Chapter 10
Stephen Strange awoke with a thud.
Blinking groggily, he wiped at his eyes, only to freeze.
Oh Vishanti—myhands.
With a child-like wonder, he brought the appendages to eye-level, flexing his fingers as if they were foreign entities.
“Oh god.” Stephen murmured, his voice hitching with emotion.
He’d forgotten what it felt like, to be able to move without feeling an ever-constant ache. Without the dull pressure around his ribs and the searing agony of pins in his palms. He’d gotten so used to being in pain all the time; every second an agony that built and built until he was lying in bed, too scared of a flare up to move a muscle. It had gotten so bad after Dormammu that even Wong had begun to fuss over him. And Wong didn’t do fussing.
But now—now he was fixed. His hands were no longer covered in twisting, hideous scars. They weren’t marred by the reminders of his arrogance and conceit. They were unblemished and whole. They moved without resistance and without pain.
Stephen couldn’t help it. Cradling his hands to his chest protectively, he sobbed. Wrenching, pitiful heaves that made his stomach sour and eyes crust over. But he ignored it all, merely grateful to the being that made it possible for his hands to heal.
“Stephen? Are you alright in there?”
Christine.
In a panic, Stephen’s hands flew to his mouth to stifle the carnal keening noise that spilled from his lips. With a liquid sniff, he forcefully gathered himself, wiping away the stickiness on his cheeks and glancing about the room.
He was not, as he had first thought, in his apartment. Instead he found himself at Metro-General. He was still dressed in operating scrubs, though his gloves had been discarded and his hands sanitized. Thank Vishanti I hadn’t appeared mid-operation. Or worse, in front of Dr. West.
“Stephen?” Christine’s voice asked from outside the door. “You okay?”
“Y-yeah.” Clearing his throat, Stephen undressed and changed into the casual clothes laid out nearby. “I’ll be out in a moment.”
“Good! I’m starving… how’d you feel about a sandwich from Sam’s?”
Stephen frowned as he buttoned up his top. Sam’s had been the deli down the street of Metro General before the invasion. Its pastrami deluxe had been infamous among the doctors at the hospital. It had been a sad day when it had gone out of business—Christine may have even shed a tear.
Taking a deep breath, Stephen centered himself. Taking one last appraising look in the mirror, he turned the knob on the door and stepped out.
Almost immediately, he felt the air leave his lungs.
Vishanti. She looks so young.
The last time Stephen had seen Christine had been before the blip. He had dropped by the hospital, hoping to catch her before her shift, only to learn that she had begun her own private practice. He had been shocked, unable to believe she had not told him about the accomplishment. In retrospect, her decision made sense. Their last discussion hadn’t gone particularly well, and there was no reason for her to continue to chase after him—not when he had spat over her loyalty and crushed her devotion.
“There are other things that can give your life meaning—”
“—what? Like you?”
Yeah. He had been an asshole.
“Stephen? You alright?”
“Hm. Yeah. I’m fine. Just tired.”
Christine smiled, her face radiant in a way it had never been when they were together. Stephen felt something inside his chest tear with the realization. (In other realities, they had gotten married. In other realities, they had raised a family. In other realities, Christine had been miserable. After all, who could be married to a man without a heart—?)
“Let’s go! It’s late enough as it is. You know how fast Sam’s sells out.”
With an internal shake, Stephen forced a smile. “Yeah. Let’s go.”
And so Stephen Strange and Christine Palmer made their way to the front doors. The walk through the hospital was a strange mix of nostalgia and nerves. As he walked by the operating theater, Stephen felt a sharp pain in his chest as he remembered the Ancient One’s death.
She’d died as she’d lived—in a flash of brilliance, momentous in her existence and yet still, somehow, down to earth. She was everything Stephen was not. Balanced. Fearless. Brave.
It should have been me on that hospital bed. Stephen thought, feeling his throat tighten.
Lost in his own thoughts, Stephen did not notice when another person approached from behind.
He did not realize until it was too late. Until Christine had been knocked out. Until he himself had been rendered boneless, immobilized on the floor.
Blinking past the stars in his eyes, Stephen shuddered. Karl.
And then, in a blinding flash of magic, the world faded to black.
———o0o———
Stephen regained consciousness inside a very familiar building. Like a sledge-hammer, the cloying taste of cinnamon filled his mouth. He was inside the Sanctum, and the time-stone was nearby.
“I know you are awake.”
Groaning softly, Stephen opened his eyes.
Karl Mordo peered down at him, face as stoic as ever.
“Get up. It would not do to keep the Ancient One waiting.”
Stephen blinked, trying to focus his mind. It was a fruitless effort, as the only thing his brain seemed keen to latch onto was the fact that Mordo—the man who had betrayed Kamar Taj in almost every reality, was standing before him.
“K-Karl.”
Mordo blinked, his mask cracking slightly as confusion and weariness emerged. Then, as quickly as the emotions appeared, they were hidden again.
Instead of waiting for Stephen to regain his bearings, Mordo bent over and wrapped his arms around Stephen’s torso, pulling him upward.
Feeling rather dizzy, Stephen leaned into the other sorcerer, cursing what was no doubt the beginnings of a concussion.
After limping past a few, rather familiar rooms, Stephen was left alone to await the arrival of the Ancient One, after a stern warning from Mordo dissuading him from running off. Stephen had remained silent, both due to the pounding in his head, and the rapid thumping of his heart.
(In over six hundred realities, he had killed Karl Mordo. Whether to save another sorcerer, in self-defence, or in revenge. In every such reality, Stephen would feel the weight of the blood on his hands—so much so that in around half of them, he had succumbed to the guilt, and performed ritual suicide to escape. Wong had not been pleased.)
“Ah, Stephen. Here at last.”
Swallowing down the familiar, acrid taste of bile, Stephen looked into the eyes of the Ancient One for the second time in what felt like decades—in what was decades.
“Y-yes. I suppose so.”
The Ancient One hummed, head tilted and lips puckered. “You look positively dreadful.”
Stephen snorted. “Well, time travel will do that to you.”
The Ancient One grinned impishly. “Yes, I suppose so. Though I’m sure Karl didn’t help much. I had toldhim to be gentle.”
Stephen felt his grin turn brittle. But before he could respond, the sound of his ringtone began to play from his back pocket. Flushing red, Stephen tried to stifle the sound of the booming vocals behind The Immigration Song.
Pressing the decline button, Stephen returned his attention to the Ancient One, only to see her eyeing the phone in his hand with appreciation.
“You know, ” The Ancient One began, “I’ve been to many Led Zeppelin concerts in my lifetime.”
Stephen looked at her incredulously as he struggled to mentally equate the sophisticated, transcendent woman before him to a normal human being, with human opinions and tastes. In all the time that he had known her, Stephen had never once known that she had been a Led Zeppelin fan. And had he been confined to his original timeline, it would have been a quirk she'd take to the grave.
This only goes to show how self-centered I have been. Stephen thought in self recrimination. Even after becoming a sorcerer, I am no different than the man I once was.
With a rough swallow, Stephen prepared to reply, only to be interrupted yet again.
“—We come from the land of the ice and snow
From the midnight sun where the hot springs flow—!”
Fumbling for the phone, Stephen was about to hang up yet again when he noticed a text box flash across his screen.
Stephen. This is Tony. PICK UP.
Feeling his heart jump to his throat, Stephen clicked on the green accept button.
“Strange?”
“Ye—”
“Oh thank fuck you picked up. There’s something wrong with Loki. We’re on a helicarrier and he’s literally seizing in front of us. Oh FUCK—”
There was yelling on the other end of the line. Then, Tony returned, panting slightly. “You needed to get here fucking yesterday. Do your portal shit and get here right now.”
“That’s not how it works—”
“—I don’t care how it fucking works Strange! Here! Now!”
“I’m going to need a picture to portal.”
There was scrambling, and then, “Sent.”
Confirming that the picture was clear enough, Stephen turned to the Ancient One, preparing to ask for a sling ring, only to find her holding one out, head dipped down in a ‘go on’ motion.
Nodding his thanks, Stephen pushed the ring onto his fingers and concentrated. With a swish of his wrists, space bent, and a glowing orange disk split the air in front of him.
Stepping through the sparks, Stephen was engulfed in a scene of chaos.
The first that registered was the yelling.
“Shitshitshitshit! Natasha, I need the medkit! He’s bleeding out of his ears! What the hell—”
“—move, Man of Iron. My brother needs the assistance of the Asgardian healing halls, not your primitive Midgardian potions.”
“You can’tmove him. Not in this state!”
“And you will not tell the crown prince of Asgard what he can and cannot do!”
Stephen felt a migraine coming on, and decided to tune out the others around him, if only for his own sanity.
Stepping forward, Stephen got his first good look at the injured god.
Oh fuck.
Loki was lying on his back, a pool of bloody ichor slowly growing around him in some sort of macabre aura. His face was pale and bruised, like a dying man’s. His body was starved, his cheeks hollow, and his eyes empty.
But worst of all, was the wrongness that emanated from his seidr. A wrongness so familiar that it made Stephen’s body ache in remembered pain.
The Other.
One of Thanos’s favorite lackeys. In many a reality, Stephen had been at The Other’s behest as the alien had tortured the humanity out of him. Along with Thanos’s sons and daughters, The Other was one of his most trusted servants. It had been he, along with Ebony Maw, who had broken through Stephen’s defenses via a mix of physical torture and the brute force of the mind stone.
Now, Stephen found himself watching as yet another went through the same tortures. Oh Loki.
Unable to stand the sight any longer, Stephen stepped forward, alerting the others to his presence.
“Stephen! Thank god you're here. Loki said you’d know how to fix this. Do you know what’s going on?” Tony stood up from where he was crouched near Loki’s prone form.
Stephen opened his mouth to respond, only to be cut off by a man he had not seen earlier.
“Stark! You can’t just go inviting civilians! This is a classified mission! Do you have any sense of propriety?”
Steve Rogers. Stephen thought with no little disgust. The Star Spangled Man Who Lives To Make Our Lives Miserable.
Stepping forward, Stephen ignored the Captain.
“We have no time to waste. Loki is currently fighting off a magical attack on his psyche.”
Tony paled, allowing Stephen to take his position near Loki.
“Who is attacking him?”
Stephen sighed, bringing his pinky and index finger together as he prepared to cast the strongest warding spell he knew. “Who else? Thanos, of course.”
Tony flinched at the name.
“Now, if you’d excuse me.” Stephen murmured as he pushed his magic outward. “I do believe I am going to pass out now.”
And as the world went black, Stephen Strange jumped into the mind of a Norse god.