Chapter 2
Wong stopped in the middle of the rotunda and slowly took out his earbuds. Taylor Swift's voice faded away as he dropped his phone into one of his pockets. In front of him, behind the Eye of Agamotto's pedestal, was a portal. The Eye itself was gone.
He started to turn. He had to alert The Ancient One. Someone had gotten through the temple's wards, had gotten close enough to the Eye-wait, that was one of their tea rooms. He stepped closer, frowning.
The Ancient One was there, so was the Eye. She'd taken it then. But why the portal? She knew portals weren't allowed in the library, not after-there wasn't time to think about that now. It had to be urgent if she had used a portal.
He walked through it, arms crossed over his chest and frowning. Neither she nor Master Hamir had noticed him, too focused on the shaggy-haired man speaking to them. Master Hamir's fingers were pale around his mug. The Ancient One looked as calm as always, though she no longer had that all-knowing air around her.
"-and so I died," the shaggy-haired man said. "And came back to life five years later."
Wong frowned. The voice sounded familiar, like the one he had heard in his dreams.
"And the stones were there?" The Ancient One asked.
A nod. "Yeah. I later learned they came from the past, from another timeline."
The more the man spoke, the more disquieted Wong became. The events the man spoke of were things he had seen in his dreams.
His dreams had been dark lately. He dreamt of dying, of time reversing and resurrecting him. Of the Dark Dimension appearing in the sky, of thousands turned to dust and the infinity stones destroyed. He dreamt of protecting a universe that was slowly falling apart, of holding together a weary order. Kamar-Taj had been destroyed in those dreams too. They hadn't gotten time to rebuild before the first incursion. The Scarlet Witch's destruction of the Darkhold had opened up small holes in reality. They hadn't noticed until it was too late, until the only solution they could think of had been to recreate the infinity stones and hope their power could separate the universes once more.
Eventually, the Ancient One noticed him and the open portal behind him.
"Wong," she said, closing it with a wave of her hand.
The man in front of The Ancient One twisted, turning to look at him. Wong's eyes widened. The man's did too, before his expression crumpled in on itself and he hunched over, with a high, bitten off sound.
Wong stood there, frozen. It was the man from his dreams. He had been with Wong through most of it, a presence that had caused fear in his dream-self. In his dreams, Wong had spent endless hours learning spells, techniques, anything and everything to protect the man in front of him.
Wong knew his name, had screamed it at the end of the dream when he had fallen into a chasm of multicolored threads and finally woken up.
A cup smashed to the floor, the present demanding attention. Stephen- Wong tried to think of him as Strange and failed- was shaking, violent enough to rattle the chair he was in. He was staring off into the distance, eyes glazed over and wet. His nose was bleeding. Orange and yellow flashed around him.
Unease snaked down Wong's spine, slow and syrupy. Humidity pressed on his skin. It was a clear night, no clouds, no wind, no hint of the storm that now hung in the air. He tore his eyes away, looking to The Ancient One and Master Hamir to see if they felt the same.
His eyes caught on the glowing green stone on the table. The same glowing stone that was held in the Eye currently in The Ancient One's hands. The world stopped, the scene before him near-incomprehensible. There were two infinity stones in the room. Both of them were the Time Stone.
This was dangerous.
He looked at The Ancient One and the unease settling at the bottom of his spine solidified. Her usual calm was gone. Worry mixed in her face with fear, a confirmation. She had sensed it too. Both energies were the same.
The recreated infinity stones. More confirmation that his dreams had happened. Not to him, but another Wong, an alternate most likely dead.
His heart picked up, hands curling into fists. Blood roared in his ears. He reached for the dimensional energy around them, let the connection open.
The humidity on his skin intensified. His teeth tingled. Both Time Stones rose, green light covering the room. The air hummed, deep, doubled. Against his better judgement, he stepped forward, mandalas forming around his hands. None of the containment spells he knew would be enough to contain the stones, but his shields were strong. He could keep them protected at least.
"Don't touch them," The Ancient One said sharply.
He wasn't going to. He had more sense than that. Energy surged. He cast the shield.
Time rushed at him. The images from his dream grew sharper, more solid. There was a girl screaming his name. He ran towards her, feet slipping on the ground. Pieces of twisted metal littered his path. He jumped over them. Their sharp edges sliced his palms.
Stephen was there too. Green light solidifying in front of him. It was working. The anchors were being recreated, but it was too late. The rips forming into reality were opening into chasms.
Wong tripped, reached an arm out to catch himself, and fell into the void.
Time left him, green light receding.
He blinked. He was face down on the floor. Dust tickled his nose as he pushed himself up. He could see Master Hamir doing the same. The Ancient One was still standing, through her robes were singed. Stephen was standing too, gaze no longer distant. A Time Stone hovered in front of him.
Wong looked around the room. He didn't see the other one.
"What happened," he asked. Stephen startled at his voice, eyebrows drawing together. His shaking had reduced to faint tremors. His hands twitched against his sides.
"I think...they fused," he said. "Do you think he felt that?"
Wong didn't know who he was, but that surge of power would have been felt everywhere. It would draw unwanted attention to Earth. They'd have a lot of work ahead of them.
The Ancient One sighed and accepted another cup of tea from Master Hamir. He handed Wong one too. He took it, grateful for something to do with his hands.
"That would have woken up the entire temple," The Ancient One said. Master Hamir nodded, already heading to the door.
"Master Hamir will calm them down." She took a seat, gestured for them to do the same.
"Sit down and finish your story, Mister Strange."
"There is not much more to tell," Stephen rasped. Wong looked over and poured tea into the empty cup. He filled it to half. With the way Stephen's hands were shaking, he wouldn't be able to manage his usual three-fourths.
"How did you get here," The Ancient One asked in return.
Wong sipped his tea. As usual, Master Hamir had made chai with slightly too much milk in it. Wong had always preferred his with as little milk as possible.
"The stones did...something"
Wong had heard Stephen sound uncertain before, but it had normally been a hint in his tone. He sounded lost now, all the confidence he normally had stripped from his tone. The Ancient One raised an eyebrow.
Bells chimed softly in the silence. Wong counted them, watched as faint light started to cover the balcony. How long had they been here? It was four now. He had breakfast duty. He'd need to get there soon before Rintrah decided to be creative again. He always forgot that humans couldn't eat certain types of plants.
He gripped his cup. He didn't know a Rintrah. Currently, there was no one at Kamar-Taj by that name. He'd have to get someone else to take over breakfast duty. He needed to meditate, to separate himself from the dreams. None of it had happened to him, no matter how much it felt like it had.
"I see," The Ancient One said and Wong turned his attention back to the conversation. The tension in her face had eased somewhat. She looked more relaxed. Stephen did not. He looked more tense. The shaking hadn't stopped. He had laced his fingers together, that always stopped them from involuntarily jerking. Wong pushed the knowledge away. He shouldn't know that, shouldn't know all these little details about someone he'd never met before today-yesterday, he amended with another glance at the sky.
The Ancient One rose. Wong got to his feet. He would go back to the library. There were a few quiet corners, that only he knew about, where he could meditate. He'd disentangle himself from the emotions of his dream-self and then organize the returned books. It would be a very quiet day.
"You will stay here for now, Mister Strange," The Ancient One instructed. "Wong will show you where to go."
Wong sighed. There went his quiet day.