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Stephen slumped from his position with a strangled gasp. When Tony caught him, their eyes met, and for just a moment, all of the realities that Stephen had seen came crashing down.
Thousands of possibilities stemming from this exact moment.
Millions where Stephen fell into Tony’s arms and cried, horrified that he might lose the love of his life. Hundreds where Stephen and Tony stood by each other, grim and painfully aware of their own mortality, but together, nonetheless. Realities where the ring on Tony’s finger belonged to Stephen, where the place in Tony’s bed, his life, his heart, were places filled by Stephen’s love.
Possibilities where they ran, where they hid, where they almost won, but died at the last moment. Realities where nothing mattered as long as they were together.
Some realities where Stephen fell into Tony’s arms and kissed him, tears falling like the apologies that spilled from his lips because Tony would die or Stephen would die, or they would both die. Times where they lived, together, but Peter was killed; when Tony never forgave Stephen, and their relationship fell apart before it even began.
This reality, the one that Stephen fell in, was the worst.
Tony caught him, told him he was okay. Their gazes met, two souls in an endless universe, but the ring on Tony’s finger belonged to Pepper Potts and Stephen Strange was nothing more than a little-known acquaintance.
“How many do we win?” Tony asked, his grief etched in the lines on his face, the grey in his hair, the fading spark in his eyes.
Stephen looked at him. He saw, for a moment, a reality where Tony looked at him with love, his eyes bright and his smile soft and his hands gentle as they stroked Stephen’s hair and made him feel like he belonged in a world that made him the villain and pinned their grief on him and him alone. Made him feel as light as air while he carried the weight of the world on his shoulders.
“Doc, how many do we win ?” Tony asked again.
Stephen drew in a shuddering breath. He blinked away his tears, shook away the realities that could never, would never happen, ignoring the way that they clung to him like cobwebs. He wasn’t Tony's, and Tony could never be his. Not in the way that mattered, not in this timeline.
He swallowed his grief – his longing – and filled the hollow in his heart with grim determination for the job he had to do and the future he had to do it in. He opened his mouth, confessions and tears and screams on his tongue, loneliness stuck in his throat and terror cutting off his airway.
“One.” He forced out statistics rather than emotion, erasing his one chance. Tony belonged to Pepper and Stephen belonged alone, surrounded by books and never-ending responsibilities, incense and magic trapped within his mind as he drifted; one singular, meaningless speck within the indifferent universe he was tasked with protecting.