn’t understand what Strange meant by ‘having him’. Having who, and for what? Was he referring to family? But that couldn’t be, he knew that Strange’s entire family was already dead.. some close friend? Did he lose someone to let Tony have Morgan..?
“You regret choosing this outcome?” Wong asked without judgment.
“God, no, Wong. I don’t regret it.”
A few seconds of silence followed, before Wong hummed. “And yet you wish you had chosen different.”
“It’s selfish!” Strange raised his voice for the first time in the entire conversation. Tony peeked around the tree again and found the sorcerer up and pacing now. “I don’t— he’s happy with his daughter, Wong. I could have no right to take that away from him. But— but...” His voice was starting to crack, and Tony was almost certain that the sorcerer was crying, not that he could see that from the distance.
Wong stood up, walked closer to his friend, and squeezed a hand at his shoulder reassuringly while Strange wiped his face with both hands. He then looked away as he continued.
“There was this perfect alternative, where things were just a little better, where we...” He trailed off again, and turned his head to the direction where the main group stood, far away from the three of them. “Only, it wasn’t perfect, because Morgan wasn’t in the picture.”
Tony failed to understand what was Strange’s motivation in doing so. If he could’ve instead saved someone close to him, why would he trade that for Tony’s happiness? What had he ever done for the sorcerer to receive such an altruistic gift?
“And I’m happy for him, I truly am. But I’ll never get to be a part of that happiness.”
Well now he felt bad for always treating Strange like an asshole; though in his defense he really just always replied in kind to Strange’s own quips. He hadn’t a single clue that the man even wanted to be a part of his life more than just their professions. How could he, when the sorcerer always acted so cold and aloof and so fucking infuriatingly arrogant?
“You know it because you’ve seen the rest of the future?” Wong asked.
“I haven’t, and I don’t need to see to know that—”
“Then how can you be so sure, when you haven’t seen it?”
“I tricked him. He lost Peter for five years because of me. He lost his arm. Heck, even got divorced because of everything I made happen. If I were him, I would hate me too.”
Tony frowned. The points did have varying levels of validity, except for the last one. How on Earth did he even arrive at the conclusion that Tony got divorced because of him? He got divorced because he’d broken his promise again, because he’d gone out there in the battlefield again and had almost died. Pepper understood why he did that, she really did; half the world was back thanks to the Avengers. But she just couldn’t take it anymore, couldn’t see him fly out into danger over and over again, waiting anxiously and worrying if he’d make it back home alive.
And it wasn’t like they were on bad terms. They were as good friends as they’d ever been, and they co-parented Morgan because fuck if Tony couldn’t let his babygirl receive all the love and support she deserves.
While yes, Tony would blame Strange for the former points — in fact he did so subconsciously pretty much all the time — he didn’t blame the sorcerer for his divorce.
And hate was a strong word. No, he didn’t hate Strange. They had a.. strange sort of rivalry, and their egos clashed more often than not. But he wouldn’t say that he hated Strange.
“And what about the positive aspects?” Wong asked.
“What positive aspects?” Strange threw back.
“You saved his life. Are you never going to tell him that?”
Saved.. wait, what!?
Strange laughed maniacally. “He hates magic. He’s scared of mind magic. What do you think his reaction will be if he found out that I used soul magic on him? Without his consent or any control over the decision?”
Tony cringed. So apparently some really sensitive sounding magic was used on him to save his life, without his knowledge. Oookay.
“What’s done is done. You didn’t have malicious intents, you did it to save his life.”
“That doesn’t make it right, you know that.”
“And it makes it right to hide this knowledge from him?”
This was why he liked Wong. The man was practical, didn’t tolerate bullshit, and was a badass sorcerer, one of the very few who hadn’t ever peeved Tony.
“What do you want me to do, parade into his house and announce ‘By the way Stark, you were dying after using the infinity stones, so I did you a favor and transferred part of my life force to you in the most intimate way possible, due to which now we are connected in the most intimate form possible, which you wouldn’t know because I’ve been blocking it!’ He will repulsor me off the face of Earth, killing himself in the process as well!”
Hold up, what did Strange mean by that? What was Tony missing here? What did he mean connected in an intimate way??
“You’re being too dramatic.”
Strange groaned. “I’m not being dramatic, I’m being realistic. If I tell him all of that he’ll either kill me on sight or never, ever want to see my face again.”
No no, go back to the part where you were spewing monologue about some magic shit and life forces and connections.
He really, really needed to understand what the fuck was going on. Especially if it was apparently bad enough that Tony might end up killing one of Earth’s greatest sorcerers consequently starting a war between the Avengers and The Order.
“You’re already whining about him hating you. Why will it make a difference if he hates you more?”
“I thought you dragged me here for a pep talk.”
“I don’t do pep talks.”
Somehow, Tony had the impression that this right here was simply Wong’s brand of pep talks.
Strange groaned again. “Look I don’t even know which is worse: him having me in his life as a friend or him not having me at all. But what I know is..” He sighed once before continuing, “I can’t do this anymore, Wong. I.. it hurts. Have you seen the way he looks at me? The way he talks to me? I just can’t take it anymore.”
Tony felt a stab of guilt. He hadn’t thought the way he treated Strange would affect his mental wellbeing this badly. The sorcerer always wore that expression of indifference no matter how much Tony tried to drive him up the wall, which in turn prompted him to try harder. And okay, maybe a small part of the reason he was always so eager to rile the sorcerer up were the aforementioned reasons, namely Peter being dust for 5 years and himself having a metal prosthesis for a right arm and the downright sick manipulation Strange had played to make all the things happen the way they did.
But now, after knowing why Strange chose this outcome, and the fact that he was probably meant to die if not for Strange’s magical voodoo shit, he could hardly complain. Even if he didn’t understand the voodoo part yet.
There were a few moments of silence as even Wong likely mulled over how to help his friend. Not that he would have to, because that was going to be Tony.
Tomorrow morning, he would visit the Sanctum and amend some bridges.
“I got sidetracked from what I actually wanted to say,” Strange spoke up again. “It’s odd, how the universe showed me 3,000 futures where Morgan existed, and in all of them she always said that she loves him 3,000.
“Because I love him 14,000,605, and I’ll never get to tell him.”
Tony’s jaw went slack, his mind catching up to the implication at lightning speed, a lot of the previous conversation almost instantly slotting into place.
What the fuck did he just eavesdrop on?