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Stephen Strange understood, from the moment that Hulk crashed through the roof of the Sanctum, the moment that the Black Order made their presence on Earth known, that he was in for the fight of his life. The fact that Thanos had defeated the Hulk no problem was concerning enough, but that he was seeking the infinity stones, two of which he already had possession of, sent a chill down his spine.
A lot of things had happened very quickly after that. He’d teamed up with Wong, Iron Man, and Spider-Man to protect the time stone, only to be knocked unconscious by Ebony Maw and taken aboard the Black Order’s ship. There, Ebony Maw had tortured him in an attempt to get him to give up the mind stone, only for Stark and Spider-Man to rescue him.
After that, it had been a long ride to Titan. The three of them had been confronted by the Guardians of the Galaxy who, it seemed, were after the same thing they were. They wanted to stop Thanos from wiping out half the life in the universe, and thus, their team of three grew to six.
Despite how they outnumbered Thanos, Stephen knew it likely wouldn’t be enough. Thanos had the power of four infinity stones – power, space, reality, and soul. Loathe as Stephen was to do so, especially after Dormammu, it was time to break the natural laws once more.
And so, Stephen placed a curse on himself using the time stone, trapping himself in a cycle only he could break. Every time he died, he would be sent back to this exact moment, before their fight against Thanos, to do it all again. He expected it to take five, maybe six attempts, to learn Thanos’s weaknesses and take him out before he could do irreparable harm to the universe.
Suffice to say, fourteen million, six hundred and five universes later, he was wrong.
In one, he remained resolute in his refusal to turn over the time stone, even as those with him on Titan fell to Thanos’s might. Thanos wasn’t pleased, and though Ebony Maw no longer lived to be his torturer, Thanos was nothing but creative. And with both the power and reality stones at his disposal, Stephen was forced through trials both mental and physical, to the edge of death again and again. Yet still, he refused to yield. If Thanos got what he wanted, half the universe was doomed.
His attempts to bargain with Dormammu had prepared him for this, ironically enough, and pain had always been an old friend.
Eventually, Thanos grew tired of Stephen’s stubbornness and left to seek the mind stone on Earth, as his generals had long since failed in their duties to retrieve it for him. Stephen used Thanos’s absence to his advantage and managed to escape from the jail cell he had been left in to rot.
He didn’t make it far before Thanos’s foot soldiers found him, and in his weakened state, it didn’t take long before they finished him off. He awoke again on the planet’s surface, hands shaking, and started again.
In another, he convinced those on Titan to return with him to Earth, where Wakanda was under attack. With the power of two infinity stones on their side, at least, they might have a chance. As a united front, the Avengers, Guardians of the Galaxy, and the Wakandan army drove back Thanos’s forces, defeated the Black Order, and assumed, wrongfully so, that they had won.
The united strength of all their forces still wasn’t enough to take Thanos down, and in the end, the only two left to stand against him were Vision, fully recovered thanks to Wakandan technology, and Stephen himself. They managed to hold their own until Vision’s grief over Wanda’s death left him vulnerable, and Thanos ripped the mind stone from his head. Stephen died not long after, Thanos’s phantom grip following him even as he woke up back at the beginning.
There was, of course, one universe where he stopped Star-Lord – Peter Quill – from attacking Thanos just before the gauntlet was removed. It had been early on in the over fourteen million loops. Stephen had believed that this was the moment that could have ensured victory, only to find that the Thanos they had fought… wasn’t really Thanos at all, but a facsimile of the reality stone. The fight was over not long after.
Another death, another reset.
In one universe, Stephen abandoned the fight on Titan altogether, because without him, there was no reason for Thanos to linger. He chose a secluded planet at random from the Milano’s navicomputer and portaled there. He lived a life of solitude, knowing if he dared reveal himself, Thanos would come. As long as Stephen kept his head low, the universe would be safe. At least, that was how he rationalized it.
His choice made no difference, in the long run. While Thanos may not have been able to make half of the universe disappear in an instant, he had the power of five infinity stones. And with them, he cut a swath of death throughout the universe. Tales of Thanos’s brutal efficiency made their way to even the most remote corners of the universe, and deep down, Stephen had to wonder if he’d made things worse.
This time, Stephen was the one to kill himself.
In more than a few universes, Stephen gave up the time stone. He’d already cast the curse, so regardless of what happened, unless he undid the spell, the loop would persist. The longer the loops went on, however, the more this began to feel like a prison of his own creation.
Of those universes, in slightly over half of them, Stephen was turned to dust. In one-third of those, he would return, along with everyone else who had been erased. They would challenge Thanos in an endgame final fight, a last gambit, and they would lose. Over, and over, and over again. In the others, the curse would kick in after years and years of nothingness, and he’d be back on Titan once again.
The universes when Stephen was not snapped away were, well, strange. He was enveloped by a persistent feeling of wrongness, like he shouldn’t be there. It took him far more loops than it should have for him to realize that was exactly why he felt so wrong. In many of those universes, Scott Lang, the Ant-Man, never returned from the quantum realm, and any hope of time travel to retrieve the stones was lost with him. In others, the time heist failed, and in more, the final fight ended in ruin. There was even one where Stephen was sent to Vormir to retrieve the soul stone, forcing him to give up his magic in exchange for the stone. Yet in every single one of those timelines, despite being named the Sorcerer Supreme, they failed, either to bring everyone back or defeat Thanos when he inevitably, impossibly, returned.
In many timelines, victory was only inches away before it was snatched from their fingers. At this point, Stephen had seen so many that he tried to prevent what he knew was about to happen, but there was only so much he could do. His interventions usually served to only make things worse. It took many, many loops before Stephen realized why.
This fate of this fight wasn’t up to him. He wasn’t the one meant to be holding the scalpel. It was, unfortunately, up to Tony Stark. Who, when the time came, would be the one to make the ultimate sacrifice.
Stephen would have gladly borne that burden for him. After all that Stark had been through, he deserved a happy ending. For someone like him, who had suffered millions of deaths, seen horrors beyond comprehension, a happy ending just didn’t seem to be in the cards.
By the time the start of the fourteen millionth, six hundred and sixth loop rolled around, Stephen was tired. Tired of dying, tired of fighting, tired of everything. The previous loop had been especially rough, ending with Corvus Glaive driving his signature weapon through Stephen’s chest. Phantom pain lingered over the wound, but Stephen ignored it to the best of his ability. This was it. He knew how to defeat Thanos, losing the fewest lives in the process.
He explained, at Spider-Man’s – Peter, Peter Parker’s – questioning that he had been looking at alternate futures, fourteen million, six hundred and five alternate futures, to be exact. He left that fact that he’d lived through them all. In previous loops, he’d learned of the kindness and sympathy that lay in each and every one of their hearts, and he couldn’t afford to distract them now, not when Thanos was so near and not when they had a chance to finally do this right.
The fight played out exactly as it had in so many other loops, and Stephen felt some sick sense of relief as he passed the time stone off to Thanos. They were in the endgame, now, and the next five years would pass in the blink of an eye. He let himself fade to dust, knowing that for now, at least, the timeline was on the right track.
Stephen opened his eyes on Titan again, explaining what happened in as few words as possible to those that had reappeared along with him as he opened a portal back to the Sanctum Sanctorum. Wong was very surprised to see him, to see them all, but fell back to business as soon as Stephen explained what was going on. The sorcerers were rallied, as were troops across the universe, preparing themselves for the fight of their lives to save all reality from total destruction.
When the fight – the final fight, the only one that counted, really – began, Stephen threw himself into the fray with grim determination. He forced himself not to go after Thanos, knowing damn well that if he did, the universe was doomed, and he’d have to go through everything all over again.
He took the breach of the lakebed as a welcome distraction, pulling on his dwindling magical reserves to swirl the water into a tornado and prevent it from crashing down on the battlefield. It was something any practiced sorcerer could have done, but Stephen could feel his own patience running thin-
And then he saw Tony look at him expectantly as Captain Marvel – Carol Danvers – stood against the might of Thanos in a desperate attempt to stop him from snapping his fingers.
Stephen held up one finger, and Stark seemed to come to terms with what needed to be done. He stole the stones from Thanos and decimated his army with one snap of his fingers, but the cosmic energy coursing through his body… it had been too much for any mortal to handle.
Just because Stephen knew it was coming didn’t make it any easier.
Still, he pushed on, doing what he could to help those that had been injured during the fight and aiding others in returning home. He was afraid to stop moving, because he knew that when he did, the weight of everything he’d done, everything he’d seen, was going to come crashing down on him.
It was while he was clearing the rubble to help retrieve the bodies of the fallen that Wong found him. He didn’t say anything, which Stephen was thankful for, simply nodding at him in greeting before adding his magic to Stephen’s. Wong’s compassion never faltered, in any timeline. He would know better than most.
Four times, in the over fourteen million loops, Stephen had gone to Wong, told him everything. He had supported Stephen through the ensuing breakdown, even as Stephen told him, in fragmented sentences, of all the failures, of his failures, to save the world. Of the blood on his hands, the ash and dust that choked him. Wong hadn’t blamed him for any of it.
And yet, it was always Stephen’s alone who carried that knowledge, in the end, the weight of every single memory in perfect clarity bearing down on him.
Stephen forced his mind from the past, trying to quell the trembling in his hands. He saw Wong shoot him a concerned glance, but he shook his head. Wong took the hint that he didn’t want to talk about it, at least, not now. They worked in silent unison until neither of them had the strength to cast another spell, only then walking through a portal to Kamar-Taj.
He brushed off the doctors as they tried to treat the gashes on his face. He didn’t think he could handle a sympathetic touch, now, truth be told, and he had always been good at driving people away. Despite their protests, he returned to the Sanctum Sanctorum alone, collapsing into a chair at the kitchen table as the cloak of levitation soared off to retrieve the first aid kit.
He was shaking. He clenched his hands into fists in an attempt to still them, but the memories of timelines past were rushing in, and he was drowning in them. There was so much pain, so much loss, so many failures that he’d been forced to live through time after time-
He couldn’t do this, not again.
Stephen drew on the last of his magic reserves to pull the curse he’d placed what was in reality only a few hours ago, but to him was an eternity, out of his body to hover in front of him. The green and gold orb was about as big as a baseball, flaring agitatedly like a miniature sun. With a complicated series of hand gestures, the curse shrunk and crystalized, compacting into a stone not dissimilar to the time stone. It fell to the table with a dull thud.
He sunk back into his chair with an exhausted sigh, letting his eyes fall shut as he just breathed. It was over. Thanos was gone. It was over.
The cloak of levitation set the first-aid kit down on the table with a loud bang, startling him. Pocketing the crystalized curse, he pulled the kit closer to him, struggling to open it before digging through it for the bandages and disinfectant he knew were buried somewhere within. He really should take the time to reorganize it… but he was getting distracted from the task at hand.
He took one of the bandages and tried to peel it open, but his hands were still shaking too badly for him to get enough of a grip. The cloak of levitation disappeared deeper into the Sanctum, though for what purpose Stephen had no idea. He tried once more to open the bandage, but to no avail.
“Dammit,” Stephen swore, slamming the bandage back on the table. He sighed, brushing his hair back from where loose strands had fallen in front of his eyes.
“Looks like you could use some help, Strange.”
Stephen turned to find Wong standing in the doorway to the kitchen, the cloak of levitation hovering just beside him. He stepped inside and took a seat next to Stephen as the cloak of levitation draped itself over Stephen’s shoulders like a weighted blanket. For some reason, the touch helped to ground him.
Wong reached for the bandage Stephen had discarded as well as one of the individually packaged disinfectant wipes. Before he did anything, however, he met Stephen’s eyes carefully.
“May I?” he asked.
“Far be it from me to deny the Sorcerer Supreme.”
Wong stiffened, and at that moment Stephen realized he’d made a mistake. Wong hadn’t told him that he’d been promoted to the role, at least, not in this universe. Stephen dropped his gaze, and Wong sighed, treating his wounds in silence. Still, Stephen knew this wasn’t going to be a conversation he could get away from.
With a sigh, Wong placed the last bandage on the gash across his cheekbone before leaning back in his chair to study Stephen. Stephen stared at where his hands rested on the table and fought desperately to still them.
“What did you do, Strange?” Wong asked. There was no accusation in his tone, only measured curiosity and no small amount of concern.
“What I had to. There-” Stephen’s voice broke, and he hated himself for it. “There was no other way. No other choice.”
“You used the time stone.”
Stephen nodded, not trusting himself to speak.
“What did it cost?”
Stephen could argue that the cost was all the lives that had been lost to Thanos, or the five years that those who had been dusted had missed. But he knew that wasn’t what Wong was asking. He was what Stephen had paid for that single spell, because as Mordo had been so fond of saying, the bill always came due.
“Fourteen million, six hundred and five,” Stephen murmured, half-hoping Wong didn’t hear.
Wong’s eyes widened, but even then, Stephen knew he wouldn’t be able to comprehend what the magnitude of that number truly meant. Not that Stephen wished he would ever have to. He remembered all of them, he was forced to, as much by the curse as his eidetic memory.
“Strange…”
“It’s fine.” It wasn’t. “I’m handling it.” He wasn’t.
Wong saw through all of that, as he usually did. He laid a hand on Stephen’s shoulder, the pressure palpable even through his cloak. “You don’t have to handle this alone, Stephen. You have people who are there for you. I am here for you, Sorcerer Supreme or not. If you ever need anything, I’ll be there.”
Stephen nodded, faking a smile he wasn’t feeling. “I’ll keep it in mind. Thanks, Wong.”
Wong scrutinized him for a long moment, then nodded. “Get some rest, Strange, and meet me in Kamar-Taj tomorrow. We still have much to discuss.”
Of course, it wasn’t going to be that easy. Stephen nodded, and Wong left, casting one last look at him over his shoulder. It wasn’t until he was sure Wong had left that Stephen pulled the time curse crystal out from his pocket and studied it.
It would be best to hold on to it in case the world went to hell once more. After all, with the time stone gone, there would be no more second chances. Well, almost no more. Even if shattering the crystal would bring him back to the beginning of the fight against Thanos.
He’d cross that bridge if he came to it. And hopefully, he would never have to.
Stephen placed the time curse crystal in the same pocket dimension where he’d hidden the time stone, then stood, exhaustion hitting him like a truck. He should definitely take Wong’s advice and go lay down, even if he knew sleep was a battlefield all its own.
But the worst of it all was over. All he could do now was move forward.