ACT XI, SCENE V
3rd July 2019, New York Sanctum, New York
One day Tony would understand how magic actually worked, but today was not that day.
Well, technically he and Peter had already figured out the mathematical and geometrical equation that seemed to be the base for the mirror dimension (a clear win for maths over sorcery); however, they had not yet figured out how Stephen opened the dimension so easily, or where exactly it was in space, or why it was the way it was.
“I will figure you out,” he promised the mirror-like area around him.
“No, you won’t,” confidently said Stephen, smirking when Tony glared at him.
“Boys,” sighed Agatha, looking over at both of them, one hand on Amaya’s shoulder. “This is not the time.”
“They are always like that,” informed Amaya, with another of her Loki-like sighs. “Daddy loves magic but he hates that he doesn’t always understand magic.”
“Don’t air out my business like that, Aya,” complained Tony, and was gratified to see her smile.
Just like she had said earlier, she was way less scared of all of this than Tony himself was. Tony and Loki had made sure that she grew up confident, that she knew she was good at her craft and had no shame on it, Loki in particular, and it reflected in her attitude towards magic and her intellect.
Tony knew that she was talented. His only real frame of reference was Loki and what he told him, but even without him he would have guessed that Amaya was much better at the whole magic than a ‘normal’ girl her age should be.
She had an innate talent for magic, and even now as he watched her close her eyes and prepare for the spell, he could tell that.
It scared him a little to think about it, but one day Amaya would grow up to be an amazing mage.
He glanced at the portal for the mirror dimension, through which he could see Hela and Adis waiting safely on the other side.
Adis should probably be put down for a nap at this point, but Tony doubted anyone here had the patience to sit still long enough for him to fall asleep, even Hela.
One day, he would probably be as strong as his sister. He was shapeshifting after barely one month of living, Tony somehow doubted he had shown them his peak yet. And if he had, even the shapeshifting was impressive, and Tony would be proud of him either way.
He glanced at Wanda, who was standing in the mirror dimension with them beside Agatha, not in an accusing way, but definitely with some wariness.
He did not know what had happened to America’s parents, but according to Stephen and Wong’s recounts when he had asked them what was going on, the girl had been dimension hopping away from Maximoff all by herself. Running away all alone before meeting the other Stephen Strange, all of this because a different Wanda Maximoff had decided that she wanted to steal her powers for her sick and deluded cause.
Tony had no plans of leaving his family early, and with the golden apple he had eaten, he was not going to.
But with Amaya and Adis’ powers, who could assure him that the same could not possibly happen to his own children? Knock on wood and everything, but the chance was there. And Tony could not discount it.
He and Loki would need to have a long conversation once all of this was over, because even if they defeated this Scarlet Witch (and since Rhodey was not here to talk about glass houses, with a name like that, who had even thought that she could ever be a hero?), she wasn't the only threat into their unfriendly neighbourhood multiverse.
Agatha made eye contact with him for a second when he looked away from Wanda, and they both exchanged a knowing smile before he turned back to Amaya.
This first, however. There was plenty of time to overthink and worry once Loki was back home with them, he did his best overthinking when Loki was sitting on the couch and looking at him like he was a funny pet in a zoo (look, it worked for them).
“Are you ready?” asked Stephen, standing close to her, expression serious.
Amaya’s eyes were closed, and already a mist of silver was covering her fingers. Her mirror was sitting in front of her, and her expression was concentrated.
She looked like Loki, and Tony could not stop himself from snapping a quick picture of her.
Wong rolled his eyes at him. “Parents,” he muttered, shaking his head.
Tony glared at him, not at all embarrassed. “You will understand when you have your own mini Wong.”
“Vishanti forbid,” immediately said Stephen, making what Tony suspected was a symbol against the evil eyes while Wong looked offended.
Tony snorted, and then put both hands up in surrender when Amaya opened one eye to glare at him.
“Sorry, sorry. I’ll be quiet.”
She huffed, but quickly returned to her earlier concentration.
“You know what you have to do?” asked Stephen, returning serious.
“Yes,” said Amaya, huffing again. “You want me to project the place from my memory onto a surface of the mirror dimension and localise it.”
“Exactly,” said Stephen. “Whenever you are ready.”
“Take all the time you need!” added Tony, because he knew what pressure looked like as a child, and he could see there was a lot of pressure on Amaya right now.
She did not look like she felt threatened or nervous by that, but she was his and Loki’s child. They might have tried to do better raising her than they themselves had been raised, but there was no way of making sure she was not actually hiding some uncertainty the way either of them would have done.
Amaya did not answer, brows furrowed in concentration as she did whatever it was her magic was supposed to do.
All that Tony could really see was silver around her fingers swirling around like a winter cloud, but he did not ask questions or disrupt her. He had gotten chased around the house by fake goblins before because he had accidentally broken Loki’s concentration during a spell: he knew better.
“Oh!” suddenly said Amaya, eyes still closed, but a smile appearing on her face. “Moddy is here!”
“What?” asked Tony, before Stephen or anyone else could speak. “What do you mean Amaya?”
“Here where?” added Stephen, watching her closely.
“In the space with the book,” said Amaya, shoulders relaxing. “She’s with the ladies. And... Doctor Wizard, how are you making a clone inside of there?”
“The other Strange is with her, that’s-”
“And moddy is fine?” asked Tony, sending hopeful and giddy feelings Loki’s way. Loki seemed confused by this, but he wouldn’t be soon enough.
“Yeah,” said Amaya, nodding. “There is also another lady there, and Viz and another kid. They all look fine.”
“Good,” said Wong, patting Tony’s shoulder without looking at him. The man had such a weird way of showing his care, but Tony was too relieved about Loki being in one piece and almost back with them to bother teasing him for it right now. “Can you project the image now?”
“Yeah,” said Amaya, and finally lifted both palms out. She did not look as still and concentrated as earlier, instead smiling, all relaxed and cheerful. And yet, it only took her silver clouded fingers touching the mirror dimension once for it to ripple, magic simply seeping from her to the surface in front of her.
Tony did not miss the almost awed look on Stephen’s face, and decided that any talk about Amaya and sorcerers teaching her more magic was going to be conducted by Loki when he got back.
He liked Stephen, but watching his partner and him hate on each other whenever they met was hilarious. Tony was always team Loki, of course, but it was still very funny.
Amaya’s seidr settled like ice on the mirror, and then, finally, Loki appeared on the other side.
Tony gave himself a second to make sure that all of Vision looked all right before he finally focused on his now wife, almost all the previous tension leaving his body.
There were many other people around, some familiar and some not, but Tony just focused on Loki, as she inaudibly spoke to her version of Strange with her perennial Strange Sneer on her face.
He had missed her.
“Good job,” he said, forcing himself to look to Amaya. “You did amazing, sweetheart.”
“Indeed,” said Hela, clearly itching to come into the mirror dimension but remaining in front of the portal with Adis. “You will be a great mage, Amaya.”
She beamed at them both. “I know,” she agreed. “Moddy taught me.”
She turned back to the mirror while Stephen and Wong shot him looks.
Tony shrugged. “Why shouldn’t she be confident in her own power?”
“She is so your daughter.”
They said like it was in any way a bad thing. Tony was very proud of her.
“Moddy!” called out Amaya, pointedly knocking at the mirror. “Moddy! Mrs!”
“I don’t think-” started Stephen, just to immediately shut his mouth when Loki’s head snapped up on the other side of the mirror-dimension-window whatever the fuck Amaya had created.
Everyone was still busy with their own conversations, except for Loki and the girl that Tony was assuming was America.
Loki’s eyes were frantically scanning her surroundings, while America was frowning, still holding onto two ladies Tony was assuming were her mothers.
“Over here moddy! I’m over here!”
“She can hear her?” asked Wong, frowning as Loki slowly started walking around, ignoring what the other Strange was telling her.
“Sense her,” corrected Hela, a half smile on her face. “She is her moddy, after all."
“However, she cannot hear you,” said Agatha, turning to where Amaya was growing frustrated in her attempts to get Loki’s attention. “Because she is in a different universe, and she is not a child of the multiverse.”
“But she can,” finished Hela, pointing at where America was now glancing in their general direction, squinting in confusion.
“They are pinging each other’s radar,” muttered Tony, shaking his head when Stephen looked at him in askance. “Amaya and America. Amaya said that the ladies were looking for someone, but kept accidentally finding her instead. And right now, America can either hear her faintly or sense her better than Loki can. They are both unique beings or whatever they're called, according to you magic people, and I’m ready to bet America is how they ended up in the space between universes to begin with.
“When you turn off a stove, it doesn’t immediately become cool again. It lingers. Amaya’s magic is still not completely dissipated from her spell, and neither is America’s, and their energies are responding to each other. If they were to cast a spell at the same time, if they were to somehow find the right station to communicate with one another... I think they can open a direct portal between the two of them.”
He looked at the other magic users who were all, except Amaya, staring at him dumbfounded.
“That... would work,” said Wong, slowly.
“That is exactly how it’s supposed to work,” corrected Agatha, definitely impressed. “Not just a pretty face are you, Stark?”
Tony waved a hand at her. “Agatha, please, I am married. You don’t want to know what happened to the last person who dared to publicly announce they had a crush on me.”
“I didn’t publicly announce it,” complained Stephen. “And how did you even figure this out?”
“Just because I don’t understand magic very well, doesn’t mean I can’t figure it out, with the right incentive and an appropriate amount of time,” said Tony, rolling his eyes. “Especially when my lovely wife is involved.”
“Daddy loves moddy very much,” agreed Amaya, looking over at him. “So do I try and ping America’s radar now?”
“Yes,” said Agatha. “I know it might be complicated, but-”
“Hey, America!” called out Amaya, silver seidr covering her fingers as she once more knocked on the mirror thingy. “I’m Amaya, nice to meet you!”
“Or that works, I guess,” said Agatha, sounding amused as America immediately perked up on the other side.
Loki looked and felt a little frustrated on the other side, and Tony tried to calm her a little through their link, sending some ‘everything is going fine, I got it’ vibes through.
She stopped glaring, but her irritation did not quite evaporate.
Amaya cocked her head to the side as America started speaking seemingly to the air.
“That feels funny,” she said after a moment, cocking her head.
“What feels funny?”
“Shh, daddy, I’m trying to listen,” said Amaya, squinting at the mirror. “Maybe if I...” She lifted her left hand and waved it in the air.
Tony looked over at the other magic users, but while Hela looked almost amused, it did not seem like any of them knew what his daughter was trying to do.
Tony wasn't sure if he should be worried or not. On one hand, she was a genius, just like him.
On the other hand, she was a genius, just like him.
He suddenly understood how Rhodey must have felt on a daily basis in MIT (and perhaps even after).
America said something again, and this time Loki immediately turned to look over at her. Tony did not know what was said, but all of her tension suddenly left her, replaced by pride and a little worry.
Clearly whatever the two girls were doing, was working.
America said something else, and Amaya huffed.
“Of course you can do it,” she said, impatiently. “Magic is will, and belief. You have to believe you can, and then, through talent and practice, you can do it. You have to just do it. It's not that hard.”
“Never mind,” said Stephen, looking at Amaya with some wariness. “She’s absolutely Loki’s daughter.”
Tony pouted.
“A terrifying mix of the two,” corrected Wong, and while he objected to the term ‘terrifying’ being used to describe his daughter, Tony could not really disagree.
America, who had been saying something on the other side, looked up with some fear when one of her mothers put a hand on her shoulder. But the woman was smiling at her, with what Tony assumed was her partner nodding encouragingly.
Loki felt a little impatient, but when she spoke up, you could not have been able to tell from her face.
Well, Tony would have, but not even Vision could have guessed, considering how busy he seemed to be studying everything around him with another universe version of Christine Palmer.
He caught Stephen’s eye when he looked away from that Palmer, but the man gave him a firm ‘do not’ look that Tony respectfully chose to abide (read: would feed this information to Loki at a later time to see what this would make the two of them do).
“Oh!” then said Amaya, straightening up. “She’s doing it!”
Indeed, noted Tony, feeling a little sense of elation as a blue star started to emerge from America’s hands.
Why a star he wasn’t sure, but he had very little time to bother questioning this as a small star appeared within the mirror dimension too, right in front of Amaya.
The girl appeared to have expected this, because she immediately put up her hands too, the blue on their side turning to silver immediately as she helped enlarge it.
“Mh,” said Amaya, wincing slightly.
“Aya?”
“I can do it,” she said, and you know what? Maybe Wong was right. That stubbornness was terrifyingly trademark LokiTony.
As was the fact that she actually did it, the star shaped portal finally stabilizing in front of them.
See? Genius.
“I did it,” said Amaya, clear satisfaction over her face as she put her hands back down again, a huge star portal in front of her.
“Of course you did,” said Tony, rushing over to hug her and press a kiss on her cheek despite her complaints that 'his goatee tickled'. “You are amazing, and you are going to be the best mage in the whole Nine Realms.”
“Of course she will,” agreed Loki, stepping into the portal with Vision’s wrist safely held in her hands, the look on the synthezoid’s face clearly showcasing that without that, he probably would have tried to stay back a while longer. “She’s my daughter.”
“Moddy!” called Amaya, and Tony was not even hurt at the way she pushed him aside to jump in her moddy’s arms. “I found you!”
“Yes, you did, elskam min,” said Loki, holding her in a tight embrace. “I told you that no matter what, we would always find each other.”
“You okay, Vis?” asked Tony, double checking that there were indeed no missing parts on him.
“Yes,” said Vision, accepting the quick hug without complaint despite the pout on his face. “These are the companions we made during our voyage: Stephen Strange of another universe, Christine Palmer of Earth-838, America Chavez, and the mothers of America Chavez.”
“You have quite the tale for me, uh?” he asked, watching in amusement the stupefied look on Christine Palmer’s face as she looked between the two Stephen Stranges in front of her. He was pretty sure there was almost a bit of horror in her eyes too.
“Yes,” said Loki, reaching to squeeze Tony's hand in hers as she half listened to Amaya explaining in detail everything she had done and kept Hela and Adis in her direct line of sight too.
Tony just pressed his lips over the back of her hands and-
Wanda did not even manage a single step in the direction of Amaya or America before Pietro was in the room, and she found herself laying on the ground. Agatha was on her too, thumb pressing a pressure point in the back of her neck within moments.
Her shocked expression at the quickness of the attack was almost funny: did she really think they had allowed a Wanda Maximoff that the Scarlet Witch could use to dream-walk in the mirror dimension with them for shit and giggles and without taking precaution?
The only reason they had let her in there was that Tony did not want Adis to be in any danger and that Pietro had been laying in wait as soon as he had been briefed on what was going on.
“You did not really think you could take me by surprise twice, did you?” asked Agatha, a slight mocking in her voice. “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, that's never happened because I have no shame.”
Pietro was glaring at the head of the witch. “Give me back my sister.”
“Pietro?” called out Scarlet Witch version Wanda, voice shaky and ‘scared’. “Pietro, please help me. It’s me, it’s the real me, it’s Wanda-”
“Do not play tricks with me, vedma,” said Pietro, unamused. “Wanda is my twin sister. Wanda Maximoff, not the Scarlet Witch. I’d know her anywhere in any universe, and even if you look like her and sound like her, you are not her.”
“Pietro, please,” said Wanda, but her twin brother did not so much as blink.
Tony wondered if twin senses were a bit like the link between himself and Loki, or if he just trusted Agatha and was bluffing really hard right now.
So long as he did not crack, Tony was willing to not question anything. And if he did crack, Stephen and Wong were ready to step in.
“You are not the only person who studied the Darkhold, darling,” continued Agatha, a dark purple magic leaving her fingers.
“What?!” demanded other Strange and Christine, looking worried, but Stephen shook his head.
“I know, I am planning on getting it away from her as soon as this is over,” he said.
Agatha and Loki both scoffed in derision, but Stephen only glared at Loki. “And she’s back.”
Loki smiled with all teeth, finally releasing Amaya, who immediately moved towards America. “You have no idea how much information on you I have gained in this trip, Strange. I have so much new material.”
Stephen looked appropriately horrified, while Wanda suddenly let out a half scream of outrage and pain.
“No! You can’t do this, you can’t-”
“I can, and I will,” said Agatha, and Wanda screamed harder as Agatha’s finger seemed to fume. “Never again will you take this vessel to haunt us. I banish you back to wherever the fuck you came from and seal you to your body, witch.”
“NO-!”
Wanda’s scream cut off as soon as Agatha let go of her, eyes rolling back in her head as she dropped face first.
Pietro immediately went back to concerned brother and Tony decided that this did not need his attention, seen as Agatha would not have killed her (she actually seemed quite fond of Wanda).
Instead, he turned to Loki, who was already looking over at him.
“Stop getting kidnapped whenever I look away,” he said, pulling her closer to him.
“Stop looking away from me,” flippantly replied Loki, even as she let their foreheads press together. “What else do you need to be looking at?”
“Having sight is a red flag,” mindlessly added Vision, moving towards America and Amaya, who already seemed engrossed in conversation.
“Meme?”
“Meme,” agreed Loki, before her expression softened. “I was not worried.”
“Oh?” he asked, wondering if he was allowed to bring up her earlier feelings.
“No,” she said, pressing a kiss on his lips. “You and my Modir have, by now, made it very clear that I am not allowed to go missing for too long because I belong with you. I knew one way or another, you’d find me.”
Tony nodded, turning his head slightly to glance over at their daughter. “She did, actually.”
“She’s amazing.”
Tony held her a little tighter. “She learnt from you.”
“As sweet as I believe you both are, I fear Adis might start attempting to premature bald me if I do not deliver you to him this instant,” called out Hela, and Tony rolled his eyes a little.
Loki’s lips twitched but she did not say anything as she went over to her overprotective Modir who could not simply say ‘I missed you, come over here so that I can check on you subtly and make sure that you are actually all right, but like, in a tsundere fashion because I'm the goddess of death and I'm not supposed to be soft’.
“Daddy, come meet America!” called out Amaya, waving him over.
He looked at where Loki was now safely outside the mirror dimension and in their own universe, holding a pleased Adis in her arms, and then went to meet the other MVP of the day and her mothers.
In the end, despite how hectic the beginning of the adventure had been, things ended up smoothly.
America, her mothers and the other Strange went back to their own universe to deal with Wanda, and Christine went with them to hitch a ride back to her own universe. Or maybe she was planning on staying with the other Strange, but Tony somehow doubted that.
From what he had pieced together, America had accidentally sent her mothers into the multiverse a long time ago by accident, and since then they had been trying to find her as she tried to find them, all three parties wrecked with guilt.
They weren’t sure how long ago they had ended up in the space between universes, but they had read in the Book of the Vishanti that one day, ‘a daughter’s love would save her mother’.
Whether that referred to America or Amaya or even Loki (since Hela helped come up with the plan), Tony couldn’t say, but that certainly seemed to be the theme around these parts.
Loki had definitely seemed much more sympathetic to them once she had her children and Tony safely in her sights, which surprised everyone but the Iron Family (Pepper and Rhodey were both quite exasperated when they called and Tony gave them the cliff notes of what had happened), going as far as to invite them to stay over for a while.
They had not declined nor accepted yet, but Amaya was hopeful that she would return to their universe, if only to learn magic from Vision and Loki.
America seemed to have formed a connection with Vision, which Tony was planning on watching like a hawk the entire time.
Wanda was also going full into her magic, learning with Agatha and Hela, of all people, how to better protect her mind against any attacks. She had been a little pissed off about not getting the chance of ‘dealing’ with the other Maximoff herself, and not particularly pleased about the new tattoo at the back of her neck from where Agatha had severed the connection between her and the Scarlet Witch.
They’d never be friends, but Tony was happy for her.
From a distance, of course. But still happy for her.
Not so happy about some of the repercussions of this adventure in his household, however.
“You need to eat those broccoli, Aya,” said Tony, unimpressed. “No magic at the table.”
“But I’m a powerful mage now, daddy,” complained Amaya, her whining tone very at odds with her words and her attempts at disappearing her food. “I saved Moddy and I'm super good now. I don’t have to eat the broccoli.”
Loki raised an eyebrow when Tony looked over at him. “I see no faults with her argument.”
“Of course you don’t,” said Frigga, sighing. “You were just the same as a child.”
Tony eyed the untouched vegetables at the side of Loki’s plate, but a look from Thor served to dissuade him from saying ‘only as a child?’. Also, he hated being kicked out of his own bed.
Thor and Frigga had only recently learnt about Loki’s short lived disappearance, something they were not very pleased about.
Tony dreaded the day the news reached Jotunheim.
“But your grandmother made him eat the veggies, and look at how even more powerful he is now,” said Tony.
“Well-” started Loki, smirking when Tony shot him a look. “Your father is correct. I had to eat many broccoli when I was a child. It’s a rite of passage for any mage, having to endure broccoli.”
Amaya did not look convinced. “Are there broccoli on Asgard?”
“Of many shapes, sizes and colours,” said Thor, taking a bite of his. “In a way, you are much luckier than your moddy was. You only have to eat one kind.”
Amaya picked up a piece of broccoli with her fork, though she did not look very convinced. “I’m coming to Asgard with you and you’re going to show them to me,” she said - well, ordered - before giving Adis a pained look. “I wish I had little teeth like you and didn’t have to eat all this yucky food.”
“Ma!” dutifully agreed her brother, continuing to paint his food tray in mash potato. Honestly, everywhere but his stomach must be currently covered in the thing.
“There are other kinds of broccoli on Earth too,” said Vision, looking up from his book. “Humans simply chose to breed one particular type, but in nature-”
Amaya made a show of listening and Tony and everyone else pretended not to see how every three bites, one piece of broccoli magically disappeared, while Adis decided to switch to trying to shove his mash potatoes in Loki’s hair, seeming to think Loki's attempts at saving his recently washed locks was a new type of tag.
“Still glad you didn’t miss this?” asked Tony, as Vision somehow went from talking about broccoli to the anthropocentrism, Hela and Thor pretended to listen while she discretely put her food in his plate and Frigga started scolding Amaya on disappearing her food.
Loki sighed when Adis squealed, one of his mash potato hits colliding, but his smile remained. “Without doubt.”
He was probably right.