The thing about being a Master of the Mystic Arts is that you are expected to give everything to defend reality. Which was honestly fine for him; he'd lost everyone already. Donna, Victor, his parents, Mordo, Christine, and those hundreds, thousands, millions of friendships he'd forged through a millennium of fighting and dying. It had hurt after the final battle. It had hurt when the arc reactor in Tony Stark's chest winked out and when Pepper Potts and James Rhodes glared at him with tears in their eyes at the funeral. It had hurt when Clint Barton screamed at him, "Why did you let her die? Why couldn't it have been me?". It had hurt just as much as the first few million times had. His Cloak had tried, giving companionship to the best of their ability, but for all of their effort, human contact was something he still sorely lacked.
But it was fine. Totally fine. He could deal with the abyss of loneliness just as he had after Dormammu. Only, this time, there was no Christine to check in on him, for she had found a husband who'd treat her hundreds of times better than he ever could. He was happy for them, he really was, but it didn't make the ball of pain in his chest hurt any less. He was always good at pushing people away, holding them from arm's length, and being a massive asshole. But he was lonely.
So when Spiderman appeared, a desperate gleam in his eye, and he apologized for giving Stephen the first friendly contact besides Wong, he tried. He stopped trying to maintain that superior and cold mask and help.
…
Of course, he screwed it up. The spell was strong as he had poured almost all of his energy into it, sealing the jagged cracks in the sky and their reality. He knew he'd used the Runes of Kof-Kol, and that Spiderman was important, but he couldn't get past his spell and the gaps in his memory yet. The guilt of those fourteen million realities, alongside the shit show with Spiderman, was neatly bundled into some corner of Stephen's mind. He knew it wasn't healthy, but his duty called for desperate measures. The ranks of Kamar-taj, already depleted due to Kaecilius and his followers, had taken a significant blow from the entire Thanos ordeal. The silence in the Sanctum was unbearable. Before Thanos, there'd be a few people in the New York Sanctum, either training or helping maintain the place. But with the knowledge that Doctor Strange was responsible for the deaths of half the universe and, by extension, the deaths that followed post-Snap due to drivers and pilots being snapped from their vehicles. It wasn't just drivers and pilots. No, there had been surgeons who disappeared from operating rooms, bloody knives dropping from disintegrating hands, and ash drifting into delicate machinery. There had been hikers and climbers who had been holding friends up, dangling from cliff edges. All of this death. All on his cursed, broken, shaking hands.
The silence of the Sanctum was now unbearable, the relics and the building silent to him as if they knew what he had done. It was entirely possible that they did know, being sentient. The silence, which would usually be fine with him, made the torturous whispers of Your fault, your fault, your fault worse and so much louder. But what could he do? The rest of the Masters and Kamar-taj hated him, barring perhaps Wong. The rest of the world resents him for taking away their friends, family, pets, and heroes. There was nowhere for him to go. So he stayed in his deathly quiet Sanctum when he wasn't throwing himself into defending their reality.
Bottling everything up and ignoring it would spill over eventually. He knew that. In the end, the trigger came at some anniversary event the Avengers threw together. He was certainly surprised to find an invitation in the mail.
The anniversary had been… quiet for the most part. Thankfully no one commented on his tired appearance. It was likely that as superheroes, they, too, knew the nightmares and late nights up their line of work entailed. His night had been particularly bad to the point that he would see Mantis and hear her screams as Thanos slowly tore her apart, that he would see James Barnes and remember dead brown eyes, and that he would see Sam Wilson and remember broken metal wings as a body plummeted from a red sky. For the most part, he'd managed to keep himself together until a certain Morgan Stark tugged on his sleeve, clutching a worn Iron Man toy.
"People say that you are the reason Daddy had to leave. Is that true?" He froze.
"I- yes. I suppose it is." Morgan nodded.
"Why? Couldn't there be another way? Couldn't someone else sacrifice themselves instead of my daddy?" Her brown eyes began to pool with tears despite her apparent attempts at holding them back. Some of the other Avengers watched from the sidelines. Stephen felt like he couldn't breathe as memories rose, unbidden, to the surface.
Dormammu and his thousands of ways of killing. Stabbing, suffocating, choking on his own blood, pain, pain, pain, pain, pain. Ebony Maw, the Black Order, and Thanos with his reality stone. Vivisection, his hands peeled open, the bones rearranged for some alien's sick pleasure, and the sound of shattering glass as his mind broke. More pain, hundreds, thousands, million years of it. It never stopped, oh Visanti, make it stop. Sacrifice. Something he knew all too intimately, even as Death and her many other incarnations cradled him in their hands for those brief moments.
He tore his eyes away from Morgan, chest tightening. "I- I have to go. I'm sorry, Morgan," and he made a portal, orange sparks spitting over the grass in his panic. He stepped through, pretending he wasn't fleeing. He barely managed to stay composed for long enough to close the portal before he collapsed, sinking to his knees and shaking under the weight of his memories. Dimly, he felt the Cloak of Levitation try and offer comfort, flitting around nervously.
Someone placed a gentle hand on his shoulder. Wong, for it must be Wong, helps him stand and guides him to the kitchen. For a little while, the only things that can be heard are his ragged breaths as he tries to bring his breathing back under control and the whistle of the kettle. Wong pours two cups of tea, sliding one over, before speaking.
"I'm sorry, Stephen." His head snaps up.
"For what?"
"For not noticing earlier. The Time Stone exacts a toll. Without proper preparation and the latent energy of the Ley Lines beneath Kamar-taj or any of the Sanctums, there must have been a price." Stephen shakes his head, a single shaking hand lifting the hot tea to his lips.
"Not your fault. You have duties to attend to as Sorcerer Supreme." Wong frowns.
"Regardless, you are my friend. Why did you not tell me that things were this bad? What was the price, Stephen? Of your victory and of the look through the timelines on Titan?"
"It's nothing." He didn't have the energy to push Wong away right now, to make the only one who considered him a friend to leave and to let him grapple with his thoughts alone as he had always done. But upon seeing the silent Wong, who only sat there with his patented Stephen, are you serious right now? look, he folded. With the silent Sanctum around them and a pot of hot tea, he talked. He talked until the tight ball of pain in his chest loosened, and when he finished, he found himself ushered to bed. That night, he slept impossibly well, nightmares chased away by a patient friend and a loyal Cloak.