Chapter 5
Stephen knew that Loki was watching him. The god’s eyes had been locked onto his back for the last half hour as they flipped through the books at Kamar-Taj, trying to figure out if there was any way to go back to their regular timeline.
“You lied.”
Stephen startled, “Excuse me?”
“You lied. You said that you didn’t look past the final battle. That was a lie.”
“No it wasn’t.”
“Yes it was. They do not call me Silvertongue for nothing. I know an untruth when I see one.”
Stephen sighed, closing the book he was skimming through, “Perhaps I did lie. Perhaps I did not. It is not for you to know.”
Blissful silence.
It did not last for long.
“What did you see?”
The ground was scorched with the tears and sweat of those who had fought. Streaks of scarlett and purple blood caked the floor. Stephen stumbled back up to his feet and dragged himself a couple feet.
“No. Please…”
He fell to his knees. His hands clawed themselves into the soft fabric of what remained of the Cloak of Levitation. Teared from seam to seam it writhed on the ground next to the corpse of the New York Sanctum librarian. Wong lay still, his insides vaporized by the reality stone like so many others who had braved the dangers of Thanos’s gauntlet. Stephen had not been able to get the vanished to the final battle on time.
He could hear the sobs of those who returned, only to find the other half of the population gone. Each and every one doomed to the very depths of the soul stone. Without Stephen there to hold their souls safe they would decay until all that remained were the very basics that were the husks of life.
“Strange? I asked you a question. I expect a prompt response.”
Stephen set down the book. “It is nothing of importance. It did not happen.”
“You do realize that does not answer my question.”
“I know.”
“Then why don’t you answer it? What happens after the final battle? What did you see?”
The world started to blur as Stephen felt his knees go weak.Loki continued to talk in the background but Strange could not bring himself to listen. He could feel bile rise up his throat but he choked it back down and grabbed hold of the bookshelf to remain standing.
What had he seen?
He had seen destruction on an unimaginable level. He had seen trillions die because of his mistakes. He had seen futures where he had found a family and grown old on the ashes of those who sacrificed their life in the blip. He had been happy. He had been devastated. He had grieved. He had lived. He hadcried and screamed and bled and—
A spray of cold water hit his face, stinging his eyes and freezing everything else. Coughing, Stephen blinked and his vision cleared. He was on the ground, sprawled on his back. Loki stood above him, lips curved downward and eyes wide.
Silently, Stephen bent his head and wrapped his arms around his knees. He could feel tremors wrack his frame as he closed his eyes and curled his hands into balls. The cloak squeezed his neck in support before wrapping around him like a cocoon.
The water that dripped down his face mingled with the fresh salty tears that escaped from under his eyelids. So much deathbloodsorrowloss—And all of it only existed inside his head.
“Strange?” Loki’s voice was closer, softer, “Strange? Are you with me? I need you to open your eyes.”
But opening his eyes felt like the hardest thing to do. If he opened his eyes he would have to face more problems, more life, more reality. Another future that had not gone the way he had planned for it to go. A future he had not seen in his dive into the time stone. There would just be more. Endless more.
“Wizard? Wow, when Loki told me he broke you I didn’t think he meant it so literally. Hey, Strange, I’m gonna need you to get up for me.”
Tony. The man that he had condemned to death. Who had a family.
Oh, Morgan.
She would grow up without a dad because of what he had done. Pepper would be an only mother because of his decision. He owed the Stark family so much.
The very least that he could do was follow through with the request that Tony had just made.
Prying his eyes open, Stephen blinked away the last of glistening tears before standing up. The cloak held most of his weight as Stephen tried to avoid making eye contact with the two others in the room.
The awkwardness was broken by Loki’s oddly quiet drawl.
“We should probably get back to working.”
“Yeah. You're gonna be alright Strange?”
Stephen nodded silently, picking up the book he had dropped to the floor, “Yeah, sorry.”
And slowly, all three of them got back to work. And this time, Loki didn’t say a word.
———o0o———
Peggy groaned in frustration. For the last hour she had been trying to figure out where in the world Tony Stark had gone. She had tracked his path using satellite footage. In order to reach the footage she had needed to hack into so many databases, including one of Howard’s own. It was an easier process than she had expected. Obviously Howard wasn’t as good as he thought himself to be.
Unfortunately, the cameras had fizzled out before Tony could reach his final destination. Peggy had tried everything possible to retrieve the data from any security camera in the vicinity to no avail. It was as if somebody had managed to delete the footage from existence. Something that should be thoroughly impossible.
With a sigh, Peggy started to pack up the equipment and hoped that Steve had some better news.
———o0o———
Things had gone downhill right away. Apparently, HYDRA had technology far beyond what Steve had expected. The moment he entered their property they had surrounded him like a pride of lions around prey. It seemed that the heat scatterer that both Howard and Tony had always incorporated into his armor actually had a purpose besides trying to track Steve’s every move. HYDRA had used infrared sensors to find and identify him. And now he was locked away in the deepest, darkest corner of the base.
It was completely unfair that even when trying to do the right thing, Steve managed to get treated with the utmost disrespect.
In the next cell over Steve could just make out the outline of a man. As he watched, the man seemed to regain consciousness, rolling over with a weak moan. He had obviously been tortured by HYDRA.
Steve froze as a stream of light hit the man’s face.
“B-Bucky!?!”