Chapter 18
Stephen shuddered as he saw the last of the Masters out with Peter clutching Tao close as she carried him through the portal to Kamar-Taj. Tao, once and still Morgan Stark, took her brother to safety even as she cast worried looks towards her father and her student. Stephen gave a weak glare of defiance but didn't comment on her quirk of a smile.
The magic that bitch had cast on Tony wasn't just malicious it was chaos based. The strength of it indicated that Maximoff either had found a dangerous well of chaos they had to contain immediately or... Or she was drawing the power from between the cracks in the universe. If she was dragging it through and widening the cracks as she went then she was an active threat to the integrity of not only their own universe but potentially the multiverse... and Tony was her main target.
Stephen gasped as that realization shot through him and echoed in a shockwave down their bond. It brought Tony running. Stephen didn't have the presence of mind to try to do anything except catch Tony as he scrambled into him.
"What?! What happened?! Are you okay? Please tell me you're okay!" Tony babbled as he tried to check Stephen for injury while also dragging him away from whatever had done this to him.
"Tony, Tony! I'm fine," Stephen told him, catching his attention and his frantically moving head so that Tony's face lay between Stephen's palms. "I just realized something else about Maximoff is all. Something important but not something that's an immediate issue, not yet. I'm fine and you're fine and the first chance I get I have to question her but afterwards I'm killing her for her crimes. The way that the magic layered on you... You weren't her first victim. She might have hated you more but you don't get that good without instruction and also without practice. I'm sorry I didn't catch this earlier when I was doing the soul healing that first time. I should have found it and removed it then. You shouldn't have had to deal with this at all and I..."
"You what?" Tony interrupted aggressively as he pulled free just enough to regain control of his head. "So you missed something, everybody misses something from time to time and you're still sort of new to being Sorcerer Supreme. Yes, Morgan can teach you properly now, get you some extra experience before giving you all the duties again, but you still got it dumped on your head. You found it this time and immediately started to fix it. You did it in a way that kept Peter safe and me from panicking. Anyone who expects more from us heroes doesn't know jack shit about the things we have to deal with, including you Mister Sorcerer Supreme. No, you don't get to talk yet. This? This is par for the fucking course in the hero business even if it hasn't become obvious yet to most people. This is the sort of shit you know demons and eldritch horrors would delight in shoving down our fucking throats! So, no, you do not get to blame yourself for this."
"I... alright," Stephen reluctantly let it go. He was so damned tired, physically, mentally, and emotionally.
Even with the distance of time and other lives lived Stephen remembered the damage he received from various fights across time and space. This? This was one of his breaking points and he knew it. He would always dish out a disproportionate response to threats against Tony and Peter so long as they weren't active enemies in that life and sometimes even then. Wanda Maximoff? She was an enormous threat against them both in almost every lifetime.
Instead of Stephen bundling Tony into bed their positions were reversed that night. Stephen still didn't have the energy to pull their astral forms from their bodies to check for damage by the time Tao and Wong checked in on them the next morning. When the pair pulled the two men from their bodies to check their progress Stephen knew without even looking that they were both a mangled mess spiritually. Only this time it was Tony that wrapped his battered spirit around Stephen's.
The glow of the astral form of the arc reactor, not entirely there the last time, was glowing like a small star. It warmed Stephen's back where Tony's chest was pressed against him despite their astral state. The two disembodied men ignored the worried discussion going back and forth between Wong and Tao as they drifted to sleep together and were engulfed in a gentle blue-white glow. Tao and Wong backed hastily away as brilliant green threads and cracks engulfed the two glowing forms in a cocoon of time's power.
Stephen blacked out with a solid measure of relief.