Chapter Text
Prologue
April 23, 2018
Things are always strange at the Sanctum Sanctorum. But, to be honest, by this point Stephen Strange is used to – well – strange. It is one of the side-effects of becoming a Master of the Mystic Arts. You start to expect the unexpected.
To be honest though, he hadn't really been expecting this.
All he really had been expecting to do today is to go out and get lunch.
“Seriously?” he says, his hands in the pockets of his hoodie as he makes his way down the sweeping front staircase of the Sanctum. “You don’t have any money?”
Wong follows him down a few steps behind, seemingly unconcerned. “Attachment to the material is detachment from the spiritual,” he says righteously, and Stephen can’t help a wry smile.
“I’ll tell the guys at the deli,” he says as he continues downwards. “Maybe they’ll make you a metaphysical ham on rye.”
His smile grows as Wong instantly flips on his stance and manages to scrounge up some bills, even if they only total up to about a dollar and a half in American dollars.
“What do you want?” he asks, as he reaches the bottom of the staircase.
“I wouldn’t say no to a tuna melt,” Wong says.
As it turns out, neither of them are going to be getting any sandwiches anytime soon. Almost as soon as the words are out of the others man’s mouth, a bright, multi-coloured light bursts in through the ceiling, sending both of them into half-crouched defensive stances as it smashes down through the staircase in a ear-splitting shower of splinters and dust.
He shares a look with Wong, and It only takes half-a-second before he is in his mystic clothes again, Cloak wrapping around his shoulders as he and Wong edge their way back up the stairs, both of them with their arms out and ready as they creep closer to the newly formed hole.
He doesn’t know what he is expecting when he leans his head over the edge to look down, but a screaming woman dressed in white and wielding a large pointy sceptre as she jumps out at him, is definitely not it.
His arms flail as he rears back in surprise and ducks out of the way, the golden staff sweeping just over where his head had been.
“Get back!” the woman cries, her long black hair whipping around her face as she swings between him and Wong, her jaw clenched, and her eyes narrowed in suspicion.
Cloak takes the initiative and pulls him back out of range, and he takes the opportunity to pull up a defense shield, the orange sigils rotating in the air in front of his hands as he stares down at the woman, their attacker standing on the edge of the crater and watching them warily, the staff clutched tight in her hands.
“Who are you?” Wong calls, stumbling back and crouching into his own protective stance, protective sigils up and ready, should the woman feel any more homicidal tendencies.
The woman shifts her stance slightly, her knees bent and ready as she looks at them, her steady grip on the sceptre giving Stephen no doubt of her abilities with the weapon. “How about you answer my question first,” she gets out, her voice hard as her eyes dart between the two of them. “Where am I?”
Stephen shares a glance with Wong, and he lets Cloak drift him a little closer to the woman — while still remaining out of range. If the woman doesn’t know where she is, then it is possible she is attacking them out of self-defence, rather than because she actually wants to kill them.
Not that he is going to be taking any chances just yet though.
“You are on Earth,” he tells her, calling her gaze over to him. “Where are you from? How did you get here?”
The woman stares at him for a moment, before relaxing slightly, her shoulders dropping as she straightens. “Earth,” she repeats, not answering his questions. Her eyes flick thoughtfully between him and Wong again for a second before she raises her chin and straightens fully. “That’s where Thor was taking us,” she says, twirling the staff and planting it down by her feet. “Do you know him? Are you what he calls the Avengers?”
Stephen casts a glance over at Wong and drops his hands, his shield dissipating as he looks back at the woman. “I think we’re going to have to call someone in,” he says.
oOo
Tony should have probably known that today was going to be a weird day.
To be fair, it hadn’t started off that way. Today had actually been a really good day. Today he had finally managed to get Bruce to come meet him in New York so that he can show off his new suit.
Recently, the man has been more or less completely focused on his own project with the Hulk, which is fine, but Tony has finally managed to get his nano-suit technology working the way he likes it, and there is no way he isn’t taking the opportunity to show it off a little to his fellow science buddy, and, of course, Pepper.
“Are you sure you want to do it here?” Pepper asks as the trio make their way through the downtown park. “Isn’t it a little busy?”
Tony shrugs his shoulder, the familiar-but-foreign feel of tech sitting on his chest giving him a thrill. “It’s fine,” he says, tapping the nano-unit attached to his bodysuit. “People like a show, and besides, you want to get back by the end of your lunch break, right?”
Pepper’s mouth twitches up in an amused smile, and Tony finds his eyes drifting down to the ring on her left hand. His own smile grows on his face, and he rubs his hands together, excitement rising up in his chest.
He and Pepper are getting married.
The thought still fills him with an awed sort of amazement whenever he thinks about it too much, and he can’t help letting his mouth wander as he leads his fiancée and Bruce further in to the center of the park. “Okay, so you know Cassie, right?” he says, his hands waving as he looks back at Pepper.
Pepper’s mouth presses up at his excited gait and she raises an eyebrow at him. “You mean Scott’s daughter?” she says. “The Cassie who comes to the compound and I’ve met nearly a dozen times?”
Tony grins and snaps a finger at her. “That’s the one. Cute kid. Comes for playdates with our resident super soldiers. Anyway. So I’m pretty sure I had a premonition with her last night.”
Both Pepper and Bruce watch him with amused expressions and Tony waves a hand. “See, I had a dream, but, you know those dreams where, it just feels so real, and then you wake up, and you could swear it had really happened?”
Pepper darts forward a few steps and catches his waving hand in her own, her thumb brushing over his own wedding band (he had insisted on taking Pepper shopping for his own engagement ring after he had proposed to her). “And you had one of those with Cassie?” she says, her eyes twinkling as she looks up at him.
He grins back at her. “Right, except it wasn’t just her. You and me were there, and we had a kid.” He pauses suddenly in his step and turns to look at Pepper. “It was so real,” he says, looking at her. “We named him after your eccentric uncle,” he blinks, trying to remember the threads of the dream. “What was his name?”
Pepper laughs slightly and nods at him, and he clutches at her hand. “Morgan!” he remembers suddenly. “That’s what it was. We had a kid, named Morgan, and he had the most eclectic godparents anyone could ever ask for.”
Pepper laughs again and he hears Bruce chuckle as well, calling his attention over to where he is standing a few feet away. “Any kid of yours would certainly have an interesting upbringing,” he says, shaking his head. “Do you think Steve and Bucky would take him with them on their trips to Wakanda?”
Tony huffs and continues walking again. “If they do, they better bring me along too,” he says, with pretend indignation. “You know, I’d show them my suit too today, but of course they’ve gotta be off on one of their vacations. When they get back, I’m going to blow their minds.”
The thought of Steve and Bucky in Wakanda makes him smile. Ever since the two of them had first sheltered there a few years ago, they had been going back regularly, even if they mostly choose to live in the Avengers compound like usual. It is clear that the trips are a good getaway for them, and they never stay for too long, but it goes without saying that the Avengers are pretty welcome in Wakanda.
He can’t help being a little jealous of their frequent trips though. Wakanda had opened it’s borders a little bit, now that T’Challa is on the throne, but he has only had the chance to see the more or less heaven-on-Earth-for-engineers a few times, thanks to his duties to the Avengers and the Accords.
Ugh. The Accords. He is working on those. But they are still a mess.
So far, the States have failed to ratify them, so that helps, but they are still a slew of human rights violations that he is trying to untangle. (One plus, is that his investigations into the Accords have knocked Thaddeus Ross down a few pegs. He has yet to find any actual Hydra connections, but the man has a shady enough past that the people he knows are connected to Hydra, which is suspicious enough to raise a few red flags.)
He still has to deal with the man too often though, and he may or may not become extra passive aggressive every time Ross prevents him from going over to play in Wakandan laboratories. (He is pretty sure, on some level, that Ross wishes he hadn't signed the Accords, if only because he is really good at making his life difficult.)
He would like to do more than keep Ross on a short leash, but given how deeply entrenched Hydra is in the system by now, it is difficult to come up with something concrete to dig them up with. Even if Ross isn’t connected to Hydra at all, he certainly helps them move along with their agenda, so they have a vested interest in keeping him around.
Which leaves him to come along afterwards and slowly tear the Accords apart, piece by piece.
All in all, he is rather busy most of the time, what with all the hoop-jumping and political intrigue, so his own projects are taking longer, but, he has finally had time to complete the last finishing touches on his nano-suit – inspired by the nano-suit he had seen his future-self using all those years ago – and he can finally show it off a little.
“When will those two be coming back?” Bruce asks, referencing Steve and Bucky again as he follows them to a relatively deserted patch of green.
“Not long,” he replies as he drops Pepper’s hand and swings his arms out in a stretch. “I think Steve has some speaking things lined up for V.E. day this year, so, before then.”
Bruce nods and Tony takes a step away to prepare himself for the demonstration. “Okay,” he says, flashing a grin at both Pepper and Bruce, his heart beginning to speed up with excitement. “So, in the accumulation of hours and hours in the lab — all patiently endured by Pepper, thank you – and intercut by regular periods of eating and sleeping—”
Both Pepper and Bruce are grinning at his antics at this point, and he can’t help smiling back at them. “Ladies and gentlemen,” he says, raising his hands. “Let me present—”
He cuts off as a weird sort of buzzing erupts behind him, and he turns his head to see a large glowing circle of orange energy form in the air behind him. He stares mutely as the light dissipates to reveal what he could swear is some kind of doorway to somewhere else, before a man dressed in a sweeping red cloak steps out.
It takes him a second to recognise him, but the man’s slight expression of superiority is familiar, and his brain takes the chance to remind him that his (and Bucky’s) surgeon had dropped off the map a little while ago after some kind of car accident.
Apparently this is what he is doing now.
He shouldn’t even be surprised anymore.
“Tony Stark,” the man says, his cloak blowing around him as he steps closer. “I’m Doctor Stephen Strange. I need you to come with me.” His eyes flick over him and Pepper for a second and a shade of awkwardness slips onto his face. “Uh, congratulations on the wedding, by the way.”
Tony shares a look with both Pepper and Bruce, before looking back at Strange. “I’m sorry, you giving out tickets or something?” he asks, wondering why everyone has seemingly chosen this park in particular to show off their tricks.
Strange takes another step forward. “We need your help,” he says, looking over his skeptical expression. “Look, it’s not overselling it to say that the fate of the universe is at stake.”
Great, Tony thinks. One of those missions.
“Who’s ‘we’?” he counters, wondering where this is all coming from.
Stephen glances back into the portal for a moment before he looks back at him. “She says she knows Thor,” he says.
oOo
Pepper goes back to the Tower to finish her lunch break. Tony doubts there are many things on Earth that have a shot at convincing Pepper to mess up her schedule if she can avoid it, and ‘weird magic Avenger problems’ are more his territory than hers.
“I expect you back in time for dinner though,” she tells him with a stern look that he is disinclined to ignore.
“You got it,” he says, offering her one last kiss, before turning away to where Bruce is standing a little awkwardly, looking over at Strange and his glowing portal. “You coming with?” he asks the man, internally lamenting a little that he won’t be able to show off his new suit just yet.
Bruce flicks his eyes skeptically over the waiting portal. “I don’t know,” he says a little uncertainly. “With how weird the Accords are right now, I don’t want to risk getting on Ross’ radar right now.”
Tony shrugs and gestures for Bruce to follow him. “Com’on,” he says. “You know you’ll be dying of curiosity. And besides, you don’t have to fight, or whatever it is that will be coming after this. Ross can’t be mad at you for going places.” Because Tony will skewer him if he tries, but that is beside the point. “I just need someone to come with me and make sure Mr. Wizard here doesn’t kidnap me or something,” he continues. “Buddy-buddy system, you know?”
Strange rolls his eyes at his words, but Bruce’s mouth twitches upwards. “I suppose I should keep you out of trouble,” he says, rolling his shoulders.
Tony grins at that, glad that he had managed to convince Bruce to come along. He knows that the man probably won’t actually be able to help him with whatever Strange has, but he has yet to give up on the idea of showing off his new suit to him, which he can’t do if they split ways.
He isn’t sure he will get a chance any time soon though, Strange had seemed to think the world was ending so…
Here’s to hoping I’ll make it back for dinner, he thinks as he sets his shoulders and turns to Strange.
“So,” he says, rubbing his hands together. “What’s the plan?”
Strange takes the both of them back through his magical orange portal (and, you know, portals seem to be a consistent theme in his life now that he thinks about it), and they come out in a large old building. The varnished wood walls and sweeping staircase would be impressive, if everything wasn’t covered in a layer of dust, and a large gaping hole wasn’t sitting in the middle of the staircase.
“Doing some redecorating?” he comments, swinging his arms a little as he glances around the room and its other occupants. Besides himself, Strange and Bruce, there is another man which Strange introduces as Wong, and a woman— holding an all-too familiar golden staff.
He stares at it. That is definitely not supposed to be here right now. He glances up at the woman, finding her to be staring at him just as intently, her fist tight around the staff.
“So…” he starts, glancing briefly at Bruce, before looking back at the woman. “Imma just start off here by confirming that you’re not here to pull another Loki, cuz, you know. That didn’t go over very well for him last time.”
More or less, he thinks begrudgingly. They may have been able to stop Loki’s actual invasion, but the trickster had managed to escape afterwards with the Tesseract, so, they are probably even.
The woman stares at him for a moment longer, before a smirk flickers over her face. “It’s seems Thor chooses his friends well,” she says, shifting her weight and flicking her eyes over both him and Bruce.
At her words, a shadow passes over her face and she glances over towards the staff, before breathing in and shaking her head. “All I know of Loki and this realm is what I overheard while Thor was arguing with him,” she says, lifting her head to look at him again. “But…” She tilts her head. “In a sense, I suppose you could say I was sent here by Loki.”
Tony can’t help tensing at that, his mind instantly turning to the comforting presence of the nano-unit on his chest. “Yeah. okay, you’re gonna have to explain that a little more,” he says. “You here for world domination?”
The woman’s mouth twitches, and she flicks her hair away from her face. “No,” she says solemnly. “But someone else is coming.”
After that, Tony has to sit down, and the woman finally introduces herself as Brunnhilde, before telling them to call her Valkyrie. Given that she knows Thor, he probably should have expected that kind of name.
“Okay,” he tells her, unable to keep from glancing nervously at the staff still in her hands. “Start from the beginning.”
She lets out a small laugh. “The beginning, I was not there for,” she says. “But I picked up the pieces here and there after Thor and Loki crash-landed on the planet where I was.”
Apparently, Thor’s father had recently been dying, and the god had gone to him on Asgard. Loki had come too, although in disguise, and the both of them had been there to learn that Odin’s lifeforce was the only thing keeping their previously unknown homicidal sister trapped and away from them.
“She came after Odin died, and started to decimate Asgard,” Valkyrie tells them. “By then, Loki’s disguise had been revealed, and he tried to flee using the Rainbow Bridge.” Tony nods because he remembers that thing, and Valkyrie shifts her grip on the staff. “Thor followed him, thinking he was fleeing with the Tesseract again, and their struggle forced them off-course, onto Sakaar.”
According to Valkyrie, that is when she had met them, and Thor concocted a plan to escape the planet. “Loki also seemed desperate to leave,” she says. “But not for the same reasons.” She shakes her head. “He didn’t want to go back to Asgard. He wanted to run, I could tell.”
Run from what, she hadn’t known, but in the end, Loki had gone back to Asgard, and he had helped Thor defeat their sister, by destroying Asgard. “He came onto the ship everyone was escaping in,” she explains. “And when he did, he had this staff.”
Tony’s eyes get inevitably drawn to the sceptre, and he scoffs. “Feeling nostalgic for old times?” he mutters a bit sulkily, folding his arms.
Valkyrie’s eyes seem to go distant and her fingers tap along the shaft of the staff. “I don’t think so,” she says, staring at something past Tony as she speaks. “Loki seemed reluctant to even touch the staff. He said he grabbed it because it was too dangerous to risk it not getting destroyed along with Asgard, but he seemed very willing to let Thor take it into storage.”
Tony’s mouth purses at this, not sure what to think at her claims. The Loki she had met seems rather different than the one who had tried to invade Earth six years ago.
Valkyrie blinks and shakes her head, looking back at him. “I think Loki intended to run again,” she says, sitting up slightly. “If it were not for his mother, I think he would have left immediately. As it was…” she trails off for a moment, her hand tightening on the staff.
She squares her shoulders. “We were attacked,” she says, not looking away, her jaw clenched. “It was so sudden, and we were limping as it was, after Asgard…” Her gaze goes distant again, and her hand doesn’t let up on its grip on the staff.
After a second, she breathes in, her eyes flicking again to him. “Loki seemed to know who was attacking us,” she says. “Thanos, he called him. A mad Titan, in search of the infinity stones.”
Next to him, Tony feels Strange shift, and he darts his eyes over, noting the troubled expression on the man’s face. He opens his mouth to ask for a clarification, but he doesn’t get a chance as Valkyrie continues talking.
“Loki found me halfway through the attack,” she says. “I didn’t catch everything he was trying to say, but… I guess there were no secret paths for him to use where we were? And we had two infinity stones with us, making us a target. He made me grab the staff, and then I think he was going to use the Tesseract to help us escape, but Thanos’ minions got to us first.”
Her eyes flick up to his, and hold his gaze. “You say Loki attacked this realm before,” she says, fiddling with the staff slightly. “I would not be surprised if this Thanos were behind the attack. They seemed to see him as a traitor. Apparently, he was supposed to return the Tesseract to Thanos. But he hid it instead.”
Tony blinks at the thought. To be honest, he hasn’t really thought of Loki in a long time. At first, they had all been worried about what the trickster would do with the Tesseract he had stolen, but then, he hadn't done anything… and they had moved on.
“Loki cast a spell to hide the staff from them,” Valkyrie continues. “It wouldn’t have worked for long, except, while we were being led to Thanos, we came across Heimdall.” Her lips press together and her jaw clenches. “He sent me here.”
Tony squints at her. “You said Loki sent you here,” he says.
Valkyrie stares back at him. “Loki was very insistent about the separation of the two stones,” she says. “He made it very clear that Thanos cannot be allowed to collect them all.”
Tony’s mouth purses. “Okay,” he says. “But what is so special about these stones? Why is this guy after them?”
Valkyrie’s expression flickers for a moment and she scoffs, a dry look of skepticism on her face. “To be honest,” she says. “Before all this, I had mostly disregarded the myths on Asgard about them. Asgard has plenty of stories.”
Next to her, the other wizard, Wong, shifts and he raises his hands, pulling them apart to reveal a circle of floating orange sigils, five different coloured stones beginning to float in the air as they watch. “From the dawn of the universe,” he begins. “There was nothing.” Tony can’t help watching with slight awe as the stones rotate amid a starry sky, and Wong continues. “Then, boom!” he says. “The Big Bang sent six elemental crystals, hurtling across the virgin universe. These Infinity Stone each control an essential aspect of existence.”
Strange takes over and the stones begin to light up along with his words. “Space.” The Tesseract. “Reality.” A red stone. “Power.” A purple one. “Soul.” Orange. “Mind.” Yellow, the sceptre. “And…” he lifts his hands and pulls them apart in front of a heavy metal necklace from around his neck, the eye opening to reveal a bright glowing green. “Time.”
Tony stares at the green stone for a moment, before flicking his eyes over to Valkyrie and her staff. Two stones. Exactly what they should not be doing apparently, if they want to avoid this Titan person.
“Tell me his name again,” he says, standing up and coming closer.
“Thanos,” Valkyrie says instantly. “In the myths, he is like a plague. Invading planets, wiping out the population. I wouldn’t be surprised if—” She cuts herself off and clenches her jaw. “Asgard is gone,” she continues. “Only a few refugees, and maybe the queen, made it to the escape pods. I doubt either of the princes survived long.”
Tony's blood runs cold, a chill running along his spine as he stares at Valkyrie’s staff. His mind flashes back suddenly to why exactly he and Steve had been able to send it away with Thor. They had taken it from Hydra, and they had known to do that because their time-traveling future-selves had revealed the group to them.
Steve’s other-self had gone after the staff, and his other-self had gone for the Tesseract.
“Is this why they were after them?” he finds himself muttering. Isn’t it too early for that though? JARVIS had said their other-selves had been at least a decade older… It hasn’t been a decade since the attack yet, why is everything happening now? “What’s— what’s our timeline?” he gets out, glancing back up at Valkyrie.
Her lips press together, and her hand tightens on the staff. “No telling,” she says. “He found us not long after the destruction of Asgard. He has the Power stone, and probably the Space one by now. From what your mage says, he is already the strongest creature in the whole universe.”
“You said he invades planets and wipes them out?” Bruce cuts in, drawing her gaze. “So, if he gets his hands on all six stones…”
“He can destroy life on a scale hitherto undreamt of,” Strange finishes.
Tony’s eyes jump back and forth between the stone on Strange’s neck, and the one in Valkyrie’s hand. “Okay,” he says sharply. “I'm choosing to ignore the present antiquated language–” Strange rolls his eyes. “–and move on to the glaring problem we have.” Strange raises an eyebrow at him, and Tony gestures at the staff and the necklace.
“Two stones,” he says. “Say what you want about Loki, but according to Miss Viking over here, he seemed to want to keep these things separate. If Thanos is coming for these, why don’t we just stick one–” he gestures at Strange, “– down the garbage disposal and be done with it?”
“No can do,” Strange says immediately, straightening almost protectively at the suggestion.
“We swore an oath to protect the Time Stone,” Wong continues for him. “With our lives.”
Tony blinks at them. Hadn't Strange been the one to talk about the fate of the universe? It seems a little bigger than life-oaths, but whatever. “Fine,” he says. “Do the math, Sherlock. Let’s destroy the other one.”
They both glance at Valkyrie, and she shifts. “You guys can do that?” she asks skeptically. “If the stones could be destroyed that easily, wouldn’t Loki have done it already?”
Personally, Tony can imagine Loki having his own reasons for keeping the stones around, but he doesn’t bother getting into that right now.
“First,” he starts. “We need to separate the stones. Having two of them here in the same city is like having a giant neon sign with the words “Come And Get Us” just hanging over our heads. This Thanos guy could be coming any—”
He cuts off, and stares, a distant rumbling filling his ears as he stares at Strange’s hair, a strand flicking in the newfound wind coming in from the hole in the ceiling. “Say, Doc,” he starts, a bubble of dry hysteria rising up in his mind. “You wouldn’t happen to be moving your hair, would you?”
Strange’s eyes dart up to the fluttering strand, and he looks back down. “Not at the moment, no.”
Great, great, great, he thinks, his eyes darting around to the gaping hole in the roof, noticing the darkening sky and increasing wind for the first time, distant screams beginning to reach his ears.
“Okay, cool, cool, cool,” he says, his eyes darting over the group around him. “Great. Times up. Four years early, apparently.”
The others don’t seem to know what he is talking about, but he doesn’t bother explaining, his eyes sweeping up to Valkyrie. “We need that staff out of here, now,” he says, his mind racing. They need the stones separated. Even if they can’t get it off planet, they can at least get it out of the same city, right?
But where—?
“Wakanda,” he breathes, his eyes brightening as he glances up suddenly. “Steve is there. We can send it there.” His eyes cut to Strange and he snaps his fingers at him. “You can do one of your portal things, right?” he says, trying to keep the note of urgency out of his voice, his hands beginning to tingle as he thinks over the magnitude of the situation.
Fate of the universe indeed.
Strange nods, but Valkyrie tenses, her hands grasping the staff defensively as she scowls. “I’m not going anywhere,” she says, her stance widening. “I will stay and fight Thanos this time. He—”
Her words cut off as Strange raises his arms, a portal opening up under her feet. Valkyrie’s eyes widen, and her mouth opens as she lets out a scream that is more furious than it is afraid, and she falls through, her hair flying as the portal closes over her.
“Okay,” Tony mumbles, fumbling for his JARVIS-glasses as he tries to think in straight lines and keep from panicking. All his calming techniques that he has been working on so diligently seem to be rather pointless now, considering the hulking danger literally outside.
He can already hear the voice of Judith though, his therapist calmly insisting that he walk through the problem. Break it down into steps, she’d say. What do you have to do first?
First, he has to call Steve and warn him of what he had just learned. And also about the furious woman that they had just dropped on top of him.
The others around him are starting to make their way out of the wizard building, and he follows them, the display of his glasses lighting up as JARVIS connects him to Steve.
It doesn’t take long for the man to pick up, which, considering the fact that he doesn’t know what time it is in Wakanda, is probably a miracle. “Tony?” he says, the sound of his voice a little more relieving than he had been expecting. “What’s up?”
“Hey Steve,” he gets out, his voice slightly rushed as he follows behind Strange, the wind rushing in his ears as he dodges a fleeing civilian. “Remember how you told me to call you if there was ever a problem? Despite the Accords?”
Someone cries out as they run past him, and he can hear Steve’s voice sharpen instantly from friendly to concerned. “Tony,” he says again. “Is something wrong?”
Tony can’t help letting out a laugh at that. “More than you know,” he says. His eyes darting over the growing chaos around him, traffic getting tangled as the wind whips trash through the scattering crowds. “It’s too much to explain right now, but we sent someone to Wakanda, her name is Valkyrie, she has Loki’s scepter.”
He shifts to avoid a frantic pedestrian, and he darts his eyes up to look at the grey sky, his lips pressing together. “She should be there now,” he tells Steve, people continuing to scream as they flee past him. “She’s probably pissed off right now, but she’s on our side. She will explain.”
He doubts his explanation has helped Steve much, but he knows that once the man meets up with Valkyrie, he will be able to figure things out. “I have to go,” he says, before Steve can get a word in. “Something is attacking New York. Just, find Valkyrie, destroy the staff.”
“Tony—”
“See you, Cap,” he signs off, JARVIS cutting off the connection.
He wishes Steve were here with him right now, he really does. But, in a way, he is glad the man is able to help from afar. The two stones are separated, at least for now, and maybe in Wakanda, they have something that will be able to destroy the stones.
It is a long shot, but if anyone has something that will work, it will be Wakanda.
That isn’t his problem right now though. Right now, his problem is whatever is here now in New York, coming after Strange’s stone.
It isn’t that difficult to find the attack (the fleeing crowd is a bit of a give away), and he darts his eyes over the scene as a nearby car screeches and swerves between pedestrians, ramming into a streetlight right in front of him.
He winces at the sound and glances at the others with him. “Help him!” he shouts, waving towards the driver. “Wong, Doc.”
Bruce steps forward instead of Strange, and he realises that the wizard intends to actually fight whatever this is, with the Time Stone still around his neck. His lips press together, and he taps his glasses. “JARVIS, what are we looking at?”
“Unknown, Sir,” JARVIS responds. “We will need to get closer to the anomaly first.”
Of course we will, he thinks dryly, darting past Strange so that he can look around the corner, where most of the debris and people seem to be coming from. “You might wanna put that Time Stone in your back pocket, Doc!” he calls, squinting into the blowing dust as he looks around the corner.
Strange thinks differently. “Might wanna use it,” he says, pumping his arms as orange bands begin to glow around his wrist. “This could be our best chance against Thanos.”
Tony doesn’t get a chance to reply, because in front of him, he sees it, a giant ring descending down from the sky, the spaceship blowing thick clouds of dust and debris into the air as it hovers above the street. People continue to flee past him, and he grits his teeth, the weight of his nano-unit pressing against his chest.
“Looks like I’m going to be showing off my suit anyways,” he mutters to himself.
If Thanos wants the stones, he will have to go through him first.