Work Text:
Twelve knights have tried to capture or kill Stephen the Strange.
Tony will be number thirteen. It’s an unlucky number, but Tony has never relied on luck and Strange is a wizard: magic is more susceptible to ephemeral things like chance. Tony figures that makes attempt number thirteen unlucky for the wizard, not for him.
King Howard hadn’t wanted to send Tony, his son, after the wizard. He would have preferred to send literally anyone else. But none of the other knights were willing to take on attempt number thirteen, and he had to get past the number somehow. Tony had been counting on that, because Tony has been preparing for this for months.
He waits, now, concealed in a copse of trees. When Strange comes into view, his horse moving at a brisk walk, he’s alert but clearly exhausted. With information gathered over the past months, thanks to Tony’s agents, Tony has determined the exact radius of the sorcerer’s wards. Strange never ignored them, no matter how many false alarms Tony triggers, so instead he’s carefully kept the alarms active for two solid weeks. Being constantly on high alert has clearly worn on the sorcerer, hopefully enough to buy Tony the time he needs.
Strange reaches the place Tony has mentally marked.
The fight is quick and hard. Tony drags Strange down off the horse, his first blow aimed at Strange’s mouth. Split lips make him slur his incantations and exhaustion slows his reaction time. A blow to his hands—already weak, Tony’s observations told him—disrupts his gestures. Despite Tony’s preparations, in the midst of it all, Strange manages to fling three spells at him. He dodges two and the third refracts over the surface of the armor Tony had forged specifically for this moment. It knocks him back, but not down. In the end, Tony has Strange bound and gagged in the middle of the dusty road.
When Strange looks up at him, it’s not anger or defiance in his eyes.
It’s grief.
That’s not what Tony expected at all.