Archive of Our Own ^beta

14,000,609 possibilities. Even though most spanned only a few minutes, their sheer volume was far beyond the capacity of the human mind to hold, let alone comprehend. Time magic helped, to a certain extent. So did mental discipline. Yet even together, they were barely enough to keep Stephen’s overfull mind from falling apart after their victory on Titan. He held out just long enough that, working together, he and Wong could suppress most of these memories.

Still, traces of those memories remained, imprinted deep in Stephen’s subconscious. He knew they were there. They didn’t just manifest as unpleasant dreams or unreliable bouts of muscle memory but, more often than not, as baseless feelings and impulses as well. Stephen had always been someone who walked his own path. But now the wheel of time, relentless in its repetition, had etched some patterns deep into the ruts in the road of his psyche. And while no clear memories haunted him, Stephen couldn’t shake the gnawing absence of the people he’d grown used to, the ones who had most often been there with him while he explored alternate possibilities.

Needless to say, Stephen made an effort to keep his distance from those individuals. Even though he found it hard to bear his own solitude now—somehow, surprisingly, the presence of the others caused a worse, deep ache of its own. Because Stephen, against all better judgment, had formed deep attachments to people to whom, in truth, he had been little more than a fleeting momentary spark, barely a flicker against the bright lightshow of their lives.

There was a worse thing than to be disliked by someone who was important to you: to be of no consequence to them at all.

***

“What’s that on your arm?”

Pepper’s casual question pulled Tony’s attention away from the dense legalese of the acquisition plan he’d been looking over. Since he’d mostly retired, his workload at his company had eased, but the paperwork was still far from negligible. His thoughts still on the document, he glanced down, uncomprehending. His gaze darted from one forearm to the other. Nothing about the skin his rolled-up sleeves exposed looked unusual: old scars, a fresh scratch here and there—nothing out of the ordinary for someone who worked with his hands as often as he did.

Noticing his confusion, Pepper pointed to a small yellow mark on the inside of his right forearm, a perfect circle. Okay, so it wasn’t exactly typical-looking, but what else could it be other than—

“A bruise?”

Why did Pepper even notice something like this?

After what was supposed to be Tony’s last big hurrah defending Earth against the Mad Titan, he had to face the fact that he just couldn’t turn his back on the people who needed his protection. There would always be a new threat, a new catastrophe. There were far too few who would be there to stand against it in Tony’s bitter experience.

This, of course, proved disastrous for his relationship with Pepper.

And that meant, among other things, that he rarely saw her anymore. They had stayed friends, but the most personal parts of their relationship had faded into the background. Pepper had moved on with her life—new partner, a healthier work-life balance—and Tony, well, he had his own pursuits. With no partner, and the same old work-is-life, what-is-balance philosophy. Pepper had long stopped remarking when Tony looked particularly exhausted, or if he came in visibly injured. Why was she calling him out now?

“It looks like a botched tattoo. Or an old one, but… I don’t remember you ever wanting one,” Pepper said, voice carefully neutral.

Tony’s forced smile tilted slightly as he turned to face her.

“It’ll heal. Don’t you want the paperwork done as soon as possible?”

Pepper didn’t answer. She just looked at Tony’s arm, lips pressed into a thin line. She probably regretted bringing it up. How many times had Tony brushed off concern or care—how many times had he downplayed, or even outright concealed, his injuries? Those were no doubt the moments that came to Pepper’s mind, even if the bruise really was tiny. In the end, she sighed and let it go. The best thing she could do, really. Tony had too many traits like this. Rough edges. He kept thinking time would sand them down, but the edges endured. His relationships didn’t.

***

Stephen forced himself to be content with the role of observer. At first, he kept tabs on the others’ lives. Nothing invasive—he limited himself mostly to media reports, supplemented by whatever he happened to overhear. For Peter, that meant snippets of conversations he caught on the street. For… others, it meant scraps picked up at the occasional in‑person debrief or official meeting he couldn’t avoid. After running into Tony Stark himself one too many times at those unavoidable visits to the authorities and making a fool of himself, Stephen decided he wouldn’t subject anyone else to the consequences of his excessive use of the Time Stone. He pulled back even further. He slipped a card with the means of contacting him—almost as an afterthought—to those he worried about most, and buried himself in his work.

Work also meant physical training in Kamar-Taj. Regular, sometimes fun, mostly humbling training.

“You’re distracted. Again.” Wong’s voice betrayed no annoyance, but Stephen found that the blows he couldn’t block landed increasingly hard. Good thing he didn’t bruise easily.

“Maybe I’m lulling you into a false sense of security.”

Stephen’s smart remark was punctuated by a sharp whack to his shoulder. Wong had a mean way with a short staff. Stephen staggered, and the Cloak swooped in from its exile in the corner to catch him. It had been making small, abortive movements throughout Stephen and Wong’s spar and had grown increasingly agitated over the last few minutes. It never liked when Stephen fought without it.

“Will you stop that?” Stephen snapped as he tried to swat his helper away, but to no avail. He didn’t have a full view of Wong’s face, with the way the Cloak (and Stephen) was flailing, but he was sure there was a look of amusement there. At his expense, of course.

“Get your shoulder looked at, preferably by someone other than your relic. You can make up for the remaining training time tomorrow.”

Stephen fought the urge to stick his tongue out at Wong’s retreating back. It was somehow comforting, the way Wong handled him and his troubles so effortlessly. He remained a steady presence in Stephen’s life, never treating him any differently, even when Stephen, driven by lingering instincts, occasionally acted more familiar with him than their relationship warranted. Wong only expressed his disapproval when Stephen retreated afterwards, embarrassed by his own lapse.

Stephen was certain these training sessions were also meant to keep him from retreating into isolation—Wong’s way of coaxing him out of his shell. They also seemed designed to help both Stephen and the Masters he needed to work with adjust to his ‘new normal’. Magic came to him so easily these days that it probably should have been terrifying. To Stephen, though, it felt like breathing— a reliable automatic function most of the time. He strengthened wards without thinking, threw up shields in the blink of an eye, and picked up new spells almost incidentally, catching them out of the corner of his eye as he hurried through the courtyard. But his muscle memory came and went, and even when it was there, it only carried him so far; his ingrained habits were often flawed. A plain physical fight was, sadly, ideal for exposing that. Watching him train with Wong—or better yet, watching him get thoroughly trounced by Wong in no‑magic sparring—would show anyone who cared to look how terrifying Stephen truly… wasn’t.

He made his way home to the Sanctum, taking a deliberately leisurely detour through the library and timing it so that he’d be out of Kamar‑Taj before Wong noticed and came looking. Once safely back in his bedroom with his ill-gotten books, Stephen peeled off his training clothes. He caught sight of the red welt on his shoulder. It was already turning purple in the middle. Alas, some hits were bound to leave a bruise. There was also a smaller, round mark beside it, like the impression of a seal: a darker red, like ink, with blurry edges and odd, curved lines.

It didn’t belong there.

It didn’t look like any rune Stephen recognized, and since they hadn’t been using magic in their training today at all (much to the dismay of both Stephen and the Cloak), it shouldn’t be a residual effect. He’d have to give up on being contrary and show it to someone at Kamar-Taj. Wong, probably. Tomorrow. Maybe.

But by the time Stephen thought to check the mark again, days later, it was gone. Just an odd bruise, then. It couldn’t have been anything else.

***

Darkness surrounded him. It wasn’t visible darkness, but Tony felt it being there, pervasive, despite the vibrant colors and odd shapes he could see floating around him. He had just touched down on the uneven surface of some alien world. He was alone, and that seemed like an anomaly for a moment (there should be danger, a terrible enemy, there should also be protection, over his shoulders, holding him up, even if it could never be enough…). But no, he wasn’t just alone right now, he would always be alone. Tony struggled against the oppressive certainty that this was his present and his future—that nothing else would ever be there for him, and that his future stretched out before him with no possible end. Yet somehow it would keep ending, over and over, looping back to this moment.

Then, without any transition, the setting changed. The oppressive feeling was replaced by a purposeful drive. Tony was striding down a corridor paved with mosaic stones, carrying volumes heavy with the knowledge they contained, half hugging them to his chest so their weight wouldn’t fall fully onto his hands. The place was light and airy, with latticed walls of an unfamiliar, slightly Eastern design. The corridor, like his future, also stretched into infinity, but somehow it seemed promising, full of possibilities.

Music filtered through the walls from far away. It felt foreign, out of place. Was that… The Clash?

“FRIDAY, you can turn off the alarm. I’m up.”

The opening cadence of Should I Stay or Should I Go softened and gave way to silence.

Tony pushed himself into a sitting position. He shook his head, forcing the final remnants of his dreams away. And what strange dreams they were. Next time he wouldn’t eat so much cheese for dinner, that’s for sure. Even if it wasn’t full of blood and destruction like usually, that dark place was still a nightmare. The other one—the corridor—was somewhat better, but still so alien to Tony. And the books… Tony had no objection to books; quite the opposite. He could appreciate a well-researched monograph or a well-written novel. But who would lug around folios when you can fit an entire library onto a tablet that weighs about as much as a half-inch ratcheting wrench?

Right. Carrying old-fashioned tomes is for medieval monks and wizards. Like Strange. He probably wandered around with them—though he might prefer to levitate them. The ancient corridor, which might have fit in some thousand-year-old temple, seemed like his kind of place too.

Tony wondered how the wizard was doing. He hadn’t shown his face in a long time. Tony’s last proper conversation with him had been about settling the fate of the Infinity Stones. After that, they had run into each other a few times when they had to report this or that to the authorities. But Strange had behaved oddly—sometimes friendly, bordering on affectionate, stepping into Tony’s personal space without a second thought, sometimes distant, rigidly formal. And then he had disappeared completely, even though Tony had been on his best behavior with him. Which, admittedly, included some quips. But Strange had a damn thick hide, as demonstrated under extreme circumstances on alien space ships and moons. And a sharp tongue besides. But there was more to him than that. There had been an unexpected sense of camaraderie between them, stronger than a shared fight, or even a common cause would forge, as Tony’s unfortunate history with common causes had taught him.

Anyway.

Tony could use some verbal sparring with someone like the wizard. Sharp, quick-witted, and challenging, but not out for blood. Not going for the jugular. Tony had enough encounters like that, and they had lost their appeal. And maybe he was delusional but somewhere between their clash about post-exercise stretching (while leaning on magical objects) and the shared eyerolls about post-battle bureaucracy he’d gotten the impression that Strange… cared. To some small extent.

“FRIDAY, we do have the magical doctor’s number, don’t we?”

***

Flight. Stephen’s heart soared. Below him, the world, shaped by the hands of millions of people, was full of intricate details—long stripes of different crops, the concrete veins and arteries of roads, mills and plants and factories, rectangular flecks dotted with the roofs of uniform housing, and so much more, connected in a perfect, unbroken design. This world was marvelous, but also so very small and breakable.

Stephen was rushing at speeds no human was made for, at a height no one was meant to reach, in a way so many people over so many generations came together to create, pooling their knowledge, their curiosity, their wants. In this, he was at the pinnacle of something great and beautiful, human ingenuity and invention.

It was also the biggest flex ever.

There he was, cocooned in his own creation, untouchable, faster and stronger than any—

The exhilaration of the flight vanished abruptly. First, he became aware of the lack of wind on his face, expected and unexpected at once. Then it turned into a lack of air, a hollowness in his throat, in his lungs. He opened his mouth, not to cry out but to inhale, but there was nothing to breathe. The vacuum in his chest turned into a growing emptiness, into a black hole drawing everything inward, collapsing his heart and lungs, compressing his insides. Stop, it needed to stop—

Stephen sat up in his bed, gasping for air through the tightness in his chest. He pressed a hand against it, and for a moment, he expected to feel metal, warm from his body, intrusive and necessary…

No. Not going there.

Stephen managed to slowly, consciously draw a breath, counting. Again. He inhaled deeply, the coolness of the air comforting, the mild scent of old walls and aged wood calming. His pulse slowed, yet a silent sense of dread remained. The dream itself was disturbing of course, a new nightmare for Stephen’s arsenal, this choking on air, though drowning had been something recurring for a long time, before it was replaced by new horrors. But those kinds of dreams weren’t anything unusual for Stephen. This dream though, this was unsettling in a different way. This was something out of place. Something that didn’t belong to him, or at least felt like it didn’t. But there was also a prickling under his skin, at the nape of his neck, a sense of foreboding that was definitely his own.

He pushed the feeling away. This was something to meditate about later. Now was time to go about his day.

Stephen had a fair amount of magical maintenance to do today. The Sanctum was wonderfully self-reliant in a lot of ways, but the wards and permanent gateways required regular upkeep by a strong master of the mystic arts. He had to mind his other duties too, like responding to dimensional emergencies and chasing down dangerous creatures. There were also never enough hours in the day to study the books the library had to offer. Or even in the night. And when he couldn’t muster the motivation for that, there was Stephen’s personal collection of lighter paperbacks to read. They beckoned even now, promising relief from the tension he was ignoring, but... duty first.

While picking up his notebook from his nightstand, he noticed his neglected phone and grabbed it as well. As his fingers brushed it, the screen lit up. There was a message waiting for him.

Stephen spotted the sender’s ID, and the corners of his mouth twitched into an unbidden smile.

A gentle warmth rolled through him as he unlocked the phone, and that feeling made him stop short. It was unjustified. He had no reason to feel it, no right. Oh, he knew where it came from, of course he did. He didn’t have the associated memories themselves, but he did have the memory of having had them, right up until he was forced to take corrective measures and evict them. Even though he did his best, most of the time, not to tie it to any one person—to keep his distance even from the thought itself—he still remembered that, in the timelines that never happened, he’d taken a liking to Tony. No. To Stark. They weren’t on a first-name basis in the here and now. Or were they? Stephen sighed and rubbed a shaky hand over his closed eyes. He needed to get over this. Everything was as it should be. He tapped the phone, read the message, then snorted.

Hey, wicked wizard of the west. Or do you prefer witch? How are you doing? Magic castle still standing?

His mind leapt to a string of wry comebacks almost immediately. This would only take a minute. And a little back-and-fort with Stark wouldn’t hurt.

Eventually, Stephen must have made an incendiary remark, because Stark called him to ‘speed up the process’ of making him see the ‘error in his judgment.’ After hours of talking and a promise to continue soon, Stephen felt only the slightest regret at breaking his resolutions. It might—or rather, it surely would—lead to further pain. But Stephen had made progress in managing his emotions. And he was used to pain. He would bear it.

***

Tony stopped fiddling with his artificial lung prototype and cast a wary glance at his hand. He kept noticing faint red flashes near his pinky as he worked, short and sporadic. There didn’t seem to be anything there now, but… He turned his hand this way and that, moving it across his workbench to trace the source of the light. Still nothing. No light-emitting device in the workshop should have been behaving like that anyway.

His nostrils flared as he fought back a sigh. He shut his eyes, giving himself a moment to rest. Visual hallucinations weren’t on his wish-list for today, or ever. But when he opened his eyes and reached for his tools to continue, there it was again: a thin red line encircling his pinky, with a short beam jutting from it, straight as a laser. He froze. But the instant his gaze shifted to lock onto it… gone. Just like before.

Damn it all to hell.

He squeezed his eyes shut, then opened them a few times, testing a theory. Sure enough, the red line appeared the instant he opened both eyes and vanished within a second—too brief for a closer look, and never there when he looked straight at it. FRIDAY couldn’t detect it. Additional sensor readings and targeted scans turned up nothing. Leaving the room didn’t change the optical anomaly either, but it did make one thing clear: the beam pivoted as Tony turned, always pointing in the same direction, like a compass needle finding north.

Tony needed a longer break now, just to breathe.

“What fresh hell is this?” he muttered under his breath, pinching the bridge of his nose—with his right hand, the one without mysterious light-effects. It was magic, probably—and even though red was a color he embraced, magic, if red, was bad news. That kind came with unpleasant associations for him, to put it mildly.

All right. Let’s think this through calmly and rationally. There were no noticeable adverse effects for now. No need to do anything drastic, like cutting off a finger. If it worked like in that old wives’ tale—the red thread of fate, or something—it wouldn’t help anyway. Tony shuddered at the thought. He didn’t like the idea of being bound by fate; he preferred to shape his own fate, thank you very much.

He had FRIDAY look up the legend and brought out the big guns: the bleeding-edge sensor array he’d been perfecting on and off for a while. Listening to FRIDAY’s voice while setting up the parameters cheered him up. And the various stories about the red thread—while not exactly Tony’s dream scenario—weren’t the worst-case outcome, either. The idea that someone out there was the perfect fit for you, that you were bound to find them no matter what mistakes you made… A silly thought, of course. Not the sort of thing an engineer and scientist like Tony subscribed to. But there was a certain comfort to it.

Even the enhanced scans were inconclusive.

He should call Stephen for a consult.

They’d been talking on and off for weeks about less pressing things, whenever they both had a free moment—or, rather, whenever Tony needed a break and a little mental stimulation. He hoped Stephen wasn’t tied up with unforeseen wizard business. Stephen was good about letting Tony know when he planned to be unavailable due to magical shenanigans. He was less so about setting up in‑person plans. But he wouldn’t say no to this.

***

Stephen had limited his use of astral projection after his time as a studious novice in Kamar-Taj. With experience came the knowledge that leaving one’s body was markedly dangerous for a sorcerer, practically a beacon for malicious entities, and thus should be reserved for the direst of circumstances. Even then, added security was a must. All these wise pronouncements, of course, had come from Wong, along with a few other Masters Stephen had admitted to respecting at one point or another—enlisted after Wong declared him to look far too compliant, suspiciously so. A completely unfair assessment, to be sure. To add insult to injury, Stephen had also been provided with a narrow definition of “dire circumstances” and a detailed description of what constituted “sufficient security.”

That was that—no more studying in astral form. A pity. Still, forgetting such a skill would be unconscionable. So Stephen kept practicing it in short, controlled sessions, never going farther than a few steps for a few minutes, never leaving the room where his body sat on a meditation cushion. To make the most of the opportunity, he used the time to inspect his body for signs of unwanted magical influence, spiritual injuries, or anything of that nature.

It was fascinating to see himself this way. His body’s aura appeared dimmer without his astral self, yet it still swirled in a comforting pattern, slowing or pooling slightly where older or more recent damage caused the energies to linger. Though it wasn’t remotely like interpreting an MRI scan, Stephen could still map the physical injuries caused by his accident. Those remained the deepest, because he had grown skilled enough to actively mitigate the effects of anything he’d sustained since then.

His link to the Sanctum tugged at him, so he turned his astral senses toward the building and carefully surveyed it. Everything seemed in order—the place still hummed with the same pulsing, barely contained vitality he’d observed over the past few months. Since his return from Titan, he and the Sanctum had been more attuned to one another than ever.

Even though time could be made to flow more slowly in astral projection with considerable effort, he still had to return to his physical body and get back to work. As he prepared to do just that, something caught his attention. Something that hadn’t been there just before, at his right hand.

Energy had concentrated in a wide ring around his pinky finger.

He had a bad feeling about this.

On the astral plane, emotions felt distant and muted. But as his consciousness settled back into his body, everything became more immediate; his feelings were augmented by bodily sensation. His heart raced, his breathing quickened. His eyes snapped open.

He caught a flicker of red in his peripheral vision.

He raised his hand to his face. At first glance, nothing seemed out of the ordinary. But when he switched to mage sight, the red was there, in the form of a red line wrapped around his pinky and trailing away. A few inches out, the line tapered and vanished.

Well.

This was just like the phenomenon described in Entwined Heartstrings, the novel he’d been reading yesterday. Remarkable, really. This was exactly how he’d pictured it. Quite the coincidence.

In fact, this was too much of a coincidence.

Oh, no.

He swallowed hard. His throat clicked faintly—bone-dry. He’d forgotten to hydrate again. Because surely his dry mouth wasn’t caused by fear. He wasn’t afraid of his own magic, was he? Afraid of what it could do, turning idle fantasies into reality?

No. That wasn’t it, not really.

He feared what his magic had just revealed about him.

***

FRIDAY called Stephen, but he didn’t pick up. Well, it looked like the good doctor was going to have to endure Tony showing up in person. This felt a bit time-sensitive—not egregiously so, but still.

“FRI, be a dear and plot me a stealthy route to the wizard’s place, will you? I’m flying over. Promised him a visit last time we talked, anyway. Well, threatened him with one.”

“On it, boss!”

Tony moved to call up his armor. Would the repulsor change how the red anomaly behaved? Before he could get an answer, the probably-magical red line vanished completely—or, at the very least, went dormant, and no blinking could revive it.

At the same time, a strange sensation bloomed low in Tony’s stomach. Something uncomfortably close to dread. And yet, it wasn’t like he usually experienced something like that. Tony knew fear intimately: sudden-onset horror, creeping panic attacks, the constant flutter of background anxiety, and everything in between. He’d already catalogued every little nuance of how his body felt in those moments.

But this? This was different.

It was sharply delineated. Contained, not spreading through his body like usual. It was somehow once removed, like a reflection. A secondhand feeling that wasn’t entirely his own. And it really shouldn’t be. He was perfectly calm and in control right now, novelty of fated (or maybe jinxed) red fishing lines notwithstanding.

Still, it was unmistakable. Dread. Vivid, but brief.

Then, a sudden twist of something else. Shame?

That passed in a few heartbeats too, leaving behind only the faintest, fleeting impression of something hot and shrinking into itself.

Just great.

Tony wasn’t so shameless that he couldn’t recognize it for what it was, he just happened to specialize in guilt. Thank you for the insight, decades of life experience and torturous therapy. This was definitely someone else’s feeling.

Apparently, Tony wasn’t allowed to process one unexplained thing happening after another in peace, because just then he noticed something bluish flitting across his workshop. He turned to look after it, not even bothering to raise a hand to attack. Which was probably a good thing. Because it was a ghost. Or rather, a semi-transparent, bluish, ghostly animal, fixing him with a disapproving gaze, then skipping into a wall and vanishing through it. Into the direction where the red line was previously pointing.

“FRIDAY, did you see that?”

“Yes boss. Based on its shape, it was a small mammal from the family Herpestidae. Its measurements are consistent with the Herpestes sanguineus.” At Tony’s silence she helpfully added, “The common slender mongoose.”

“What’s a ghost mongoose doing in my workshop? Nah, don’t answer that, FRI.”

Tony donned his armor and made his way to the landing pad to take off. He heard an angry chitter and saw a ghostly blue shimmer streak off in the direction he was planning to go.

“Okay, buddy, it’s not like I needed any more incentive.”

He needed to visit his wizard friend, and quickly.

***

Back when Stephen had still been settling into his life after Titan—first pretending he was perfectly fine with living on the margins of certain people’s lives, then eventually offering them his contact information and withdrawing—he had taken deliberate steps to keep himself well and truly occupied. After all, it wasn’t really avoidance if one distracted oneself by being productive, was it? All of which only made it more obvious that he couldn’t simply go on as before.

He relied heavily on his mental practices to stay in control of his thoughts and emotions, but there were moments when even those failed him. At times, focusing became almost impossible—and for a sorcerer like him, focus was non-negotiable. At Wong’s insistence, Stephen began occasional sessions with a psychologist (the spouse of one of the Masters at Kamar-Taj), hoping to learn new strategies for managing his struggles.

It was during one of these restless periods, while sitting in the psychologist’s waiting room, his gaze flitting between decorative art and faded curtains, his feet shifting back and forth, that Stephen picked up a romance novel for distraction. It was just lying there, on a table, tucked beneath several magazines with curling edges. His attention was unable to settle on anything, as nothing really appealed. But there is a certain lure to a book one knows one will find terrible, perhaps to give oneself a reason to feel miserable. A few sentences in, he found himself scoffing. But a few pages later, he was riveted. When it was finally time for his session, it was almost painful to tear himself away from the book. Leaving it behind in the waiting room when he left? Even harder.

His first stop afterward was a nearby bookstore, and by the time he emerged, he’d stocked up on the rest of the series.

He had been hooked.

***

Tony had barely touched down when the door to 177A Bleecker Street swung open wide, inviting him in.

Tony didn’t hesitate until he got to the middle of the foyer. He stopped there to look out for a sign of life. The silence was heavy, and the curving staircases seemed to echo with emptiness, making the place feel even more desolate.

“Stephen?”

There was no answer. Tony took a purposeful step forward but was seized by a sudden sense of vertigo. Someone—or maybe something—picked him up and flung him into a hallway, likely the Sanctum itself, if Tony had understood Stephen’s cryptic hints about its capabilities correctly.

“Could have walked,” Tony muttered, casting a sidelong glance at the elaborate wooden carvings on the walls. They bore a disturbing resemblance to eyeballs on stalks. Tony wasn’t surprised one bit at the decor. The hallway was dimly lit, but it led to an open door spilling out warm yellow light. Before he could take the Sanctum to task, something beyond the open doorway grabbed his full attention.

Stephen sat there, with his face buried in his hands. He was surrounded by an uneven sprawl of open books and parchment rolls, as if caught in the middle of an especially frustrating stretch of research. Piles upon piles of what looked like discarded source material were scattered haphazardly across the floor and furniture.

Behind him, the Cloak was locked in a silent struggle with none other than the ghostly mongoose. They were fighting—no, wait, they were play-fighting. They chased each other around, their roles as chaser and chased swapping quickly back and forth, each catch ending with the Cloak rolling the mongoose softly on the ground, only to be caught between pointy teeth. Yet even as they tumbled and darted around, they somehow avoided disturbing a single book.

Stephen finally raised his head. For a second, he just blinked at Tony, his eyes unfocused.

Then Tony felt it again—that strange sensation. Panic flared bright and sharp low in his stomach, followed by a heavier, deeper ache that made his own chest tighten in sympathy. And simultaneously, panic flashed across Stephen’s face, only to be overtaken by something that looked an awful lot like pain. By the time Tony’s brain caught up, Stephen’s expression had already smoothed into something carefully neutral.

Tony had seen behind poker faces before. He’d just never felt one from the inside—at least, not unless it was his own. It was as if his gut had developed a high-speed wireless connection to Stephen’s emotions. Oddly, though, it didn’t feel threatening. It was distinct, cleanly separated from Tony’s own feelings.

Stephen greeted him, his polite mask faltering for just a moment as he motioned toward the mongoose with a resigned look. “Yours, I believe. Is this what you’re looking for?”

“Not exactly. And I don’t know about it being mine, really, but there are a few things I could use your input on.”

“Things like…?”

“Like that mongoose there turning up at my place for example. Then running here, of all places. Or something like a red thread of fate blinking on my pinky, probably also leading here of all places. I can’t help but think this might fall under your area of expertise.” Tony needed a moment to think about how to even bring up the fact that he was picking up Stephen’s feelings. It felt like an intrusion. Tony didn’t normally mind intruding if it got things done, but this was… feelings. And Stephen had been skittish already before this.

The wizard looked hollow eyed and stiff as he gestured to a spot, clearing it from a small stack of books with a wave.

“Take a seat.” He waited for Tony to sit gingerly before continuing, “I… I believe I know what’s happening. And why. It’s something I’ve caused. My magic. I’ve been researching the phenomenon just now and hope to take care of it quickly. I’ll get back to you as soon as I’m reasonably certain it’s resolved.” He stopped his assertive delivery, fixing Tony with a penetrating gaze. After a few heartbeats of condemning silence, he looked away to the corner, where the Cloak and the mongoose had stopped their tussle. They were grooming each other.

“I don’t suppose you’d be satisfied with this answer and leave, reassured?” Stephen asked, still turned away from Tony, hands folded together in his lap. He sounded resigned.

“Yeah, do not suppose that.”

“All right then,” Stephen said, looking like it was anything but all right to Tony’s discerning eye. He could also feel something icy and prickling on his side of the emotional high-speed connection. Which was justified, if it was really Stephen who caused this, and now was preparing himself to come clean. Though Tony really could do without the visceral proof of the wizard’s guilt, shame and anxiety. It made being angry with him just the slightest bit more difficult. Tony made a conscious effort to push down the mix of his own anxiety and anger that spiked at the confirmation that magic was messing with them—not that Tony hadn’t already had an inkling. But it was much less effort to keep calm than it would have been even a few years ago. It was also better not to draw it out and to come clean himself.

“I can also feel what you’re feeling,” Tony blurted out. “I think.”

“All right then,” Stephen repeated, voice carefully even. He looked even stiffer, if possible. The icy prickling flared up for a moment, then it abated to a still unpleasant level. “That fits into the pattern as well.”

“The pattern of what?” This conversation was like pulling teeth. Good thing Tony had an almost infinite amount of patience—on the rare occasions it was warranted.

“The pattern of magically induced fictional soul bond marks.”

Tony felt his eyes bug out at that, but it seemed Stephen wouldn’t give him time to digest anything once he made up his mind to talk.

“The mongoose there is your spirit animal, meant to seek out the other party and help forge a spiritual connection. The red string tied around your finger also leads to another person and is only visible under special circumstances. The empathetic link you mentioned is one of the ways fictional soulmates can be connected as well. According to some… books. There may have been other signs we didn’t recognize as such too.”

“The other party, as you so delicately put it, being you?” Tony asked, deciding to go for broke. “Wait, do you know what I feel too?”

“No. I got the visit from your spirit animal instead, it seems,” Stephen said, answering the second question and ignoring the first. Still not saying it out loud then. But he didn’t really need to say it, did he? It was pretty obvious to Tony that Stephen was supposed to be his so-called soulmate. And Stephen wasn’t happy about any of this. Even so, there were worse candidates in Tony’s opinion, for both of them, really.

“Give me a moment please,” Stephen said, and closed his eyes. After communing with the ether, or whatever it was he did, his gaze locked onto Tony’s again.

“How about now? Do you still feel… what I feel?”

“Not really. But it’s not exactly constant. I’m guessing only strong emotions get through.” Tony pressed his palm to the spot near his belly button, but there was nothing beneath the surface for him to feel just now.

“That’s reassuring,” Stephen said.

He didn’t look reassured though. Which was fair, Tony wasn’t reassured either. Time to dig deeper.

“This magical bond. Does it make me do anything? Does it influence what I think or feel?”

Stephen looked taken aback for a moment. He hastily answered: “No! That was the first thing I checked. It does nothing of the sort. Well, aside from provoking your perfectly natural reaction to having your boundaries violated. Like being angry with me. Or suspicious. Or disgusted.”

“Why would I be?” Tony asked carefully. They were getting somewhere now. He really needed the whole picture to decide on the next steps. He believed Stephen that there was no direct influence, but… It was still a mystery how and why Stephen caused the whole mess.

Stephen’s mouth twisted into a bitter curve. He looked straight at Tony again, but his eyes were distant.

“Isn’t it obvious? Because it’s my fault.”

In hindsight—given how he’d been skirting the topic—Tony should’ve guessed. Stephen didn’t wait for him to react; he launched into a brisk, no-nonsense explanation, barely pausing for breath as if to head off interruptions. “There were unforeseen consequences to my overuse of the Time Stone on Titan. We had to erase my memories of the excessive number of possible futures I’d seen. This left some delusional patterns in my mind. It also made my access to magic easier and less deliberate than it should be, apparently enabling the unconscious alteration of—”

That sounded terrifying but, frankly, also unsurprising. Tony cut in to clarify: “Okay, give me a second. Are you implying you’re… somewhat less sane than is healthy?”

“Nothing like that, no. Or… maybe a little bit like that. I’ll admit I’m having some difficulties. It’s not as if I can deny it in front of you, given the circumstances. But they are harmless and I’m dealing with them.”

“Difficulties as in…?”

“I have a minor issue with emotional regulation. Of the social kind. In… interpersonal contexts. I’m seeing a mental health professional for it,” Stephen said with a completely straight face. But there was an ominous tension growing in the place where Tony was connected to the man’s emotions.

“…and how does the magical soulmate thing come into it?”

This question finally prompted a small bodily reaction from Stephen. His folded hands tightened, making the scars stand out more against his pale skin.

“It’s magically induced fictional soul bond marks, like I said. And it comes into it because I’ve gotten into the deeply unfortunate habit of reading trashy romance novels about soulmates finding each other via soul marks. And now I’ve manifested them. Unintentionally.”

A thousand questions emerged at that in Tony’s mind, but he voiced the most pressing one first: “That a real thing? Soulmates?”

“A completely imaginary thing. Believe me, if anyone would know, the Masters of the Mystic Arts would.”

Tony listened to his gut. There was only the growing tension, nothing else. But this simply had to be agonizing for Stephen. It would be for Tony if the roles were reversed. Even if Tony didn’t do shame (and he didn’t), some things were still too embarrassing to speak about without choking on the words.

“I see. What I do not see though, is why you think it’s your fault. It seems to me that you’ve gotten a raw deal here and are doing your best. That’s all any of us can do, really.”

Tony’s reassurance, something he wanted to be taken at face-value, lingered between them, but it fell short of its mark. Stephen’s voice was firm, but a new edge to it made the underlying tension impossible to hide. “It seems my subconscious has decided to fixate on you. It, or rather, I, drew on the ridiculous tropes from my novels and I willed a simulacrum of a bond into existence. Not a real one, I assure you.” He paused, jaw tightening. “But it was me. I did it, and I did it to you.”

Fine. Noted. Tony just breathed for a moment before deciding to move on.

“Is this because you think I’m your soulmate, then, or because, according to magic, we are?”

Stephen looked him straight in the eyes, barely blinking. He’d managed to appear calm again, almost detached, but Tony could feel his sorrow now—a weight inside, eerily reminiscent of the arc reactor casing when it was still new and the way any exertion could suddenly bring pain that bordered on suffocating. It felt like that, as though even the smallest movement could tip those emotions into something unbearable.

“Neither. Most likely it’s a glitch in my magic. It happens because I wish we… It’s a subconscious wish. I apologize—it shouldn’t have happened. I’ll make sure it won’t intrude on your life any longer, as soon as I can.”

“Yeah, no. You can stop with the self-flagellation. Let me decide how I feel about this.”

Of all things, that seemed to be the tipping point. Stephen’s rigid composure broke; he bowed his head and buried his face in his hands. When he spoke, his words were muffled but clear. “Of course. I’m sorry.” He took a few deep breaths and, in a voice barely above a whisper, said, “What is it you’d like me to do now?”

“Take a breather? It’s not like this is the end of the world. We’ve both been there; we know what that’s like.” Tony cast around for something to ease the painfulness of the situation. That was the priority. He also needed time to sort out what he thought and how he felt about the whole thing. If he was completely honest with himself, though, he already knew what he didn’t want: for this to come between them and hurt their budding friendship. If this were anyone else, he’d probably feel differently. But this was Stephen—someone Tony had felt a kind of kinship with almost from the start. Someone Tony could rely on, not just because Tony understood him, but because he shared Tony’s core values and had the same determination to uphold them, whatever the cost. Like looking into fourteen million futures and carrying on under their weight.

They were both the type to look for solutions first too, so he steered them to look at the practical side. “The simulated bond is, at worst, an annoyance, and now that I know what it is, not even that. No real harm done, is there?”

“No harm,” came Stephen’s answer, still from behind his hands.

“It isn’t terribly urgent to dissolve it then. Do you have a plan on how to move forward?”

Stephen lifted his head. His eyes were red-rimmed, but he looked composed again. Just like Tony thought: a fellow solutions-man.

“I’ve found a few reliable ways to cut down my magic. Some of those would even allow for another Master to remove the restriction when it’s completely under my control again. I also plan to look into an even more rigorous termination of the time magic’s effects in my mind.”

Tony didn’t like the sound of that at all, for more than one reason. But his most immediate objection was, “You’d be at risk, or worse, when the next threat comes knocking. We need you at your full strength. I need you at your full strength.”

Stephen swallowed visibly.

It went on like this. Stephen told Tony all about his research into the matter: the inglorious history of unconscious magic use and the ways to curb it. Tony listened intently and vetoed anything he deemed too drastic, among others a procedure that sounded like a magical lobotomy. He coaxed out a few revelations about what exactly had remained from the many futures that Stephen had called ‘delusional patterns.’ He was able to read between the lines. It wasn’t by chance that Stephen’s magic latched onto Tony. There were deeper feelings there. Feelings Tony didn’t reciprocate yet and was careful not to name. This was not the time. Instead, he expressed repeatedly how he wasn’t fazed by the whole thing. How it was all right. All the while, he hoped he wasn’t making a mess of things. But Tony wagered that beneath all their differences they had a very similar mindset. So, he tried to treat Stephen like he would want to be treated in a position of emotional vulnerability.

After some thought, Tony decided his strongest feeling about the situation was cautious curiosity—not so much about the mechanics of it, but about what it might mean for their future. Maybe, with a little distance from the whole thing, they could explore whether there was something less strictly magical to bond over—and, if so, what kind of bond they might build. Just because their connection was unbalanced now didn’t mean it couldn’t be evened out.

Finally, they set about cleaning the room. The mongoose had long since vanished, freeing up the Cloak to assist—eagerly, like a magical and sadly more competent version of DUM-E. The so-called empathetic link fell silent too. Tony watched Stephen closely: Although he was hard to read at the best of times, he seemed to slowly relax, if only a little. A jolt of satisfaction ran through Tony at a job well done, tinged with something a tad possessive. He felt they’d reached the point where a bit of teasing might help things along.

***

Stephen hadn’t thought this outcome was remotely possible.

Tony seemed genuinely (or at least convincingly) unbothered by Stephen’s nonconsensual use of magic on him—more than that, he was understanding. Stephen didn’t think he deserved it. He certainly hadn’t expected it. He had expected Tony’s practicality—the quick pivot to planning the next steps. The best possible scenario he had imagined, however, was a quick, clean break between them afterward. Now, though… it was probably too soon to hope, but there was a chance it wouldn’t come to that. Even better: It appeared Tony not only didn’t mind that Stephen felt a strong imaginary connection to him, but might even be willing to give it a base in reality, something to build on.

Baffling as Tony’s reaction was, Stephen knew from the time they’d actually spent together that Tony understood desperation and sacrifice—and what doing the right thing can cost. And going by his reputation, when Tony saw a path to a better outcome, like to mitigate that cost, he was just as determined as Stephen—apparently in his personal life as well.

Stephen wished the catalyst for this development wasn’t his weakness for paranormal romance novels.

After putting the books into some order and having some tea, Stephen allowed himself to bemoan the nature of his coping mechanism out loud.

“Romance novels… If it weren’t so embarrassing, I’d probably laugh,” Stephen said, aiming for an annoyed tone, though that wasn’t how he truly felt. Was he ashamed? Definitely. But maybe he was starting to make his peace with it.

“It’s not that embarrassing… You know what? You should lend me some of your romance novels—for research,” Tony said, as if the idea itself weren’t completely preposterous.

“Not happening,” Stephen stated, fully calm now. Tony wouldn’t try for levity if he weren’t ready to move past the awkwardness.

“Hey, don’t be like that. Come on.” The nagging was made even more ridiculous by the exaggerated puppy-dog eyes Tony clearly knew how to use to his advantage.

“You better give up now. You won’t persuade me. Not even with your soulful eyes,” Stephen said straight-faced, but a little smile was already tugging at the corner of his mouth.

Tony wasn’t giving up easily.

“Okay, how about this? You may or may not know this, but I have a huge Iron Man merch collection.”

Stephen, in fact, didn’t know that. But he wasn’t the slightest bit surprised and told Tony so.

Unperturbed, Tony continued, with a gleam in his eye. “Yeah, sure. It also includes an anthology of stories. Iron Man stories.”

“Like retellings of your heroics?” Imagine that. Reading those stories had great potential to be entertaining and would provide ample fodder for banter.

“And purely fictional ones, too. Lots of villain-fighting, very flattering plots—I like the action! But I admit I also check out the romantic ones.”

Oh. That was an interesting angle. Though Stephen couldn’t even guess where Tony was going with this. Unless…?

“Is this you offering me romantic stories about yourself in exchange for my novels?” Stephen didn’t have to feign the disbelief in his voice.

Tony huffed, as if offended, then grinned, probably at the idea of the trade, his eyes sparkling. He softened his grin into a smile and answered in a low tone, leaning forward as though to avoid being overheard.

“No. This is me sharing a secret with you—that the two of us share a secret fondness for romantic stories!”

A small chuckle bubbled up from somewhere deep in Stephen’s chest. Tony really was something else. Something… good. And… For all their heavy responsibilities, for all the heroic gestures, the self-sacrifice, the burden of being complicated, flawed men, they also had this: a potential for connection, with countless little places to anchor it—many of them silly and trivial and still so very important to them.