possible endgame spoilers - the dr strange open post.

[rehandle]

give me mcus or au your crosscanons into the mcu or weird space cross-dimensional magic them there I'm easy I just want to play a magical, magical man with too many responsibilities who is also a shit

pre-IW, post-endgame, an au where everything's simpler, weird side pocket universes or suspended states where characters can have some chats, space, the sanctum, post-ml au for those who are/have been in a game with me, etc. the world is your oyster and any kind of thread starter or thread genre is fair play.

drop me a starter or a prompt or just a theme/genre or idea in the body of the comment, or leave it empty and give me free rein, I'll come back at you when I have the get up and go.

please also let me know whether or not you'd be happy to have spoilery themes involved in the thread if the tag-in doesn't already make it obvious.

thanks let's get MAGIC and STRESSED

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SPOILERS for endgame, locked for tony.

[rehandle]

[ it's done.

all the faith dropped into a single moment, all the millions of chances for things to go wrong, and it's done. everyone acted in the best way they could. Tony Stark did exactly as he knew he would— as he'd hoped he would. it will make him sick for the rest of his life to think that it was worth it.



there's another place. Stephen Strange had seen too many million futures. in half or so of those, he'd survived. seven million lives are a long time to practice new magic... there had been spells upon spells. libraries upturned, experiments managed, new sorcery uncovered, each attempt more desperate than the last, frantic searches for a way to put an end to all, undo the inevitable. he'd played with death - of course he had. death was half the battle.

and he remembers.

the man who sees the end of this war is not the man who saw the start of it.

somewhere beyond this moment and before the next, between the stretched pieces of time that eke a fading life out long enough to watch the snow fall, he eases a dead man out of this dimension and into another.



the place is quiet. silent of sound, empty of shape and sight and smell. absence. black voidspace. but there is Stephen Strange. and there is Tony Stark.

Stephen bears the remnants of the battle - cuts, bruises, the dust of the wreckage of the Avengers Facility, Titan's surface, Wakanda's open plains. Tony— doesn't. he arrives clean, his simplest self, dressed in something easy and comfortable, and Stephen doesn't give him time to be afraid or ask questions before he says simply - ]

Where would you like to be, Tony?

[ and although there is space between them, immeasurable in any standard way, his voice sounds close and clear, his carefully neutral expression easily read. they're real. as real as they can be when one is dead and the other somewhere that shouldn't really exist. ]

Anywhere in the world.

[sensor]

( stillness in war is inevitable. it clears, eventually. someone wins. tony expects his snapped fingers would draw that silence over the entirety of them like a veil of peace, lulling all the bad guys to their rightful place on the losing side of conflict. only, he hasn't snapped his fingers. they're still poised in the beginnings of the motion, middle to thumb, unthinkingly ready. he isn't dying. he's winning.

he looks down and thanos is gone - the iron man suit is gone. everything, really, is gone, except for tony, and except for stephen strange.

there's been a thousand close calls in the past, so many times tony thought it was the end, drawing in like a closed circuit knocked out of place. this time, though. there's no ace up his sleeve. there's no woman donning the name captain who will come save him from demise. no backsies, no loopholes, no undo buttons on life or death. stephen's face says as much, and the reality of it hits tony like a brick in the face. he shares glances around this astral plane, but he can't kick himself into thinking about the logistics, the mathematics behind it all. right now, he's just trying to get his breathing in order, spare these last few minutes that stephen has afforded him to think over all that he's losing. everything, everyone, left behind.

your last time to see earth, and where do you go? the last five years have been hard, but earth is prevalent in beauty, just after disaster. the shores of the altantic, or the peaks of appalachia. maybe that fancy best buy he saw in downtown new york city, right before it got blown up seven years ago.

where? it's not a hard question. )

My daughter.

( he doesn't want a place. he doesn't care for beauty. the world can live now and his daughter will have all the chance in the world to enjoy it, as she grows up - tony's a lost cause. he just wants to see her, one last time. )

[rehandle]

[ millions of futures and he never looked past the moment it failed, the one time they succeeded. millions of futures and this is improvisation, this is an after, this is the balance restored and a sorcerer reclaiming agency over splintered possibilities complete.

he never looked far enough to see this. to account for this choice and to make a better one himself.

my daughter.

of course his daughter. Stephen Strange's eyes fall closed, brow just slightly pinched, shutting himself off from reality for a second, for two, before doing what he can to fulfill Tony's request.

there's no action, no motion, no magical glow. one second they're in voidspace and the next they're in Tony Stark's humble lakeside home, sights and sounds and space and shape all once again abiding by the natural laws. the place sounds like it always does, the water outside, breeze through leaves, gentle buzzing of appliances back in the kitchen.

it also sounds empty. nobody home.

even with the house stiller than it ever is, she is everywhere. pictures of her up on walls, in frames on shelves, a small hologram of the girl rising up in pale blue from one of Tony's interfaces. more images of her than perhaps there were the last time he visited his home and more images perhaps than is right. it's difficult to judge how much is kind and how much a kick in the teeth now that Stephen's already made the wrong call.

traces of her too, these natural, these as they would be. a sippy cup discarded at one end of the sofa. soft toys where they shouldn't be, baby's first toolkit (blunt, handmade, safe, specially crafted by father for daughter) in its box on the table.

Stephen stands mute in one corner of the living room, signs of those seconds of pain erased, neutral again, waiting. there's some explaining to be done but there is also more time than Tony might expect. he won't intrude until he's asked to. ]

[sensor]

( an empty house. it wouldn't be uncommon to hear the distant giggles of morgan's schoolgirl fantasies pulling out imaginative conversations with imaginary beings - neither would it be odd, to hear her ruffling around where she doesn't belong, through daddy's workshop items. but it's still, the way it never is, almost eerie in the lack of kid occupying the space. he's almost mad. he just wants to see her. tell her it'll be alright, even if she can't hear him. remind her to take care of her mother, even though she's never needed help a day in her life. is it a lot to ask? he's put the world at risk and saved it all in his own time, time and time again, and all he's asking for his a five-year-old brow to kiss, a tiny hand to hold.

he takes a deep breath. reminds himself that this is more than he expected to get anyway, and that he should be grateful.

the weight of his death seeps into him like mist through a forest, winding around all the protective trees he's set up in defense against emotions. he's never going to see morgan grow up. his feet sludge forward through the thick air of his house, guiding him into the living room. he's never going to kiss pepper again. he takes a heavy seat down on the couch. there's a picture of the three of them on the coffee table that he picks up, clutching it between unstable fingers. he won't be in this house again, with his family again, holding them close but never close enough.

morgan isn't here, so he says goodbye to the house instead. goodbye to the patch of floor where morgan took her first stumbling steps, goodbye to the little notches on the door pane leading into the dining room where they'd steadily marked her growing height - five notches for five years. goodbye to the butt imprints on the couch that he and pepper have left behind in their m.a.s.h. rewatches, and goodbye to every square inch of this house he ever kissed her in, each one of those memories lit up pink with love. anguish hits tony stark in three stages - the first of masculine denial, eyebrows knitted like his eyes aren't watering, the second in complete despair, with his eyes shut tightly, breathing unstable, a palm flat on his forehead. and the last, acceptance, deep breaths filling his lungs, a loud sniff in the air as it passes.

he lifts the picture up, so stephen can see. )

You'd like her, you know. I hesitate to use the word prodigy, but.

( but she's smart. the picture comes back down, and he watches his daughter, as if expecting her to move around, come to life. he remembers belatedly that he has a paper of her crayon scribbled mathematical equations tucked into his wallet, the way another father would carry artwork. tony's eyebrows knit, jaw clenched. )

Why am I here, Stephen?

[rehandle]

[ to say that it's difficult to watch would be to waste breath, but he doesn't remove himself. the only concession he makes is to avert his eyes, afford Tony some small privacy when the ache sinks in. there is nobody else to stand witness. Tony Stark is both dead and grieving and now isn't the time to think of his own comfort.

eventually he's finished. eventually it passes. Stephen watches a man say goodbye to his life with dry eyes, knowing he himself has more time out there, knowing he is lucky, knowing that feeling from now on is something to be earned.

later, Stephen. for you, there will always be later.

Tony holds out the picture of his family - finds humor, somehow, amidst the mire. Stephen manages the smallest of smiles before the picture drops again, the man in front of him crumbling around the edges, holding on as best he can.

I don't know if I would. I've seen her journey through the terrible twos once or twice, he wants to say. You might hesitate, but I wouldn't, he wants to say. She loves you more than I know how to express he wouldn't ever say but knows, knows because he's seen. Morgan Stark's early childhood played out in variant after variant, a few million of them, all filled with more love than he can bear in this moment to remember.

and Tony's asked him a question. and it's his place to answer it. ]

Because it's done.

[ memory is a fickle thing. it cuts out the parts that will take time to process. more often than not the dead don't have a need for dying - there's never the opportunity to play back final moments, untangle those feelings, put themselves to rest. as far as he's learned, dead is dead is dead.

he's drawn up a cheat code. the rewards are slim and what the consequences will be remain to be seen, but for now all it means for sure is that there's time. ]

You may not remember. When it was over, you drifted. The power in those stones was too much. But you stayed around long enough for a few important people to say goodbye.

[ Why am I here, Stephen? he still hasn't answered the question. he swallows, throat thick with every feeling he won't let reach his face. takes a new, quick breath and presses on. ]

Thanos and his army are gone, the universe can rebuild.

[ come on, Stephen. ]

I have a decision for you to make.

[ he's already made the decision of his life. what's one more? ]

[sensor]

( already happened, the strangest doctor says. you think you're dying? already dead, man. tony's eyebrows furrow. he remembers surprisingly little from the fight as a whole - there was steve, he's sure, standing tall in the face of danger. he remembers seeing peter, of course, remembers embracing him like a lost son. other things, here and there. in the grand scheme of five long, sweat born years, the whole thing was over in an instant. the glove, yes. slight of the hand. stephen's all knowing eyes, betraying that veil of neutrality. snap. he knew. of course he did. stark didn't become tony for no reason.

even still, he finds himself slipping. further and further away, years pulled off him like garlic cloves, bunches at a time. whose house is this? it must be his. whose box set of lost is that? maybe his. who are these people?

eyes back on the picture, he remembers. pepper, morgan. his wife, his daughter. his world. he shuts his eyes.

what the fuck are you talking about, strange. )

As, apparently, my afterlife primary care physician — and I hate to tell you how to do your job — but maybe being pussyfooted with a recently deceased person isn't the best choice you've made.

( he lifts his brows, stands up, lips mashed together while his hands fold in front of him. what does he have left, strange? what more could anyone take from him? )

I mean I'm forgetting things by the second. ( he squints his eyes, inquisitively ) Doctor Oddball, was it? Doctor Weirdo? Doctor Love?

[rehandle]

[ a break in still clouds as Tony casts out with wit and some urgency. ]

Don't be so dramatic.

[ sure, you're dead, but you're not gone yet.

this is the first time Stephen's had a person in here. theory made flesh, straight to human testing. not necessarily the best plan. but it can be done. he knows it can. the things he's already managed, he can manage this, make room for this and hold it steady, whatever the cost. Tony's already losing pieces, he can feel it as it happens, but all it does is reveal more of him. that's good. still "alive", still kicking, and Stephen's got the rest - over 14 million versions of it. all he has to do is make sure he gives back the right one.

but not yet.

Tony's owed a life, yes. but he's also owed peace. and if that's what he chooses, there's no need to give it to him at any higher a cost.

he'll even leave him to be an asshole about the name. ]

When I asked you where you wanted to go, you said your daughter. I can't do that directly here. [ there's a but in that somewhere. he's coming to it. ] We're in an artificial pocket dimension. Small, uniquely undetectable. At present it's not accessible by the usual avenues, it's too volatile to stand up to that kind of magical intrusion.

You came in through a back door.

[ facts, simplicity, the complexities of it left for now. another dimension. nobody can reach it. ]

I can't take you to her and I can't bring her to you. But you can oversee. If you want to watch her grow, it can happen.

[ even as he lays it out, he knows it isn't kind. cruel, almost unfathomably cruel, for a man like Tony Stark whose better times have always been spent with people. he's not designed for extended solitude outside of a workshop and he's not designed for sitting on the sidelines.

but the detail of it can wait. no need for it if the other choice is made first. ]