So I got this idea in the middle of the day and I just sort of wrote it but not really? It took me like 2 hours. There’s over 3000 words. And it kind of phases in and out between my rambling self-dialogue and the actual story. So. If anyone out there is interested, feel free to write it. Properly, I mean. Just. Yeah. And send me a link to the fic. I’d like to read it. (To be honest anything would be better than I stuff I managed to write.)
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In all the MCU time travel fanfics where someone went back in time to stop Thanos, Tony’s always the one chosen to do it. Either it’s just Tony, or it’s Tony and Stephen and then they make it Ironstrange.
Personally, I think it unlikely Stephen would bring Tony back with him. Given how hard Tony would be to handle and control and how tempted he’d be to change things. Stephen on the other hand, was willing to die countless painful deaths to stop Dormammu and without recognition. Tony is selfless, much more than Stephen, but at the same time he has too much compassion. Stephen is bother line sociopathic without how great he is at distancing himself and blocking out emotional shit. I mean, the man just watched these people die some number under fourteen million times. And he’s willing to trade their lives on a bet that Tony Stark would bring the back? Yeah, I don’t think Tony would’ve handled that after knowing Peter was going to die.
I think Stephen might have been able to do the forbidden and go back in time, but I doubt he’d bring Tony. For another thing, if Tony acts any different, his company would be affected and his company affects the world. Tony’s changes in behavior are not as insignificant as a celebrity surgeon who was known for being an asshole either way. So. Yeah.
Now, Stephen goes back in time. Where does he go? How far does he go? Given that he only saw the future, he might think that by not being on Titan, a possible victorious timeline might emerge. So he does that. He goes back in time to try, again and again. He’s almost sick of saying: “Tony Stark, my name is Stephen Strange. I need you to come with me.” Again and again and again. The Battle of Wakanda has been fought thousands of times, in his mind, at least, as the Time Stone plays in out before his eyes in the privacy of his room where Wong could not discover his breaking the natural order.
He gives up at 10 million, when the differences started to become more and more insignificant. When the wind blowing somebody’s hair at the right time. Or Stephen choosing to run to Kamar Taj as opposed to fighting Ebony Maw and the hammer guy.
Regardlessly, after watching Tony Stark grow old and die with his wife, best friend, daughter and son-in-law and in his bed was getting kind of sick for Stephen. He started to wonder if he wasn’t looking far enough. He decided that the end point would be when even Tony Stark of all people had given up on finding a way. At least, given up for real.
So Stephen goes further back. He starts wondering just what he could change. Stark said he couldn’t contact Vision because he ran off, yeah? Well, Maybe Stephen can prevent that. If they got in contact with Vision earlier… When who knows what might have happened with another infinity stone in play?
…Except he didn’t expect why exactly did Stark’s synthetic-bot-human-thingy-guy decided to run off. With Maximoff, seriously??
The bot really could have done better than that. Well, then again, he’s only several years old.
So now Stephen tries to stop the Avengers from splitting up at all. He’s finally gone back far enough that he sees the Ancient One again. And she warns him:
“This is a slippery slope you’re going down, Stephen. The consequences of your actions increase the further you go into the past.”
But what choice does Stephen have? He uses the mirror dimension to spy on the Avengers in the Avengers’ Compound. He finds out about the Sokovia Accords. He watches as Steve Rogers break Tony’s armor. Watches as Bucky Barnes, confused and still amnesiac, follows his best friend to Wakanda and request to be put on ice, the image of what he and Steve had done to the last Stark haunting him.
There is nothing he can do. The Avengers were always slated to break, always fractured. They were never a truly cohesive team. They trusted each other’ with their lives on the field, but not their secrets or their true selves. Toney wore the facade of the genius playboy, Steve forced himself to act like the Captain America of the legends, unsure if that was who he truly was and what he was supposed to be. Not understanding that he was Steve Rogers not Captain America. (Tony was right, later Stephen would think, everything special about Rogers came from a bottle. Bravery means nothing if one was an idiot. It would only be stupidity.)
So Stephen goes further into the past and tries to prevent Ultron, prevent the Sokovia Accords, prevent the breaking of the Avengers. He contains and Scepter with the subtlest magics he could, hoping against hope that the Asgardians would not notice and if they did, decide that it as only a Midgardian sorcerer who allied with the Avengers and not that they there was no foul play. Disaster averted, Stephen withdrew from the timeline and returned to his set point- on Titan. When Thanos comes, he has Mind. Time was the last stone. Loki had given it to Thanos. And Tony was not able to steer the ship from its course and their crash land meant that it was destroyed. The Guardians of the Galaxy were utterly useless, as Thanos was waiting, not coming. He took advantage of Tony’s distraction and sent himself back once more.
He had to keep the stone on Earth. If it went to Asgard, that meant Loki would steal it and later be forced to give it to Thanos when he threatens Thor’s life.
So now what was Stephen to do? At this point, almost half a decade before Thanos’ arrival, there are so many possibilities that even with an eidetic memory, he wouldn’t be able to remember them all. On Titan, there were fourteen million possibilities. With so much time in between now, the number would have to be in the trillions, at least. If he attempted to see more, he might just lose his mind.
Stephen broods and for the first time since his frantic tampering of time, he rests. He broke into his old penthouse while his current self was in a particularly challenging surgery and breaks out one of his old wines. For the first time, he indulges and lets himself just… fall. The Ancient One appears, after his second glass. Stephen’s not particularly inebriated, having an admirable tolerance to alcohol. The Ancient One watches him as he sips the fine wine, overlooking the New York skyline, illuminated by lights.
“Go back, Stephen.” She tells him.
He laughs, “And what? Surrender to fate or something?”
His mentor miles indulgently, “Yes. Surrender to the flow of time and trust that everything would end peacefully. We swore to uphold the natural laws, did we not?”
“Ha!” Stephen laughs again, “You’re one to talk! You’ve only lived for so long because you’ve been siphoning energy off the Dark Dimension! What part of that is natural? I have to do this. I’ve got to. If half of all living beings die-” Stephen cut himself off. “I may have been called a fucking sociopath but I’ve not as- as cold- not crazy enough to just let trillions and Vishanti knows how much people die!”
“The choice is not yours to make,” she says.
Stephen didn’t even let her finish before sending her through a portal with a twitch of his fingers and a sweep of his arm and a “FUCK OFF!”
He breaks down, the strain of living so many years without any mental support or confidant or anything weighed heavily on his mind. His soul.
When Stephen Strange with the steady hands returns to his apartment, everything was in its original place and only a single bottle of wine gone. No matter, Stephen Strange with the unmarred hands believes that he must have drunk it one day and disposed of it. His eidetic memory did not extend to when inebriated.
Stephen wonders since when did using the Time Stone feel so much like using his magic normally. It’s like the Stone’s become an extension of himself… Like it’s accepted him. The Time Stone’s become familiar over the years in his time loop in the Dark Dimension, but time loop is different from traveling in time. He wonders if he can now use the time Stone’s abilities without even being in contact with it . He wondered if he could touch the Stone with his bare hands and not die from the power of it. According to the legends, the Stones had to be handled with care, or it would turn on you, it overwhelming power running through yours veins.
The Power Stone was rumored to be able to explode anyone who held it. The Reality Stone to slowly kill whomever it merged with. The Mind Stone to take control of one’s mind and destroy your sanity. The Time Stone to revert your age to before you were born. The Space Stone to teleport one to an unknown place in the universe. As for the Soul Stone… well, no one even knows where it was.
Stephen wondered… Well, what’s he got to lose? He opened the Eye of Agammotto n and the Stone floated out of the Eye. He reaches and as his fingers curled around the green gem-
Stephen finds himself back on Titan. In his original timeline. He wonders if there was anything he could possibly do to stop Thanos. Or if the Ancient One was right…
But then he looks around. “Where’s Stark?” He asks Peter Quill. “Or the other Peter- Peter Parker?”
“Hey, man, you just… did whatever you were doing… you looked like you were having a seizure…"
"I’m fine.” Stephen tell him, “Now where is Iron Man and Spider-Man?”
“What are you talking about?” Quill asks him. “Iron Man, what kind of name is that?”
“No… Stephen whispered under his breath. Memories from this timeline- the result of a single bottle of wine drunk… The Butterfly Effect… Tony Stark was dead.
"How-? No…” Without warning, he grasped the Eye and sent himself once more, back in time. He now realizes that he must make changes, but at the same time, Tony Stark’s habit of putting himself in dangerous situation and coming out by the skin of his teeth and some serious luck meant that only a little change was needed to kill the man. So Stephen sends himself back in time once more, this time, he would keep the man safe and unharmed.
He had to go further back, much further than before. There was only one way. He had to use the Time Stone directly. The Eye restricted the power of the Time Stone to prevent the death of the user, but now that his drunk ass has already proven that the Time Stone would not kill him…
Stephen finds himself in his younger body. He knows so because his hands are steady and unmarred. His chest bore no signs of being stabbed through the heart. His head held no pain from the needles the Maw had put through. He felt… good.
He also had no sling ring or anything. The only thing in his possession from the future was a glowing green stone in his hand. The green light shone from between his fingers and he feels a little power-drunk. Or just normal drunk. Because he’s at a party. In his tux. And there’s a champagne glass between the fingers of his left hand and his stead hands did not let the glass fall even when Stephen finds himself jumped back in time. A single blink and Stephen easily slipped back into his old behavior. The smooth, arrogant surgeon. The one everyone sought after because of his perfect record. And the one who turned away surgeries of no prestige or challenge. For a second, his future humility peeked through and he grimaced, before dropping the Stone into his pockets. Then he blinked and the half-smile was back on his face. He takes a sip of the champagne and watches the room. Wait- Was that Tony Stark?
Jackpot.
Stephen takes a deep breath before dropping of his glass to stroll over to the other genius’ side at the bar.
“What’s a handsome guy like you doing at a party like this?” Stark asks.
The response was almost automatic as Stephen beings to panic in the deep recesses of his mind. The flirting was almost autopilot as Stephen beings to weigh the pros and cons of sleeping with Tony Stark. For one thing, Stark was notorious for never seeing a former lover again. For another, if he dated Stark, he could keep him alive and ensure that the Avengers would not split much more easily.
He’s not completely present as he tells Stark about the surgery that landed him in this party of old, rich men.
“Then shouldn’t you be out smoozing and landing yourself your next gig?”
Stephen smiled, “Too easy. I don’t have to go to them, they’ll come to me if they need me. After all, I am the best.”
At his display of arrogance, Stark’s own arrogance shone through. They trade barbs and snarky comments before Stark offers to show him his lab. Stephen agrees. He’s still not sure if Stark wanted to fuck him or just genuinely wanted to see what he could do with his tech but Stephen will take what he can get. Becoming an acquaintance of the man was the first step to a friendship. He only needs to be friends with the man to affect his actions. And his actions could result in saving the universe.
So Stephen agrees.
So yeah, Stephen agrees to years of friendship and eventually falling in love with Tony, except after he meets Pepper he realizes what kind of future he was taking away from the man if he did so and he couldn’t pursue a relationship with him. Until Tony started initiating a relationship. Honestly, never mind. It’s just they get together and they fight Thanos. They’ve built a little family of three, the two of them and Peter Parker, their adopted son. Stephen fails to keep the Avengers together, either way. To be honest, he wasn’t sure if he wanted to have Steve Rogers around Tony after he remembers the Siberian bunker where Stephen witness the end of the Avengers silently. On Titan, Stephen looks forward to see the futures and he finds.
There was no victory. He watches fifteen million futures. Then sixteen. Then seventeen. He doesn’t notice as his nose begins to bleed and Tony’s coaxing him out of the trance.
“Stephen, baby, you’re okay. I’m here. You’re here. You’re okay.”
Stephen’s gasping, holding back the tears the’s desperate to escape. Every future he sees, they lose and their family is torn apart.
“Tony… I’ve seen seventeen million futures.” He swallows, “We don’t win. We just… don’t.”
An orange portal, sparkling, appears before him. He remembers suddenly, of his mentor appearing in a ring of orange sparks to tell him that it was time for him to fight Dormammu and become the Sorcerer supreme. And like before, the Ancient One steps through. “Stephen.”
“…Master.”
“I’ve told you, in a future you erased, that you must let go. That you must trust in fate. Do you see now?”
Stephen swallows and tears fall from his eyes. “Yes, I- Master-” He says brokenly before she envelopes him in a hug. Tony’s hovering over the Ancient one’s shoulder.
“Go back, Stephen. And let go. Surrender to the universe.”
“It’s not about you.”
With tears rolling down his cheeks, Stephen takes the Time Stone and then he falling. Falling into Tony Sark’s arms.
“Hey, doc, you’re okay.”
He tells Tony Stark- This Tony Stark who’s engaged to Pepper Potts, whose Peter lived with May Parker, who never met him, Stephen Strange, up until several hours ago.
With a heavy heart, Stephen outlines a plan, a plan that he has no idea would succeed or not. Above all else, he keeps Tony Stark alive, because Tony Stark was the only one to ever come close to saving the universe.
“Tony, it was the only way.”
He wasn’t sure who he was talking to, this Tony or his Tony from another lifetime. But he knows that it didn’t matter. Because it wasn’t about him. He feels himself turn to dust but all he felt was peace.
When Peter Parker blames him for Tony’s death at his funeral, he says, “I know. I have tried everything to save him. I even traveled back in time to the past to change everything. But we either lose and half the universe is dusted or Tony is dusted or… or this. You know, in another timeline, I met Tony, more than ten years ago. We fell in love. I loved him. We adopted a child. A boy named Peter who loved to watch my operations and Tony’s tinkering. But in that universe I watched seventeen million futures until I almost blacked out. There was no victorious ending in any of those timelines. We just don’t win. So I came back. I put my faith in the universe that it would guide us to a way to win. And it did. But Tony dies. Every time. But that’s alright, Peter. Because it’s not about us. It’s about the universe. About he greater good.” Stephen turns around to find that Peter was crying as much as he was. Except that Stephen’s eyes were resigned and sad, but accepting. Peter’s were horrified and grieving. “I’ve lost more than you know, Peter. But it’s fine. Because the universe comes first. Our suffering does not compare to the suffering of the entire universe. We chose this, to sacrifice ourselves and hurt those around us to protect others, This is what it means to be a hero, Peter. I’m sorry, for all it’s worth.”
Peter let out a cry and a chocked, “Doctor Strange-” before launching himself at the man and buried his face in Stephen’s chest and cried. Sobbed. Stephen embraced the boy. His arms arranged easily around the boy, his movements practiced, even though not in this world. They stood there, the father and son duo that could have been, mourning a great man that they both lost.
