Chapter Text
There is a rock jutting out of the wall, situated just perfectly between the vibranium plates of his neck so that it digs into his synthetic flesh. The discomfort provides a point of focus beyond the suffocating silence of the others sitting around in various states of pain, defiance, or trauma-induced dissociative numbness. If he leans back a hair more it almost, but not quite, blots out the heated, whispered conversation occurring at the end of the cavernous, partially underground room they’re in.
“Wanda you don’t have to do this.” Captain Wilson has been against the idea from the onset of its conceptualization. “We can find another way.”
Dr. Strange, on the other hand, being the individual to birth the strategy, pushes back at every doubt and counterpoint laid out. “There is no other way. We’ve tried everything.”
“Sam,” when Wanda speaks, voice low and stern, he increases his auditory processors enough to clearly hear the words, “it has to be done.”
“Like hell it does.” The others in the room perk up at the exclamation, their de facto leader usually more jovial and less prone to outbursts. Then again, in their universe, somewhere out there, beyond the gates and spells used to transport them to safety, their world is about to be destroyed by a force they can’t seem to overcome. Outbursts might be acceptable. “We haven’t even—“
“We have exhausted all other avenues,” it is the fifth time they’ve had this conversation, each iteration with various people involved or not. He has not once been consulted, which is understandable, overall trust is low right now, particularly towards him. All he can do is simply exist and help where he can, not even certain this is where he belongs, but when they located his hideout, deep in the Adirondacks, it seemed pertinent to his continued existence to simply follow along with their desires, which were to keep him close so they could subdue him should the need arise. A logical view, all things considered. “With this spell, we can win.”
The long, pregnant silence is punctuated by the echo of the pebbles Captain Wilson is kicking as he paces. Then the pattern of his feet stops and the collective of non-engaged (but clearly listening) teammates hold their breath. “Wanda, have you thought about—“
Whether from mind reading or intuition, the harsh enunciation of her words fills the room before Sam can finish, “I’ve already lost everything, Sam,” the rock pressed into his neck is no longer the source of the stabbing, sharp ache sending his synthetic neurons into a frenzy, a pain he has no term for or understanding of beyond the fact it exists as a visceral reaction to her. “There’s nothing worse that can happen to me.” He closes his eyes, desperate to hide from the sideways glances and the purposeful avoidance of his presence, but if he dares phase away or go fully incorporeal, their anger and suspicion will follow.
“Fine.” Sam stomps back to their base of operations, refusing to sit down while the telltale whirling of a portal slices through the air.
Only seconds later, Dr. Strange returns, alone, hands grasped, an action that only magnifies their tremble, belying how tired he is from what they have just commenced. “Let’s give it ten minutes,” the sorcerer sits with conviction, eyes straight forward, lips grasped into a firm, unflinching line, “then we go get her.”
It sounds so simple, so effortless, to sit here for a finite time (Mr. Parker already setting a timer on his phone) and act as if everything is astoundingly normal. Only it’s not and he cannot stay his synthetic heart from increasing a marked 20 beats per minute, cannot convince the wires strung together into a makeshift nervous system that it is futile to fire in a pattern of alarm, to try and coax him into an action he has no concept of. It’s only ten minutes. All they have to do is sit here, allow Dr. Strange to regain his energy, and then they retrieve Wanda, return to their universe, save the day, and then he can retire back to the forest to contemplate the complexities of his existence…he hopes.
Three minutes pass and for some reason his lips decide to move, “Will she be safe?”
Another two minutes tick away at a slower pace than the furious clicking of the complex rhythm of the valves of his heart pumping away the synthetic blood he isn’t sure he needs to survive. Then Dr. Strange responds. “It’s only ten minutes.”
A fallacy that everyone in this room knows, and one he must point out. “Only for us.”
Forty-five seconds and a glare, the sagging goatee a portent for launching back into the fight they’ve all been entering and leaving for the past day. “I,” exhaustion exits Dr. Strange’s body as a deep exhale, “I casted every protection rune and spell I know. Nothing should reach her, nothing should find her.”
Wanda’s final comment echoes through his head, There’s nothing worse that can happen to me . Just like before it stabs and twists deep into his vibranium-laced abdominal muscles, a psychosomatic injury, he presumes, since no physical source is there. A recurring affliction since Vision opened his memories in Westview. At times it is barely perceptible, though still there, and then whenever she is near it is…too much. Like he’s drowning. Only she isn’t here now and yet it persists, grows, gnaws until he finds himself speaking just to silence it. “Will she feel the weight of it,” now the eyes of the room find him, curious, terrified, bewildered, swollen from defeat, “all the years?”
“She shouldn’t.” Dr. Strange’s response lacks the cockiness inherent in his personality, the bite of arrogance reduced down to a nibble as he shrugs. “But we’ll know in,” Mr. Parker holds up his phone, “three and a half minutes.”
Again, three minutes and 26.6 seconds for them, something only he seems to have any concern over, his lungs practically compressing into nothingness at the weight of what she must be enduring, at what she is sacrificing for them because she has nothing left here. Where he is. “Would she be safer if someone were there to guard her?”
His words resuscitate the room, backs straightening, eyes wandering the way humans always do when they are seeking some concurrence for their perceptions, some sign that they aren’t alone in hearing what was said or inferring what he is offering. Dr. Strange looks only at him, not just because he asked the question but likely because they all know he is the only one who could complete such a task and is quite literally the last individual they would trust with it. Correction, second to last, their current foe would be the last. “You cannot be serious.”
Though he might struggle with humanity and his place in it, the insinuation that he is anything but serious is highly offensive. “I am.” The entire survival of their universe (and likely many more) rests on Wanda’s shoulders and here they are leaving her guarded only by runes and spells that have been crushed beneath the heel of their opponent. “I think it pertinent to consider all options to ensure the plan proceeds without hindrance.”
“No,” the sorcerer shakes his head, “no, absolutely not. We are not considering this. Nothing can get through the runes.”
The fact they are hiding in a pocket universe from a magical force greater than their own skills shows otherwise. Humans, however, will overlook such flaws when their emotions demand it. “You know that is not true.”
“And who will do it? You?”
“Yes.”
“Absolutely not.”
Dr. Cho had begun to assess his physiological and neurological responses, including the activation of his makeshift amygdala and how it is capable of stimulating his hypothalamus which kickstarts his adrenal glands to then send synthetic adrenaline and cortisol out, manifesting in what one might label anger. Or fear, but right now he knows it is not fear. “Look me in the eye,” precisely what Dr. Strange is already doing, “and tell me she would not be safer with someone there to protect her.”
Five seconds, a sigh, and then, “Obviously she’d be safer,” an admission sewn with vitriol, “but you,” the next line of reasoning will be to point out the state of his own creation, of the directive that drove him to almost murder Wanda, to extinguish her from their original universe. Only his prediction fails. “You’d feel the weight of every single year.” A truth, he is not immortal, per se, the decay of vibranium a slow but sure process, but as far as the anatomical and physiological assessments determined when they dragged him from his solitude, he is closer to immortal than anyone else currently present. “You’d go mad, Vision.” He glances down at the inappropriate nomenclature. “Two thousand years of living alone.”
When Wanda suggested taking on the millennia spanning task, they all jumped immediately to stop her, to explain to her what she would be missing, what she might lose, that her sacrifice didn’t have to be their path. There are no such arguments here, only shocked curiosity as he considers Dr. Strange’s assertion that he might psychologically malfunction even if physically he remains intact. “Perhaps.” Oddly the idea of being alone for so long is of little concern to him, it may even be…enticing. Two thousand years to determine who he is, what his purpose is, why he was forced into the world. If that isn’t long enough to find answers, then nothing ever will be. This is secondary, tertiary, really, perhaps even more removed, because the real reason has already been answered and he inquires again, just to confirm. “Would she be safer with me there?”
A high-pitched beeping echoes around the room as Mr. Parker fumbles with his phone. “Uh…that’s ten minutes.”
The plan says at ten minutes Dr. Strange opens a portal into the adjacent universe, 2000 years later in the timeline than where he left Wanda. “Why do you want to do this?”
He meets the whispered question with an equally low voice, “She deserves to be safe and I am the only one that can physically withstand the years.”
“Are we…sure about this?” Now Captain Wilson nudges in but Dr. Strange ignores the question, never removing the intensity of his gaze from him. “Bit of advice. You’re neither immortal nor indestructible.”
The memories he’s burdened with confirm that, “I know.”
“No one will be there to help you.”
“I am aware.”
As the lecture continues, Dr. Strange’s hands move of their own accord, opening a portal flickering with the scarlet of the spell on the other side. “According to Dr. Cho’s report you need ample sunlight for the stone,” they are tentatively calling it a solar gem because of this, though its composition is still unknown, “we don’t know how your body reacts to all frequencies or technological advancements yet.”
“I have read the report.”
“Hey, we should really talk more about this.”
Captain Wilson’s concern fails to break through, Dr. Strange sending a, well, strange smirk as he waves a trembling hand towards the portal. “You know,” the comment stops him halfway between the two universes, “self-sacrifice for the greater good is awfully heroic.”
Not a descriptor of himself since his re-creation, as was proven by his first actions of consciousness. “I suppose that is one way to view it.” He takes another step, turning just enough to look back at the rest of his teammates and the worried confusion they all wear. “I will do my best to protect her.”
Dr. Strange nods at him. “We’ll see you in a couple minutes.”
“Two thousand years, to be exact.”
“For you.” Dr. Strange’s lips attempt to rise in humor, but exhaustion bars them from curving too high. As he steps fully through the portal, one last warning echoes as if from the other side of a vast chasm, “Whatever you do, no matter how bored you get, don’t you dare,” and then the sparking oval disappears, whatever he dare not do lost to the waves of time and a storm of confusion.
Turning to the right, his lungs shaking from the inhale he doesn’t have to take, all of what happened before fades as he finds himself unable to look away from the sight before him.
In the middle of a circle, traced into the stone with the chalk Dr. Strange brought from their own universe, Wanda hovers, cloaked in the full regalia of the Scarlet Witch, her legs crossed and wrists resting delicately on her knees with steepled fingers, eyes closed and lips parted just enough to continue the low, mumbled chant that lifts the Darkhold up above her lap, its pages glowing in undulations of bright scarlet in unison with the runes of protection embedded in the stone walls. Around her is formed a transparent, crystalline shield, its hexagonal sides iridescent, shifting colors as he leans right and then left, the hues curving not unlike the waves of space time.
Eldritch is a term some might use. Prophetic, damning, supernatural, otherworldly, and demonic are other possibilities, the image before him not unlike what might be painted or portrayed with the opening of Macbeth. He, however, finds it beautiful, in a sorrowful, haunting way. A testament to resilience and a monument of sacrifice. A chrysalis from which she will emerge more powerful and knowledgeable than any other who has ever lived. Or so the spell suggests, but no one has ever taken it on successfully, a trial of two millennia locked in an intimate connection with the book hovering above her lap, one known to corrupt and drive its users mad. If anyone can withstand this, it will be Wanda.
Feeling uncomfortable with just standing and gawking, he finds a large rock and sits down, hands sliding to rest along his knees. For their teammates it will be a matter of minutes until they are back, but for him, for Wanda, it will be noticeably longer. Only now does the weight of his decision begin to settle, his thoughts oscillating with the reflection of scarlet light along the bright white of his skin. He has been alive for less than eight months, the memories housed in his brain span less than five years, and he cannot even begin to fathom what lies ahead, what all will occur over two thousand years. Perhaps he will go mad, or maybe he won’t. No one has done this before, there are no protocols, which just means he will need to be precise and detailed in his notes. What matters most, however, what he assumes will protect him is the one mission he has: to keep Wanda safe so she can save them all.