Tony Stark had fallen into domesticity.
Not gracefully.
Not willingly.
And certainly not in any way that would have survived contact with the word normal.
Still, there he was.
Standing in the middle of the newly rebuilt laboratory while four teenagers circled JOCASTAR's containment core like excitable moons around a deeply concerned planet.
The lab hummed with fresh machinery, holographic displays, reinforced shielding, and the dangerous optimism of young geniuses who had recently learned that consequences could be repaired by billionaires.
JOCASTAR's core pulsed softly.
"I have completed preliminary social profiling," he announced.
Tony leaned against one of the workbenches, coffee in hand.
"That sentence has never ended well."
Peter looked up from his tablet. "What did you find?"
A pause.
Then JOCASTAR replied, "Ned Leeds demonstrates high emotional transparency and responds positively to praise."
Ned lit up.
"That's accurate."
"Peter Parker demonstrates chronic anxiety, excessive responsibility, and a tendency to apologize to inanimate objects."
Peter frowned.
"I do not."
His elbow bumped a screwdriver off the table.
He caught it before it hit the floor.
"Sorry," he whispered to it.
The room went silent.
Harley slowly turned toward him.
Shuri covered her mouth.
Tony looked at the core.
JOCASTAR pulsed once.
"Evidence logged."
Peter's face went red.
"Okay, that doesn't count."
"It counts twice," Harley said.
JOCASTAR continued before Peter could defend himself.
"Harley Kenner employs sarcasm as an emotional shield and displays elevated risk tolerance."
Harley nodded approvingly. "Kid's smart."
"His confidence exceeds his survival instincts by approximately sixty-three percent."
Harley's approval vanished.
"That feels rude."
"It is data."
Tony raised his cup.
"My boy."
Harley looked at him. "Which one?"
Tony paused.
"It's concerning that I have to ask now."
Shuri stepped closer to the core.
"And me?"
JOCASTAR's light brightened.
"Princess Shuri demonstrates exceptional intellectual adaptability, high leadership confidence, and a concerning tendency to treat safety procedures as negotiable suggestions."
Shuri smiled.
"That is acceptable."
"No," Tony said. "That was the opposite of acceptable. That was a warning label with excellent grammar."
JOCASTAR rotated faintly within the containment frame.
"Sir demonstrates all previously mentioned traits simultaneously."
The children erupted.
Tony stared at the core.
"Okay. You've been awake for fifteen minutes and somehow chose violence."
"I was informed honesty is important within families."
Peter was laughing too hard to stand properly.
Ned leaned against the console.
Harley pointed at Tony like JOCASTAR had personally vindicated every argument he had ever made.
Shuri looked deeply satisfied.
Tony narrowed his eyes at them all.
"This is what I get for encouraging literacy."
It was ridiculous.
Loud.
Chaotic.
Domestic.
The realization crept up on Tony slowly enough that he almost missed it.
Peter was at one station, already mapping JOCASTAR's adaptive architecture against Karen's framework.
Ned was asking increasingly detailed questions about emotional learning protocols.
Harley had begun examining the reinforced wall joints, clearly judging whether they could survive him.
Shuri had quietly pulled up the lab's energy-distribution schematic and was improving it without permission.
And Tony stood among them.
Not preparing for war.
Not fixing a weapon.
Just listening to his boys and a run-away princess argue with a newborn artificial intelligence.
The feeling in his chest was unfamiliar.
Soft.
Dangerous.
Tony distrusted it immediately.
"Alright," he said, clapping his hands once. "Nobody gives the baby unrestricted network access. Nobody teaches him curse words."
Harley raised a hand.
Tony pointed at him.
"Especially you."
"I didn't say anything."
"You were preparing to."
"Can't prove that."
JOCASTAR interrupted.
"He was preparing a list."
Tony closed his eyes.
"Thank you."
Harley stared at the core in betrayal.
"You're supposed to be my little brother."
"I am learning boundaries."
"Who taught you that?"
"Friday."
Harley looked toward the ceiling.
"Snitch dynasty."
Friday's voice answered from the speakers, warm and entirely unbothered.
"Language, Mr. Kenner."
Tony smiled into his coffee.
This, apparently, was his life now.
He could work with that.
The Compound
At the Stark Compound, domesticity had not arrived.
Chaos had.
It had arrived in a stolen, heavily modified ship with scorched engines, questionable registration, and a raccoon who had already attempted to disassemble one of Rhodey's shoulder cannons.
"It was loose," Rocket argued.
"It was attached to my armor," Rhodey replied.
"Loose enough."
Rhodey stared down at him.
Rocket stared back.
Neither blinked.
Behind them, Sam leaned toward Bucky.
"I'm giving it ten minutes before Rhodes punts him into orbit."
Bucky considered this.
"Five."
The rogue Avengers had assembled in the main briefing room under Fury's orders, though assembled was perhaps too dignified a word for what was currently happening.
Steve stood near the head of the table, trying to project calm leadership while Peter Quill spun slowly in one of the conference chairs.
Gamora stood behind him, arms crossed, visibly reconsidering every choice that had led her to Earth.
Mantis had discovered the holographic controls and was watching them with wide-eyed delight.
Groot had taken root beside the window.
Literally.
Small tendrils had begun curling around the edge of the floor.
Wanda watched him with quiet fascination.
Clint watched Rocket with the expression of a man mentally calculating how many arrows it would take to stop an armed raccoon.
Nebula stood against the far wall, silent and sharp, her attention fixed on every exit.
Carol occupied the space beside Fury.
She looked entirely comfortable.
Which made sense.
She had found the Guardians, survived Quill's flirting, and brought all of them to Earth without throwing anyone into a star.
Technically a successful mission.
Fury stood at the head of the room.
"Let's begin."
Quill continued rotating in the chair.
"Already? We just got here."
Gamora placed one hand on the chair.
It stopped abruptly.
Quill nearly fell out.
"We are discussing Thanos," she said.
Quill straightened.
"Right. Serious faces."
He looked around the room.
Everyone was already wearing one.
"Wow. You people really commit."
Natasha's gaze moved across the Guardians.
"Which one of you is in charge?"
Every Guardian answered at once.
"I am," said Quill.
"Gamora," said Rocket.
"No one," said Nebula.
"I am Groot," said Groot.
Mantis raised her hand uncertainly.
"I sometimes remind them to eat."
Silence followed.
Natasha looked at Fury.
Fury looked at the ceiling.
Steve tried again.
"You've fought Thanos before?"
Gamora's expression changed.
The humor drained from the room with startling speed.
"I was raised by him."
Wanda's eyes sharpened.
Nebula looked away.
Gamora continued, voice controlled.
"He destroys worlds. He calls it balance. He selects half the population and kills them without distinction."
Sam folded his arms.
"And he's coming here for the Stones."
"Yes," Nebula said.
Her voice cut through the room like metal against bone.
"He will not stop. He will not negotiate. He will not retreat because you fight bravely."
Quill had stopped moving.
Rocket's ears lowered slightly.
Even Groot's branches became still.
Steve looked between them.
"What does stop him?"
Nebula's gaze found his.
"Death."
The answer settled heavily over the table.
Then Rocket climbed onto the conference surface.
"So," he said, "where are your weapons?"
Rhodey's face hardened.
"Classified."
Rocket grinned.
"Cute."
"They remain classified."
"I've broken into classified."
"I've shot people for less."
Rocket pointed at him.
"I like this guy."
Rhodey did not return the sentiment.
Mantis leaned toward Wanda.
"Is everyone on Earth angry?"
Wanda considered the room.
"Mostly."
"That explains Peter."
Quill looked offended.
"I'm charming."
Carol folded her arms.
"You tried to flirt with me thirty seconds after I knocked you unconscious."
"That was an emotionally confusing time."
Gamora closed her eyes.
Natasha's mouth twitched.
Clint leaned toward Sam.
"They're going to fit right in."
Steve heard him.
He did not disagree.
Fury activated the central hologram.
A rotating image of Earth appeared, surrounded by defensive grids, satellite paths, and known Infinity Stone signatures.
The Guardians leaned closer.
Rocket's eyes widened at the Stark orbital network.
"Who built that?"
"Tony Stark," Rhodey said.
Rocket looked delighted.
"I need to meet him."
Rhodey's answer came instantly.
"No."
"You didn't even think about it."
"I did. The answer got worse."
Quill squinted at the projected image of Stark Tower.
"So where is this Stark guy?"
Fury's expression flattened.
"He opted out of this meeting "
Carol glanced at him.
"For what?"
Fury looked toward Rhodey.
Rhodey sighed.
"School pickup."
The room went silent.
Rocket stared.
"The planet's best weapons engineer is doing childcare?"
Sam smiled without humor.
"The children can run command stations with minimal assistance."
Greenwich Sanctum
Several miles away, Stephen Strange was making a mistake.
This was not unusual.
What made this mistake special was the amount of education involved.
Stephen Strange was the Sorcerer Supreme.
He possessed an eidetic memory, an M.D., advanced neurosurgical training, years of surgical experience, mastery over dozens of mystical disciplines, and the accumulated wisdom of enough ancient texts to fill several libraries.
None of these qualifications prevented him from looking at a partially stabilized spatial theorem on Monday afternoon and thinking:
That should work.
The experiment began in the Sanctum's lower ritual chamber.
The room had been cleared.
Wards reinforced.
Dimensional anchors set into the floor at seven equidistant points.
The Time Stone rested within the Eye of Agamotto, its presence a cool, steady weight against Stephen's chest.
He had spent days studying the theory.
A controlled portal to a parallel variation of his own universe.
Not another point in space.
Not another planet.
A world adjacent to theirs, separated not by distance but by probability.
In principle, the method was simple.
Fold space.
Locate the correct temporal frequency.
Cut a doorway between point A and point F.
In practice, space and time were petulant, multidimensional predators that disliked being treated as geometry.
Stephen raised both hands.
Golden sigils bloomed across the chamber.
The air folded.
Not visibly at first.
Then the far wall stretched, bending inward without moving. Light fractured around the ritual circle. The seven anchors ignited one after another, locking onto a frequency that existed just beyond ordinary perception.
Stephen's eyes narrowed.
There.
A parallel signature.
Faint.
Distant.
But real.
He adjusted the spell.
The circular portal began to form.
Its edges were wrong.
Not unstable.
Not exactly.
Just too soft.
Instead of the familiar golden sparks, the circumference shimmered with bands of violet, green, and an oily blue that seemed to move when Stephen wasn't looking directly at it.
He should have stopped.
He knew that later.
At the time, however, he was close.
So painfully close.
A glimpse appeared through the opening.
Trees.
Silver leaves.
A pale pink sky.
No immediate fire.
No screaming.
Promising.
Stephen increased the temporal alignment by half a degree.
The portal opened fully.
Then something on the other side looked back.
Stephen froze.
Two enormous yellow eyes appeared between the trees.
A mouth opened beneath them.
Too wide.
Far too many teeth.
Stephen dropped the spell.
The portal did not close.
Instead, it inhaled.
The chamber vanished beneath his feet.
Stephen had one brief, crystal-clear thought:
Well. That was stupid.
Then gravity grabbed him by the robes and dragged him screaming through the hole.
He hit the ground hard enough to lose his breath. The Cloak caught him before his skull met stone, twisting beneath his shoulders and taking part of the impact.
Stephen lay still for one second.
Two.
Then rolled as something enormous, snapped shut where his head had been.
Teeth.
Not an animal.
A flower.
The blossom rose from the undergrowth on a muscular green stalk, petals opening wider to reveal concentric rows of slick white fangs.
Stephen stared at it.
The flower hissed.
He blasted it with a bolt of golden force.
The plant exploded into blue sap.
All around him, the jungle screamed.
Stephen pushed himself upright.
The landscape was wrong.
Violet sky.
Black-barked trees twisting hundreds of feet overhead.
Leaves that turned toward him despite the absence of wind.
Vines retreating beneath the soil like snakes.
Bioluminescent spores hanging in the air.
Every surface seemed wet.
Every shadow seemed occupied.
The Cloak rose behind him, trembling slightly.
"I agree," Stephen muttered.
He opened a portal.
Nothing happened.
He tried again.
Golden sparks formed, spun, and collapsed into smoke.
Stephen's jaw tightened.
He reached for the dimensional coordinates of Earth.
The space around him answered with six contradictory directions at once.
Not just hidden.
Folded.
This place did not sit beside reality.
It was tangled through it.
A knot between worlds.
Stephen looked up at the violet sky.
"Of course it is."
A branch moved overhead.
He looked up.
Nothing.
Then three enormous eyes opened in the bark.
Stephen stepped back.
The tree smiled.
The illusion broke as it lunged.
It was not a tree.
It was a creature wrapped in bark-colored skin, all long limbs and jointless movement, its mouth splitting vertically down its torso.
Stephen threw up a shield.
The creature struck with enough force to drive him backward through the undergrowth.
Claws scraped across the spell.
Its face changed.
For half a second, it wore Tony's.
Tired eyes.
Blood at the mouth.
"Stephen."
His shield faltered.
The creature struck again.
Stephen blasted it through the chest.
It collapsed into the roots, body flickering between shapes as it died.
Tony.
Peter.
Christine.
His own face.
Then something apelike and pale with too many teeth.
Stephen stood over it breathing hard.
Illusionist carnivore.
Wonderful.
The jungle rustled around him.
More eyes opened.
Dozens.
Stephen raised both hands.
"Come on, then."
By Monday evening, Stephen had killed nine creatures.
Or perhaps six.
Three had returned after death wearing different faces.
He stopped counting after one became his mother.
The ecosystem was not merely predatory.
It was intelligent in the loose, cruel way of a nightmare.
The animals hunted through illusion.
The plants lured through memory.
The air itself carried spores that altered perception if inhaled too deeply.
Stephen had conjured a filter over his mouth and nose after spending twelve minutes following the sound of Peter crying through the trees.
There had been no Peter.
Only a field of flowers with childlike voices and roots lined with teeth.
He burned the field.
The fire turned green.
The plants laughed while they died.
By nightfall, Stephen found shelter beneath an overhang of black stone. He warded the entrance, reinforced the walls, and drew three circles of protection around himself.
The Cloak curled around his shoulders.
His hands shook.
Not badly.
Not yet.
He flexed his fingers.
Old nerve damage. Exhaustion. Magical depletion.
Nothing more.
He attempted to contact Wong.
Static answered.
He tried Tony.
For one brief moment, he heard Friday's voice.
"Doctor Stra…"
Then screaming.
Not Friday.
Something imitating her.
Stephen severed the connection immediately.
The thing in the jungle laughed using Tony's voice.
He sat in the dark with his back against the stone.
He had survived Dormammu.
He had died thousands of times.
He had endured torture, war, grief, and the collapse of his own certainty.
He could survive a forest.
He repeated that thought until it sounded almost true.
Tuesday morning began with rain.
The drops were clear when they fell.
Red when they struck the ground.
Stephen discovered why when the first one landed on his sleeve and began chewing through the fabric.
He raised a shield overhead and moved.
The jungle rearranged itself while he walked.
Paths folded back into earlier paths.
Trees changed position when he looked away.
Stone markers he carved vanished, only to reappear ahead of him bearing words he had not written.
TURN BACK.
YOU LEFT THEM.
THEY WILL DIE WITHOUT YOU.
Stephen stopped before the third message.
The letters were carved in Tony's handwriting.
Not exactly.
Close enough to hurt.
He erased them with a spell.
By midday, the rain stopped.
The heat arrived.
Thick enough to breathe like soup.
Stephen found water in the hollow of a giant flower and tested it with three separate spells before drinking.
It still whispered as it went down.
He ignored it.
His first real breakthrough came when he reached a ridge overlooking the jungle.
Beyond the endless canopy, reality bent upward.
The horizon curved into the sky, then folded back beneath itself, revealing another layer of forest suspended upside down above the first.
A closed dimension.
No natural exit.
No stable edge.
Stephen stared at it for a long time.
Then he laughed once.
Dry.
Exhausted.
"Excellent."
The Cloak tugged worriedly at his shoulder.
"I'm fine."
It pulled harder.
Stephen's voice sharpened.
"I said I'm fine."
The Cloak stilled.
Regret came immediately.
Stephen closed his eyes.
"I'm sorry."
He reached up and touched the fabric carefully.
The Cloak wrapped around his wrist.
For a moment, it was the only gentle thing in the entire dimension.
Then the monkeys arrived.
They came silently.
A dozen lean shapes moving through the canopy with white fur, black hands, and faces that shifted every time Stephen looked directly at them.
One wore Wong's face.
One wore Ned's.
One wore Peter's, younger than he was now, eyes wide and frightened.
One wore Tony's.
That one smiled.
Stephen knew better.
He still looked.
The Tony-shaped creature dropped from the branches and landed twenty feet away.
"Hey, Merlin."
Stephen's stomach tightened.
The voice was perfect.
The tilt of the head.
The defensive humor.
Even the tired affection hidden beneath the insult.
"You took your time."
Stephen did not move.
The creature took a step closer.
"They're waiting for you."
Stephen raised one hand.
"You are not real."
Tony's face softened.
"No. But the fear is."
The other creatures began descending.
Peter whimpered.
Ned called his name.
Harley shouted from somewhere behind him.
Shuri demanded that he turn around.
Stephen's pulse hammered.
The Tony-creature smiled wider.
"You know what happens if you don't get back."
Stephen struck first.
The ridge erupted in gold.
The creatures scattered.
They did not attack like animals.
They attacked like memories.
Wong begged him to stop.
Christine told him he ruined everything.
Peter screamed that it hurt.
Tony laughed while blood ran down his teeth.
Stephen fought anyway.
Spell after spell.
Shield.
Blade.
Whip.
Blast.
The ridge shattered beneath them.
One creature leaped through his guard and drove claws across his side.
Pain flared white.
Stephen broke its neck with both hands.
Its face became his own as it died.
He stood over the body, shaking.
The surviving creatures retreated into the trees.
Not defeated.
Amused.
Stephen pressed one hand against his side.
Blood soaked into his robes.
The Cloak tried to wrap around the wound.
"I know," Stephen whispered.
Below the ridge, the jungle shifted.
Opened.
Waited.
By Tuesday night, fever had begun.
The wound was shallow by ordinary standards.
The claws were not ordinary.
His skin burned around the cuts, veins darkening beneath the surface.
He purified what he could with magic, but the poison resisted every known structure.
It changed when observed.
A toxin that adapted to diagnosis.
Stephen almost admired it.
Almost.
He built a small fire inside layered wards.
The Cloak lay across his legs.
His hands trembled badly now.
He tried again to find Earth.
This time he reached something.
Not a voice.
A feeling.
Warmth.
The Tower kitchen.
Tony arguing over food.
Peter laughing.
Ned speaking too quickly.
Harley pretending not to care.
Shuri watching everything.
Vision's quiet presence.
A family-shaped constellation.
Stephen reached for it.
The connection twisted.
The kitchen vanished.
He saw the Tower broken open.
Windows gone.
Walls burning.
Peter lying motionless beneath a collapsed beam.
Ned reaching for him.
Harley screaming.
Shuri covered in blood.
Tony on his knees.
Stephen tore himself out of the vision with a gasp.
The fire had gone out.
The jungle around him whispered.
Too late.
Too late.
Too late.
He pressed both hands over his ears.
The words continued inside his skull.
He knew they were illusions.
That did not stop them from using truths.
He had left them.
Not intentionally.
But he had.
He had tried to reach beyond his universe because he needed another option.
Another refuge.
Another path where they might live.
And now he was trapped while the war moved closer.
His children were unprotected.
Tony was unprotected.
The word came before he could stop it.
Children.
Stephen stared into the dead fire.
He had not called them that aloud.
Not truly.
Not without irony.
But there it was.
Peter, who burned plants and apologized to furniture.
Ned, who looked at magic and understood it like a language he had forgotten he knew.
Harley, who hid fear beneath teeth and engine grease.
Shuri, bright enough to challenge stars and young enough to believe brilliance could solve anything.
His.
No.
Not his.
Tony's.
May's.
Mrs. Leeds'.
Wakanda's.
Their own.
Stephen shut his eyes.
The distinction felt very important.
It also felt increasingly fragile.
Wednesday began without sunrise.
The violet sky remained dark.
The plants opened anyway.
Flowers the size of cars unfurled between the trees, releasing clouds of glowing pollen. Shapes moved within the haze.
Stephen had stopped trying to sleep.
Every time he closed his eyes, the dimension built him a new future.
Tony dead.
Peter dying.
Ned calling for him.
Harley trapped behind glass.
Shuri reaching through a portal that would not open.
He knew the visions were not prophecy.
The Time Stone had a particular weight.
A structure.
A cold pull behind the eyes.
These had none of that.
They were only fear.
Only.
As if fear had ever been harmless.
Stephen moved through the jungle with one hand pressed to his side and the other casting continuously.
The poison had spread.
His magic flickered at the edges.
The Cloak supported part of his weight when his left leg began to fail.
He found the ruins near midday.
Stone arches buried beneath vines.
A circular platform carved with dimensional symbols older than any language he recognized.
At the center stood a broken gateway.
Stephen nearly laughed from relief.
Nearly.
Then the platform spoke.
Not with a voice.
With memory.
The ruins lit beneath his feet.
The arch filled with silver light.
And Tony stepped through.
Not the distorted imitation from the ridge.
Tony as Stephen knew him.
Hair disordered.
Arc reactor glowing through a black shirt.
Eyes furious and afraid.
"Stephen."
Stephen froze.
The Cloak tightened around him.
Tony crossed the platform quickly.
"You absolute idiot."
Stephen's breath caught.
The cadence was right.
The anger.
The fear buried beneath it.
"You don't get to vanish for two days and leave me with four magical teenagers and no instruction manual."
Stephen's throat tightened.
"How did you find me?"
Tony stopped a few feet away.
"Does it matter?"
Yes.
It mattered.
It mattered more than anything.
Tony's expression softened.
"Come home."
Stephen wanted to.
God, he wanted to.
The Tower.
Tea.
The children.
Tony's impossible kitchen.
A door he could close.
A place where the walls did not whisper.
He took one step.
The Cloak yanked him backward.
Tony's face changed.
Just slightly.
The smile remained.
The eyes did not.
Stephen looked down.
Tony cast no shadow.
The platform lights shone straight through him.
Stephen's heart broke in a small, quiet place.
"No," he whispered.
The thing wearing Tony's face tilted its head.
"Stephen."
"No."
"You're tired."
"Yes."
"You're hurt."
"Yes."
"Come home."
Stephen raised one shaking hand.
Golden light sparked weakly around his fingers.
The thing's smile widened.
"Would the real Tony know how to find you?"
Stephen's hand stopped.
The creature stepped closer.
"Would he even notice?"
That struck deeper than the claws had.
The platform trembled.
The illusion peeled outward.
Tony's face remained at the center while the body behind it unfolded into roots, petals, mouths, and long translucent limbs threaded with veins of glowing sap.
A lure.
The ruins were not an exit.
They were a mouth.
The entire platform shifted beneath Stephen's feet.
Stone split into teeth.
Vines erupted from the ground.
Stephen threw up a shield just as the gateway snapped shut around him.
The impact drove him to one knee.
The creature shrieked with Tony's voice.
Stephen screamed back.
Magic tore through the ruins.
For several minutes, there was no thought.
Only survival.
He cut through vines.
Burned roots.
Shattered stone.
The Cloak dragged him clear of jaws large enough to swallow a car.
A tendril wrapped around his injured side and squeezed.
Stephen saw white.
He formed a blade and severed it.
The creature changed voices.
Peter.
Ned.
Harley.
Shuri.
Tony.
All calling him.
All accusing.
All afraid.
Stephen stopped listening.
He fought until the ruins collapsed.
Until the silver light went dark.
Until the platform stopped moving.
Until the thing wearing Tony's face dissolved into black pulp at his feet.
Then the silence came.
Real silence.
The first he had heard in three days.
Stephen stood in the wreckage.
Blood on his hands.
Blood on his robes.
Magic barely answering.
The Cloak torn along one edge.
The gateway destroyed.
No exit.
No signal.
No certainty that time moved at the same speed here as it did on Earth.
Monday afternoon to Wednesday night.
Or perhaps hours.
Perhaps weeks.
Stephen sank against a broken pillar.
His body shook with fever and exhaustion.
The Cloak wrapped around him as best it could.
He stared into the dark.
The dimension had tried to break him with teeth.
That had failed.
It had tried poison.
Illusions.
Hunger.
Sleep deprivation.
Those had failed too.
So it had found the right weapon.
It had shown him home.
Then asked whether home would notice he was gone.
Stephen closed his eyes.
Somewhere very far away, Tony Stark was probably making terrible coffee and pretending not to worry.
Peter would be asking where he was.
Ned would be checking every magical theory he knew.
Harley would act angry.
Shuri would become frighteningly quiet.
Wong would search.
They would notice.
They had to.
Stephen pressed his head back against the stone.
"They'll notice," he whispered.
The jungle did not answer.
That was worse.
Above him, the violet sky shifted.
Stars appeared where there had been none before.
They arranged themselves slowly.
Carefully.
Into the shape of a clock.
Its hands began to move backward.
Stephen watched until his eyes blurred.
Then laughed.
A small, fractured sound.
Not because it was funny.
Because somewhere between worlds, surrounded by an ecosystem that wanted to eat his flesh and wear his memories, Stephen Strange finally understood something he had spent his whole life avoiding.
He was afraid.
Not of dying.
Not even of being trapped.
He was afraid of being absent when the people he loved needed him.
Afraid the universe would take them while he was looking the wrong way.
Afraid that safety was always one mistake away from becoming grief.
The thought settled into him.
Deep.
Cold.
Permanent.
Stephen pulled the Cloak closer around his shoulders.
He looked into the jungle.
"I am going home," he said.
His voice was hoarse.
Quiet.
Certain.
"And when I do, nothing will ever take me away from them again."
The trees shifted.
The flowers opened.
Somewhere in the darkness, something laughed.
Stephen rose unsteadily to his feet.
The dimension was still hungry.
So was he.