Back to the Beginning

Now, that everyone was a little subdued, the bug-girl who was called Mantis exclaimed, “You are the ones Thor told us about!?”

Tony immediately asked surprise evident on his face, “You know Thor?”

Quill shrugged, “Yeah, Tall guy, not that good-looking, needed saving.”

Which was a complete lie if anyone asked Stephen; but he demanded nonetheless, “Where is he now?” tilting his head.

Nidavalir; to get an axe of all things. Fucking great.

Quill was now roaming around the orange planet with some sort of device in his hand; casually adding, “What the hell happened to this planet? It’s eight degrees off its axis. Gravitational pull is all over the place.”

Tony ignored his rambling and Mantis’s carefree jumping from here to there. Tony contemplated to himself. “Yeah, we got one advantages. He’s coming to us.”

He turned towards the ragtag team of space idiots and declared, “We’ll use it. All right, I have a plan.”

He continued as Quill came to stand near him, “Or at least the beginnings of one.”

He elaborated, “It’s pretty simple. We draw him in, pin him down, get what we need. Definitely don’t wanna dance with this guy. We just want the gauntlet.”

Omega saw the brawny guy named Drax yawning; he immediately questioned him; more than a bit peeved, “Are you yawning? In the middle of this, while I’m breaking it down? Huh? Did you hear what I said?”

Drax shared a look with Mantis and said, “I stopped listening after you said, ‘We need a plan.’”

Tony was annoyed out of his mind; looked pointedly at Quill, “Okay, Mr. Clean is on his own page.”

Who immediately responded, “See, ‘not winging it’ isn’t really what they do.”

Behind Him, Peter asked, “Uh, what exactly is it that they do?” oh for the love of-

Mantis adorably declared, “Kick names, take ass.” Drax agreed with her instantly, “Yeah, that’s right.”

Tony felt like he had aged thousands of years in this last ten minutes; he was on the verge of tears after this short interaction with these space idiots. Even Peter who was most accepting among them looked equally stupefied. Doesn’t matter if the men in space are of different species; they are the source of everything that is wrong in the world just like alphas on the earth. Tony refuses to indulge in this nonsense when the fate of the universe sets upon their shoulders.

He took deep breathe and channeled his inner Maria Stark, “All right, just get over here, please. Mr. Lord. Can you get your folks to circle up?”

Quill nodded, “Star-Lord is fine.” His people came to stand near them.

“We got to coalesce. ‘Cause if all we come at him with is a plucky attitude..”

Quill interrupted him just then, “Dude, don’t call us plucky. We don’t know it means. All right, we’re optimistic, yes. I like your plan. Except it sucks, so let me do the plan and that way it might be really good.”

Mr. Clean added, “Tell him about the dance-off, Quill.”

Omega asked despite being afraid of the answer, “What dance-off?”

For the first time since they started this nonsense conversation, Quill looked embarrassed. “It's not a.. not... it's nothing.”

Peter was scowling, a little too interested for Tony’s liking. “Like in Footloose, the movie?”

And right there the Star Lord face lit up like a thousand sun. “Exactly like Footloose. Is it still the greatest movie in history?” he asked with wide eyes.

“It never really was,” answered Peter.

He pulled on the last bit of patience he had reserved, “Don't encourage this, kid, alright?”

The kid pouted, but nodded in understanding.

“We're getting no help from Flash Gordon here.” Tony conveyed. He must have killed puppies in his past life; otherwise, there was no absolute reason in the entire universe that he was being subjected to this form of torture.

When he heard Dumbledore and Hermione getting on the row behind them. He ignored the space idiots and stepped towards the father-daughter duo. At least those two were tolerable-ish.

Stephen had left the peanut gallery in the capable hands of Tony; alpha had confidence that he would be able to handle them just fine. If not, they were Tony’s problem; not his.

There were far too many variables in this fight; Thanos already had two infinity stones before he sent his marry bands of baboons on earth; it had been some time since then; he was pretty sure that Thanos would have collected even more with the help of space stone. Which meant they were at even more disadvantage. He needed to know whether or not they would be able to save the entire universe or not. So, he decided that the best course of action was to use time stone and see the best possible outcome of this fight. Especially since his daughter was part of this fight. He did not allow himself to freak out about it; he would do that later when they are safe. Now was not the time for him to get mental breakdown of all things.

He shrugged off the cloak of levitation and instructed him, “Take care of Sophie; until I am back; I do not trust these space pirates one bit.” He didn’t trust anyone but Wong when it came to his little butterfly.

Then he was just about to open the Eye of Agamotto and start the time loop when his stubborn as mule daughter appeared right in front of him with Cloak bellowing behind her tiny stature. Cloak looked at him sheepishly; he couldn’t say no to his daughter despite it belonging to him. Fucking Traitor.

Sophie looked at him with furious eyes and demanded, “You were about to enter a time loop again, weren’t you?”

Stephen stood imposingly in front of his daughter and said, “Yes.” Simply. He had no need to explain himself to anyone least of all his daughter. Not when fate of the universe depended on him.

Sophia nodded and agreed, “It is the right decision considering the current circumstances.”

Stephen was surprised by his daughter’s easy acceptance, “Really?”

Sophia rolled her eyes and added, “Yes, we need to find the outcome with least causalities and damage.”

Stephen took a relieved breath and turned around to take his earlier position; when his daughter added, “But”

He really shouldn’t have thought it would be that easy; he turned towards her, when she continued, “You are not going into the loop on your own. I am coming with you.”

Stephen put his foot down in an instant, “Absolutely fucking no. No way in hell you are joining me in the time loop.”

Sophia just clenched her teeth, “Yes, I am. I will not let you enter the loop on your own. You have photographic memory dad. You won’t forget these realities that we see; you need someone to anchor you in the present. You had to undergo months of mind healing sessions after Hong-Kong incident. This threat is even bigger than that; Vishanti knows what kind of complications we would have to face?”

Stephen pressed, “Which is exactly why I do not want my daughter to enter the loop; and you have the same photographic memory as me; I refuse to let you experience the same trauma as me.”

Sophia took two steps towards me; her green-gold eyes glinting furiously; “And I am not going to let you sacrifice yourself once again. Either we go into the loop together or not at all.”

Stephen looked at the orange sky above them; cursing himself for raising his daughter to be as stubborn as him. He prayed to the Vishanti, Oshtur and Agamotto; to give him some strength; because this just turned into a battle of wills between two of the most stubborn people of the planet.

He just about to answer Sophie when Tony and Peter made their way towards them and older omega inquired, “What is the problem Dumbledore and Hermione? I thought you were both as thick as thieves like the Weasleys.”

Sophia rolled her eyes at the pop culture reference yet answered, “Just some minor disagreement between father and daughter.” She then nodded at Pater and said, “You know how it is.”

Peter nodded sagely, “Yeah, I know. Me and Mr. Stark have loads of little arguments between us. It’s kind of our thing.”

Tony looked at the spider boy incredulously; Stephen was pretty sure he had blue screened. The way his eyes were moving from Spider boy to us rapidly. As if this was the first time, he had heard the boy consider him as his father figure. He shook his head and waved his hand towards the cloak; it immediately flew over to him and took its place at his shoulders.

Tony still probed them, “So, what seems to be the problem between you two?”

Peter nodded along with Tony; Stephen was about to deflect the question when his infuriating daughter answered, “I am joining my father in the time loop to see all the possible outcomes of the coming conflicts. He refuses to let me; he thinks he should do it alone and I disagree.”

Peter questioned, “Time loop? What does that mean?”

Stephen explained, “I would enter the time loop using the time stone; the loop would end when we fail to stop Thanos; and I would start again from the beginning; it continues on and on until I find the timeline that has the least causalities and we survive this coming conflict.”

Tony nodded in understanding and said, “Well; Merlin; Glinda and I are joining you in the loop.”

Stephen started at him disbelievingly, “This is not a laughing matter; Stark. You do not know single thing about mystic arts and here you are saying you will join in this ridiculous quest; as if it is some sort of adventure. Do you even have any idea what you are talking about?”

The sheer stupidity of his statement was baffling to Stephen.

Tony acquiesced easily, “No, I don’t. But that doesn’t mean I don’t understand the fact that your daughter is deathly afraid to send you on this thing alone and if you had just looked at your daughter’s face a little closely, you would have understood it as well.”

Stephen focused on his little butterfly and for the first time since they crash landed on this god forsaken planet; he saw genuine fear in her eyes; his usually calm and aloof daughter must have been scared out of her mind and he didn’t even notice; so focused on the current problem. He was truly a terrible father. He sighed, “I am sorry, Sophie; you can join me in the loop.”

Tony interrupted him before he could say anything else, “Wait a minute; Merlin. I am joining you as well.”

Peter piped from behind the older omega, “I am joining you guys as well; Mr. Stark.”

Sophie put her head between her palms; he too was already done with the entire discussion.

Tony raised his finger at the younger omega, “You stay quiet; the adults are talking.”

Then he turned towards him, “Start the loop; Harry Potter; let’s go.”

However, Stephen stood his ground, “Absolutely not, I am taking Sophie, because she is a sorceress. I am not taking any risks with you and the spider boy. I will not allow it.”

Excuse me; ALLOW; who the fuck did he think he was?!?

Tony openly glared at him, “Do you really think I will let an alpha walk all over me just because it is a doomsday kind of conflict. Think again alpha asshole. I am coming with and that’s final.”

Stephen came nose to nose with the shorter man, “It has nothing to do with being an alpha or an omega; Stark. When I said you will not enter the loop it was because you cannot bear the strain of the magic; you do not have same magical prowess as us.”

Tony squared his shoulders and argued, “And just because you have magic; it does not make you invincible; Glinda. I am not letting either of you do this without me.”

Stephen was about to answer when Sophie thundered; her eyes flashing gold for a moment, “That’s enough; we do not have time for this insistent squabbling. All four of us are going in the time loop and that’s the end of it.”

She then turned towards Peter to explain him something; Beside him the stubborn omega whispered to him, “You have a really terrifying daughter there, Merlin.”

Stephen pinched the bridge of his nose, “You don’t even know the half of it.”

Stephen placed Spider boy and Stark on his either side and Sophie across him and then began the loop.

~

The first three million of timelines had them fighting Thanos on the Titan.

Stark made the Titan bleed in every timeline after he threw Peter across the planet using power stone.

Stephen went toe to toe with him despite Thanos having four infinity stones even managed to overpower him for a few minutes before he used space stone to disappear and appear behind him and knocking him out.

Sophia along with Nebula managed to incapacitate him just for a few minutes until he came to his senses and wiped the floor with everyone in thousands of timelines.

Mantis managed to subdued him for a few minutes in few thousand timelines, however Quill managed to screw up after getting to know that he killed his girlfriend, Gamora.

After three million tries on Titan; they changed the tactic when Stark suggested, “Let’s go back to Earth, we would have better back up there.”

Their effort was disastrous on the earth; the mighty avengers fell one by one at the hands of Thanos.

Scarlet witch managed to hold him off for a while but it just angered the Titan more and he doubled his efforts by wiping the entire population of earth in retaliation.

Thor lost in grief and revenge; used storm-breaker to hurt him instead of cutting his head right off in every single timeline.

Thanos plucked the mind stone out of Vision’s head and enraging Tony, who went on to warpath but got stabbed by his own nano tech knife.

After six million different failures; they started getting desperate; which caused them to turn on each other.

Thanos destroyed them by using mind stone on Peter and Stephen had to kill the little boy. Tony turned on them and abandoned them after that timeline.

Next few timelines went even more horrible; Thanos used mind stone on Sophia and Stephen couldn’t kill his own daughter; and Tony had to step in.

After learning that mind stone was the most dangerous stone among all; they started learning magic to protect their minds against it. That too didn’t work as they had hoped.

After another three million failures; Peter warily suggested, “Let’s make a run for it.”

They took the Guardians of the galaxy with them and hid in several different planets. Andromia, Astra, Drez-Lar, Sakaar, Galador, Giagantus, Krylor, Knowhere and many more.

Each timeline they tried to settle the roots in the new planets. But their peace wouldn’t last long; Thanos would follow them everywhere. If somehow, they managed to survive for years; mad titan’s anger would destroy their earth entirely.

With each passing year; each different timeline; each new reality; Stark became Tony and then mama. Strange became Stephen and then dad. Sophia became Sophie and then Tony’s princess. Spider man became Peter and then Pete-pie. Quill became uncle Quill; Nebula became honorary sister. They became a pack. They became a family. Family forged through blood, pain, ashes and sheer stubbornness.

Leaning new traditions of the various civilisations; sometimes planting roots of the new era in some underdeveloped planets. They learned to let go. Running was all they knew after hiding for four million timelines.

Sophia could see the toll of these timelines on everyone; all four of them were looking worse for wear. She didn’t have heart to demand more from them; thirteen million failures were all they knew. She didn’t even remember what earth looked like anymore. It had been thousands of years since she had tasted human food. But she knew one thing that running was not an option. They needed to take a stand on Titan itself.

They were back to the beginning; once again, on Titan; Sophie resolutely declared, “No more running; it is not doing us any favours. We are only delaying the inevitable confrontation.”

Her family took her word for it was; a plea and an order all in one.

They fought once more; another million failures later; Stephen suggested, “Maybe we are meant to lose at first. Let’s see if we can find a timeline where we can win despite the initial loss.”

After another six hundred and four timelines later; they found one that actually gave them hope.

They stood their ground against Thanos; Quill, Mantis, Drax, Nebula, Peter, Sophia, Tony and Stephen all trying their hard to get the gauntlet.

They failed because once again Quill lost his cool; when Tony was about to be stabbed by the hand of Thanos; Stephen managed to save his life in the exchange of the stone.

Thanos got the mind stone from the Vision’s head despite Wanda’s futile efforts. Thor once again went for the chest instead of head. And the Titan snapped away half of the life in existence.

The universe was in shambles. Resources scarce. Unconceivable lives lost in one mere moment; where they ceased to exist.

Tony lost in space with Nebula; was waiting for death to come and take him. Captain Marvel saved their lives and ship. Captain America lost the fight of Wakanda. Tony fought with the star-spangled asshole despite being at death’s door.

Thanos destroyed the infinity stones; reduced them to mere atoms. Thor took him out, beheading him in his calm rage.

Five years passed; the rest of the survivors learned to live in the world full of grief. They moved on; found purpose in their desolated world and life begin anew.

Scott Lang survived the quantum realm; the avengers once again reunited; pleading to Tony to save the lost people via time travel; despite initially refusing to help them.

Tony researched time travel through quantum realm with the help of time travel GPS; they took a stand once more. Collecting the stones through other timelines; Bruce snapped and brought them all back.

Wrong Nebula came back with the avengers and brought Thanos from another timeline to their doorstep. Thor, Tony and Captain America fought once again; they were backed up by all the people who were dusted. The heroes took one final stand against the purple plague.

They fought valiantly but their effort still fell short in front of the mad Titan; he had gotten his hands on the stones and was about to snap when Tony took the stones from him and used them to snap Thanos’s army out of existence.

Tony died protecting the reality and the entire universe.

Sophie shook her head, “See, what this timeline looks like in the future; there are four snaps in this reality, we need to make sure that it didn’t break the barriers between the neighbouring realities and caused any incursions.”

They continued further down; saw the world mourning Tony Stark and healing from the trauma.

Peter was struggling after his mama’s death; went on a vacation with his friends. Fury asked him to help him out with an elemental problem. He resisted at first but decided to help. Peter gives the sunglasses belonging to Tony to Beck and refuses to join Fury’s team and leaves.

Sometime later; With the help of MJ Peter came to know that Beck masquerading as a superhero was using him to get hands on Stark property all along; he ends up being hit by a train.

Peter regains the control of E.D.I.T.H and manages to foil Beck’s plans; however, he is hit by a misfired shot from one of the drones. Before he died, he asked one of his associates to retrieve the data from the drones.

Peter’s identity is revealed by the J J. Jameson; where he is labelled as a murderer and a menace. At the same time; Sophia goes into coma after the altercation with an unknown entity.

After having his secret identity exposed; Peter is interrogated by Department of Damage Control along with his aunt, MJ and Ned Leeds. Despite having the charges dropped with the help of Lawyer Matt Murdock; he has to suffer through negative publicity which affects everyone’s life.

Peter’s, MJ’s and Ned’s applications are rejected by MIT and as desperate measures he asks Stephen for help.

Stephen starts casting a spell that would make everyone forget that Peter is Spider-man; however, spell is corrupted when Peter repeatedly requests alterations so that his loved ones could retain their memories.

Stephen contains the spell and suggests Peter to actually talk to the administrator of the MIT. He is then attacked by Otto Octavious whom he subdues easily with the help of Nanotech; when he is attacked by Norman Osborn; Stephen teleports Peter to the sanctum and locks Octavius in the cell next to Curt Connors.

He explains that the corrupted spell summoned people from other universes who know Spidar-man’s identity.

Peter with the help of his friends locate and retrieves Max Dillon and Flint Marko.

While talking to all the villians from other universes; Peter realised that they were pulled from their universe just before their deaths.

Stephen prepares to reverses the spell but Peter suggests that they should first help the villains change their fate upon their return. When Stephen refuses Peter steals the spell and traps him in a mirror dimension.

He takes all of the villains to Happy Hogan’s apartment and uses Stark industries technology to cure Octavious. Before he can help the others; Goblin takes over Norman’s persona and convinces other villains to turn on Peter.

They betray him and fatally injures Aunt May; who dies in Peter’s arms. While trying to find Peter using sling ring from Stephen; Ned and MJ find alternate versions of Peter Parker.

Thealternate version of Peter who were also summoned from the villains' universes by Stephen's spell and are nicknamed“Peter-Two" and“Peter-Three". The group finds this universe's Peter, nicknamed "Peter-One", who is mourning May and ready to send the villains home to die.

The alternate Peters share stories of losing loved ones and encourage Peter-One to fight in May's honor. The three Peters develop cures for the villains and lure them to the Statue of Liberty. Peter-One and Peter-Two cure Connors and Marko while Octavius helps cure Dillon. Ned accidentally frees Stephen from the Mirror Dimension.

The Goblin unleashes the contained spell, which breaks the barriers between universes and begins pulling in countless others who know Peter's identity. Stephen attempts to hold them off while an enraged Peter-One tries to kill the Goblin. Peter-Two stops him but gets stabbed by the Goblin. Peter-Three helps Peter-One inject the Goblin with his cure, restoring Osborn's sanity.

Peter-One realizes that the only way to protect the multiverse is to erase himself from everyone's memory and requests Stephen do so while promising Stephen that he will find them and remind them who he is. Stephen reluctantly casts the spell, and everyone returns to their respective universes.

Two weeks later, Peter visits Sanctum to reintroduce himself to Sophia and Stephen, but he decides against it. While mourning at May's grave, he has a conversation with Hogan and is inspired to carry on, making a new Spider-Man suit and resuming his vigilantism in New York City.

America Chavez and a version of Stephen Strange are chased by a demon in the space between universes while searching for the Book of Vishanti. Strange is killed and Chavez accidentally creates a portal that transports herself and Strange's corpse to Earth-616; where that universe's version of Stephen Strange rescues Chavez from another demon with help from Wong, the Sorcerer Supreme. Chavez explains that the beings are hunting her because she has the power to travel through the multiverse.

Recognizing witchcraft runes on the demon, Stephen consults WandaMaximoff but soon realizes that she is responsible for the attacks. After acquiring the Darkhold and becoming the ScarletWitch, Wanda believes that taking Chavez's powers and traveling through the multiverse will allow her to reunite with Billy and Tommy, the children she created during her time in Westview. 

When Stephen refuses to surrender Chavez, Wanda attacks Kamar-Taj and kills many sorcerers. Chavez accidentally transports herself and Stephen to Earth-838. Wanda uses the Darkhold to "dream walk", taking control of her Earth-838 counterpart who lives a suburban life with her own Billy and Tommy.

After Sophia, sacrifices herself to destroy the Darkhold and break the dreamwalk, an enraged Wanda forces Wong to lead her to MountWundagore, the source of the Darkhold's power, to reestablish the dreamwalk.

While searching for help, Stephen and Chavez are apprehended by Earth-838's Sorcerer Supreme, Karl Mordo, and brought before the Illuminati, a group consisting of Mordo, Peggy Carter, Blackagar Boltagon, Maria Rambeau, Reed Richards, and Charles Xavier.

They explain that through reckless use of their universe's Darkhold in an attempt to defeat Thanos, Earth-838’s Starnge triggered a universe-destroying "incursion". After defeating Thanos, the Illuminati executed their Strange to prevent him from causing more harm.

Mordo believes that Earth-616's Strange is similarly dangerous, but Wanda reestablishes her dreamwalk at Mount Wundagore and arrives in her Earth-838 counterpart's body before the Illuminati can pass judgment.

She brutally kills all the Illuminati except Mordo, who Stephen subdues before fleeing with Chavez. The two escape with help from the Earth-838 version of Strange's friend, Christine Palmer, a scientist working with the Illuminati.

Stephen, Chavez, and Palmer enter the space between universes to find the Book of Vishanti, which is the antithesis of the Darkhold, but Wanda appears and destroys it. She then takes over Chavez's mind and uses her powers to send Strange and Palmer to an incursion-destroyed universe.

Stephen defeats the destroyed universe's Strange, who has been corrupted by his Darkhold, and then uses that Darkhold to dreamwalk into the body of his deceased counterpart on Earth-616. With Wong's help, Stephen saves Chavez from Wanda and encourages Chavez to use her abilities.

Chavez transports Wanda to Earth-838, where she sees Billy and Tommy fearfully recoiling from her while crying for their real mother. Realizing her errors, Wanda relents and uses her powers to bring down Mount Wundagore, simultaneously destroying all copies of the Darkhold throughout the multiverse and sacrificing herself in the process. Chavez returns Strange and Palmer to their respective universes.

Sometime later, Kamar-Taj is under repair and the surviving sorcerers, joined by Chavez, continue training. Stephen who is still mourning his daughter’s death develops a third eye as a result of using the Darkhold and dreamwalking into a corpse.

Stephen is approached by a sorceress Clea who warns that his actions have triggered an incursion that he must help repair. Stephen follows her into the Dark dimension; where he comes to the realisation that Clea is niece of Dormammu; the endless incursions however were beyond saving; the universes collided and entire multiverse collapsed.

~

Peter, Tony, Sophia and Stephen; all four come back to the present with grasp and trying to catch their breathes.

Peter was silently sobbing; “I am sorry for causing such a mess; Dad. I should have listened to you.”

Stephen took the little omega in his arms, “Shush; little spider. It’s alright. None of it really happened and will never be allowed to happen.”

Behind them, Tony enveloped Sophia in bone crushing hug and declared, “You ae not going anywhere near that wicked witch of west. I should have killed her when I had the chance.”

Sophia smiled in the hug and breathe in his mother’s scent. The one thing that always managed to calm her down after his father.

She turned towards both her parents; her mama and dad and asked, “So, what do we do now?”