Mystic

Stephen was astounded by Tony’s simultaneous willingness and unwillingness to learn. He read books- he read a lot of books but at no point did he express an interest to work the magic, just to understand it. Of course Stephen knew that reading about the knowledge was highly valuable, but practical knowledge was far more useful than a book. He could have read about surgeries all day long as a med student- but the only way to learn was to work on a body. The reading was a stepping-stone to true understanding but Tony wanted nothing to do with magic.

“None of this makes any sense,” Tony says, shaking his head stubbornly.

He lets out a deep sigh, “I know. There’s so much I know, but every time I learn something new I realize how much I don’t know and half the time when I learn something new it contradicts hundreds of things I’ve learned before that. Magic, like most other things in life, is nonsensical.” When he first heard the words, or words similar to it, he thought they were absurd and useless. None of the Ancient One’s advice made any sense to him- giving up control to gain control, magic doesn’t make sense, there were things beyond this world that he didn’t understand or know about, it was all nonsense to him. Now he knew it was true, obviously, but that didn’t teach him how to teach Tony that his methods of gaining knowledge in the most hands off way possible was bound to fail. Magic wasn’t a process of books; it was a process of experience.

Tony rolls his eyes at him and Stephen grits his teeth, irritated with his stubborn fucking soul mate. “Why are you here?” he finally asks. “You think none of this makes sense? Fine, you’re free to leave and you could have gone since you got here but you didn’t. What’s keeping you here if you refuse to listen to what I have to say?” he snaps.

Very much to Stephen’s annoyance Tony shrugs. “I don’t know. I don’t even know why I’m here, I just felt drawn here and clearly that was a mistake. All this stupid endeavor has taught me is that you and Wong are nuts and think I can see the future.”

Stephen pinches the bridge of his nose. “How many books have you read in the last two days that tell you that isn’t what a prophet is? And it makes sense if you know anything about magic but thanks to your stubborn nature and refusal to actually learn the information you’re taking in you know nothing!” Stephen yells.

“Oh what do you know?” Tony yells back. “Your librarian knows more than you do, you’re his magical muscle.”

He throws his hands up in the air, eyes rolling. “Oh for gods sake would you refrain from trying to insult me with a hierarchy you don’t even understand? It’s embarrassing,” he tells Tony in a clipped, annoyed tone.

“Seems to have gotten to you just fine so clearly I got something right,” Tony counters.

Stephen barely resists the urge to smack that satisfied smirk of Tony’s face because that would hardly solve anything and also he didn’t want to find out what smacking a prophet would do magically speaking. He could feel Tony’s power but the irritating shrimp of a man refused to acknowledge it and Stephen wanted to shake him for it. “Misinformation annoys me,” he says instead of any of the long list of snide comments or physical assaults he wants to deliver because it was just as true and less destructive. Wong best be proud later.

“Then what the hell are you doing playing Hallmark Sayings at a magic school in Nepal?” Tony snaps.

“What the hell are you doing arguing with the Hallmark Saying at a magic school in Nepal! You should have gone to Britain to play Hogwarts, at least you could have hung out with entitled white men like you instead of wasting my time!” Stephen snaps.

Tony throws his head back and laughs, “oh as if you’re less entitled, I’ve heard all about you. Your ego rivals mine in my early twenties and trust me that is a feat- having an ego a quarter the size of mine would have made it the size of Texas!”

Stephen steps in close and glares down at Tony, “last I checked I learned from my arrogance while you continue to run tests of things you don’t understand and the whole world almost paid for that. Which one of us is arrogant again?” he asks in a low, dark tone.

He regrets the words near immediately when he not only sees the hurt but physically feels it as, for just a moment, Tony’s face twists a little before settling into a smooth, unmovable mask. “You’re right, and I don’t know why I’m here and I’m wasting our time. Good bye, Stephen,” he says, turning on his heel and marching off. Stephen goes to follow, to apologize or something but his stupid cloak holds him back, giving him a violent yank when he tries to continue forward anyways. When he stops fighting it the cloak lifts off his shoulders and circles to face him, giving him a shockingly judgmental glare for an object with no face before it floats off the direction Tony took off in.

Stephen stares after it, unsure what he just did but getting the feeling that this wasn’t going to be good.

*

Wong glares at him and Stephen tries not to shrink under the heavy gaze. Its been years since anyone could make him feel small and honestly his mother was the only one who could successfully make him feel that way anyways but he guessed he could now add Wong to the list. “You said what?” he asks in a tone too calm to betray how he really felt.

“I relayed what I said and last I checked you have no hearing problems. And if you did I’d know given that I used to be a medical professional,” he mumbles.

“This is serious, Stephen!” Wong yells and he jumps in surprise.

“I never implied that it wasn’t Wong. Besides, what was I supposed to do? This is a Sanctum, not a prison. I can’t just keep him here,” he points out.

“What were you supposed to do?” Wong hisses in a low, dangerous tone. “You were supposed to teach him, not whatever your clumsy attempts were though I should be thankful he’s your soul mate. At least you have enough patience to explain the basics to him before you let your arrogance and self importance take over again!”

Stephen jumps up, “I tried my best, he didn’t want to learn! What was I supposed to do with that?” he yells.

“The Ancient One tried her best and you didn’t want to learn either, you kept whining and crying about your hands so what did she do!” Wong yells back.

Showed him evidence that his hands weren’t the problem, he was. “How the hell am I supposed to show Tony his attitude is the problem, not magic?” he asks, rolling his eyes. “The man is impossible. He’ll read all day without taking in a single piece of information! I don’t know how to fix that and it shouldn’t be my problem!”

“Your hands were your problem too, but the Ancient One was kind enough to help you through a tough time and believe me I considered throwing you out more than once. And the problem isn’t Tony or his attitude it’s you. Your job as the leader of this Sanctum is to help the lost, to put them back on the right path, not to arrogantly assume they are beyond help because of your own incompetence at your job!” Wong yells, waving a hand around.

“I tried, Wong, he didn’t listen!” Stephen yells back.

“If every single encounter you had with magic ended in alien invasions, the world ending, your mind being manipulated into seeing your worst fears, and various other highly traumatic events you probably wouldn’t be willing to listen either! The man has PTSD and you essentially punished him for it while trying to praise yourself like you’ve done some good deed by failing at your position. Find him Stephen, and bring him back,” Wong snaps.

Stephen glares at Wong for a long few moments before Wong seems to notice something. “Where is your cloak?” he asks.

He shrugs, “took off after the fight with Tony after giving me a weirdly judgmental glare considering it has no face.”

“Even the cloak thinks you’re a jackass,” Wong mumbles. “Go find Tony and bring him back, he was here for a reason and given his past with catastrophic events I’d rather not find out what’s about to happen because he fell off the path he’s meant to be on.”

*

Tony is sitting in an airport tapping his foot and swatting at Stephen’s stupid cape as it tries to keep his foot still. The cape was lying across his lap and thought that pressing itself to the top of Tony’s foot would keep it still. He taps the other foot instead, earning an irritated flap from the cloak for his efforts. His tapping grows faster as the minutes drag on and his stomach turns over. It was stupid but he couldn’t help but feel like something was about to go wrong and he hoped the thing that went wrong wasn’t him missing his flight.

Someone sits next to him and he ignores them, eyes on the clock in the far corner of the room. “Nice cape,” the man says and Tony turns to look at him. There was nothing overly remarkable about him aside from his clothing choices, which looked more like what Stephen wore than what the rest of the population of Nepal wore.

“Its not mine,” Tony says, wondering why the cape followed him out to begin with. The stupid thing refused to let him leave without it and when he stopped fighting the cape the cape stopped fighting him too. So now he was stuck with some magical fabric he hoped wouldn’t be a problem when crossing boarders.

“How well do you know Stephen Strange?” the man asks and Tony frowns.

“I don’t know Stephen Strange at all,” he says, wondering what his soul mate had to do with any of this. The man looks confused for a moment and glances at the cape. Tony knows immediately then what that meant but he chooses not to acknowledge it at least until the man speaks.

“Actually you do, that’s his cloak. And you’re his soul mate,” he says. The cape flurries into action as the man stands, flying around Tony’s shoulders and yanking him back from his seat. Tony yelps and flails his arms around as the airport… moves. He recognized the magic of course, but he had no idea why the floor was doing… that and why the walls were moving or what this guy’s intentions were given that he was clearly a magic user with a vendetta.

“First of all I didn’t know Stephen’s last name, and second of all I don’t really like him either so if you could- Jesus what are you doing?” Tony yells at the cape as it lifts him from the ground.

“Why is the Cloak of Levitation responding to you?” the man asks and Tony lets out another yelp as the cape drags him to the left as the building spins more. Tony looks around wildly but the population was just… gone. He hadn’t seen Stephen do that trick before but he was curious about it now.

“The cloak of who what? Where are the people? Why the hell are you even- ahh!” Tony yells as the cloak drags him off again, this time to the ground as a burst of magic comes his way. Tony didn’t know what those symbols meant but he wasn’t exactly willing to test it by letting himself get hit by the spell.

“If you’ve spent time with Stephen you’d know plenty about the natural laws by now- and that he likes breaking them. You two have that in common,” the man says, stalking towards him as the cloak drags him across the ground. Tony was starting to get motion sickness from the way things were moving around him let alone the cloak dragging him all over the place.

“Uh,” he says intelligently, getting dragged sharply to the right as the cloak pulls him away from another attack. Tony finally finds his feet- and what looked like an exit- and he tries to run for it but the cloak holds him back. “What the hell are you doing?” Tony yells at it. In his brief pause the cloak settles so Tony tries to run again only to find the stupid cloak holding him back.

“That cloak shouldn’t respond to you, how long have you even been studying the mystic arts?” his companion turned attacker asks, frowning at Tony.

“How are you not getting motion sickness?” Tony asks as the floor spins again, this time taking him with it and he staggers, letting the cloak catch his weight and straighten him. When the floor finally stops moving Tony goes to turn back towards that exit but the cloak lifts him instead and his legs start moving with no purchase. He does, however, find himself close enough to kick his attacker so he does, letting out a squeak when this results in another magical attack hurled at him. The cloak spins him around and obviously blocks the attack but Tony doesn’t know how that’s possible not that he’s questioning it.

“Mordo,” someone new says and the guy that was currently trying to either kill or maim him turns. So does the cloak, spinning Tony back around to watch as Stephen steps through one of those portal thingies. He lets out a sigh of relief, surprised that he was relieved to see Stephen despite being absolutely furious with him at the moment.

The cloak zooms towards him, Tony still pinned in it, and drops Tony behind Stephen before gently draping itself over Stephen’s shoulders. He’s pretty sure that’s about when he passes out.

*

When Tony wakes up again the first thing he does is lean over and throw up. Stephen looks mildly disgusted by this and Tony flips him off. He had no right to be disgusted by Tony’s perfectly normal human reaction to being spun all over the fucking place by a magical cloak while being attacked by some rando in an airport that made all the people disappear and the room spin. Anyone would throw up after that. Tony had better things to focus on than his queasy stomach though, like the fact that he was apparently back at the Sanctum with this soul mate who would absolutely know who he is.

“You,” Tony snarls, “get the hell away from me.”

“You’re welcome for saving your ass,” Stephen says in a sarcastic tone and Tony rolls his eyes.

“Yeah, for what purpose, hmm? Because I’m rich, or maybe I’m useful to you somehow, it this some weird con to combine magic and my technology? Is Wong in on it or did you not tell him either?” he asks, anger dripping from his voice. Tony wanted to think Wong didn’t know because he liked Wong- the man was smart, capable, but mostly he knew Stephen wasn’t infallible despite his higher rank. It endeared Tony to him and he really didn’t want to think he was in on some elaborate way to some how screw him over again. Shit, if it was money Stephen wanted he could have everything Tony had, he was done with this. He had no interest in playing mind games with magic users- again.

Stephen frowns at him, “what the hell are you talking about?” he asks.

“He’s talking about Mordo accidentally telling him that you’re his soul mate, you fool,” Wong says, walking over and gingerly avoiding the vomit to Tony’s left.

“So you knew?” Tony asks, leaning away as Wong reaches for him.

“Yes, and I advised Stephen to tell you because I knew this would happen,” he says.

Tony rolls his eyes, “what, are you a prophet now too?” he asks sarcastically.

Wong laughs to Tony’s surprise, seemingly unruffled by his attitude. Stephen was not taking the news so well and was pale. His hands looked like they were shakier than usual too but Tony didn’t know or care if that was a result of finding out his lie blew up in his face. “Of course I’m not a prophet- you don’t need to be one to know keeping information like this to yourself is bound to go badly. I watch television and read bad romance novels, you know- this sort of thing always generates more trouble than the lie is worth.”

“I didn’t lie,” Stephen says, his ability to speak returning apparently. “I just didn’t say anything about it.”

“Lying by omission,” Wong and Tony say in sync. “Its still technically a lie, Stephen,” Wong continues.

Stephen rolls his eyes and Tony really resents that. “I had better things to concern myself with and so did you. The soul mate thing was a distraction and I chose to do away with it,” he says.

“And what did I get to do, hmm? Nothing because you didn’t fucking tell me anything!” Tony snaps. “What is it you expected out of that?” he asks.

“Why do you think I want something from you?” Stephen asks. “I have everything I want here, I don’t need you.”

“Oh fuck you,” Tony snarls, trying and mostly failing to struggle to his feet.

“So what, you’re mad that I want something from you but you’re mad when I don’t actually want something from you? Make up your mind,” Stephen snaps at him.

Tony looks at Wong, who looks quite like he’d like to smack Stephen. Well, they at least had that in common. “Stephen when you tell someone in a snide tone they’re all but worthless to you they tend to get upset. I swear as a grown man you should know this by now,” Wong mumbles. Tony lets out an unexpected laugh and Wong sighs. “Look, you’ve been through a lot today. Leave Stephen and his stupidity alone and go lay down. You need the rest,” he tells Tony. He sounds like he cares at least and Tony sighs.

“Better than dealing with this asshole,” he mumbles, looking pointedly at Stephen. He might talk a big game about not needing Tony but clearly he saved Tony’s ass for some reason.