Beginning
Stephen almost, almost wants to laugh at the end of the first loop. Because, of all things, the universe is going to be saved by a rat.
A simple rat.
It’s almost hilarious. But Stephen quickly sobers, because the cost-five years of Thanos victorious, a universe spinning on, gray and half-dead, innumerable lives shattered and miserable, and most of all, the death of Earth’s heroes-the cost is far too high to bear.
Stephen can’t get the images out of his head. He sees Natasha Romanoff broken at the bottom of a cliff, her eyes staring endlessly into Vormir’s alien sky; he sees Tony Stark, ruined in body and mind, in pain beyond imagining, dying slowly after wielding the Infinity Stones, but not quick enough.
But this is only Stephen’s first time, looking forward, and he seizes the next chance with vigor and a smile. Because he is Stephen Strange, Master of the Mystic Arts, Sorcerer Supreme, and he can change the future.
More than that, before he was ever a sorcerer, Stephen Strange was a doctor, he had saved lives. And Stephen is sure that he can save these lives, he can save Natasha and Tony, he can save everyone. He can make a universe where Thanos falls, where no one dies, where everyone lives.
He just has to keep looking.
Middle
7,000,302.
That’s how many times Stephen has looked into the future.
How many times he’s looked for the opportunity to win, how many times he’s sought a path to victory that hasn’t turned pyrrhic in the aftermath, how many chances they’ve missed to win before it all gets worse. All Stephen has seen have been defeats. So much loss, so much death, so much destruction that can never, ever be repaired. So much darkness that follows after. And now, the seven millionth, three hundred and third time starts the same way, and it looks, halfway through, like it will end like all the others…..
Wait….
This is….
A win?
Stephen almost can’t believe his eyes, at what he sees, what he lives.
There’s pain, yes, and sacrifice, but there, shining, golden, glorious, is a chance. The doctor can almost feel his hands shaking again as he contemplates what this opportunity is. It’s a desperate gamble, in some ways, a series of events that can change on the flip of a coin. But this timeline ends in a win. Stephen sees that, and he can hold onto that-that he’s found a path to victory, and he can keep that endpoint in view. He’s not just wandering in the desert of Time now, he has a direction, a north star, and he can steer the path of events towards the end. Now all he needs to do is arrange matters so that this victory can come without a sacrifice.
Stephen Strange sets his face with determination, under the green of the Time Stone, and dives into the next loop.
7,000,304….
End
It is too much to bear.
He’s looked, God he’s looked. Stephen has plunged into the time stream over and over and over and over and over again, searching for that one chance, the move that lets them win.
(In the depths of his mind, he has to admit that he’s looking for the path that lets him rest, but as the old saying goes….)
Stephen started out with optimism, that shifted to determination, that shifted to exhaustion, that has, finally, shifted to despair.
Because there’s nothing.
No path that doesn’t end with the universe broken, spinning on with half of the glory of life it should have, uncounted and uncountable deaths that are vanished by random chance and the survivors left in a sucking miasma of guilt and grief.
No path that doesn’t end with Thanos AND the Avengers both destroyed, and an Earth vulnerable to the multitude of threats that come looking for power.
No path that doesn't fracture their universe into irreconcilable pieces, that doesn't spread across the timelines like a cancer.
No path that doesn’t end in destruction after with the best of good intentions after Thanos is vanquished, heroes becoming nightmares in their own right.
Because he has seen them, seen the threats that lurk within Wanda Maximoff and Steve Rogers, within Nick Fury and Namor and Shuri, within Bruce Banner and Peter Quill, within Tony Stark and himself.
Stephen has seen the dangers following behind Icarus and the Eternals, behind Shang-Chi, behind Carol Danvers and Monica Rambeau and young Kamala Khan, behind Peter Parker and the web that he weaves across the multiverse.
Strange has seen the dangers of the Celestials, of Gorr the God-Butcher, of Mysterio and the multiverse, of the war brought by Kang.
Stephen Strange knows who has to live to be a hero, and he can’t find a way to do it (can't find a path where he gets to be a hero and live, or the other way around).
There’s nothing but death there, and no way to change it, no second (fourteen million six hundred and fourth) chance. There’s no other way.
Stephen wants to cry, cry as he hasn’t for a long, long time, because he’s tired. He thought he knew grief after his sister, he thought he knew pain after his hands, he thought he knew tiredness after Dormammu, he thought he knew loss and despair and exhaustion before, but nothing, nothing compares to this.
He can’t keep doing this, not just physically, but mentally, magically, spiritually. Dormmamu’s loops were a practice run compared to this, and Stephen knows that the Time Stone is protecting him, his soul and his sanity, but not even an Infinity Stone can hold together a human mind against this kind of strain. If he keeps going, Stephen will shatter soon-that was a future he’s seen recently, the fourteen millionth-but he can’t stop, he won’t.
There has to be an ending, Stephen thinks, trembling, his jaw gritted, somewhere, out there, there’s a move I haven’t made. There’s a way to win.
The Time Stone almost sighs as the sorcerer plunges into another loop, loop number number 14,000,605....
And Stephen Strange sees the path to victory.
It’s victory forged out of defeat, it’s victory that demands sacrifice, it’s victory that stops so much worse.
For a moment, held in the endless green of Time, the Sorcerer Supreme contemplates his victory, the move that wins the game. The move that he can put into motion with a single word, the one chance he’s found amongst endless losses.
And Stephen Strange makes his choice, the last choice, the final choice.
It was the only way….