sᴏʀᴄᴇʀᴇʀ sᴜᴘʀᴇᴍᴇ

“Welp, yes, sorry,” Tony said, still making no effort to move. Stephen, on the other hand, was moving and–

–whoa whoa whoa.

He was about to scramble up and off him, when Stephen poked him in the chest and started distracting him with his distracting fingers and eyes and stupid face. 

“Yes, I know who you are, doctor,” he replied. “… That’s interesting. I always thought you were the master of time, or something like that.” 

He was about to move when again, Stephen spoke up, and derailed his train of thought.

Turned to dust at the snap of the mad titan’s fingers.

“How did you survive?” he croaked out. “How did you come back? Fourteen million futures, huh? Is this the one that we win? Is it?”

“oh you do? interesting, i always just assumed you’d forgotten and called me whatever catchy nick-name came your way because you were too embarrassed to ask me what my name was again.“ he teased, adding a small smirk to show tony he wasn’t actually criticizing him. 

“and i was keeper of the time stone, guardian of it, it--“ he sighed and closed his eyes, a remembrance of his own failures flooding back to his mind. “it does not matter.” he sighed, ultimately letting the negativity of those moments hit him and not doing much to stop them.

tony still laid on top of him and stephen needed somewhere to rest his hands. the ground was too hard for the pins and well.... slowly he tried to wedge it onto his own body but ended up keeping the hand between his hip and tony’s, finding it more awkward now than it was before. his other hand hung uselessly in the air while being propped up by his elbow.

“i don’t...“ he frowned and looked away from tony, staring off at a building. “i don’t know.“ he sighed again, turning to meet tony’s gaze. “i wish i did, but something has happened and we’re back far too early.“

it was absolutely imperative for stephen to get to the time stone. he was its protector and he would stop at nothing to retrieve it and to properly place it back into his care. floating up with the aid of the cloak, stephen threw out a hand to force the rest of the remaining brood to slam into the mirror dimension before turning his attention over towards a member of the black order; supergiant.

landing beside the infamous magneto, stephen looked over to him and nodded - before spotting another mutant ahead of them, on the other side of the alien. “erik,“ stephen started, pausing and keeping his eye on the woman. “who is that?“ he spoke before turning his attention onto supergiant once more. “you will not have this stone today, creature. you will not have it ever.“ he turned to erik, speaking loud enough for the woman on the other side to hear. “i think a little demonstration of our abilities would be good right now.“

whispering enchantments and hexes, stephen floated above the ground with the help of the cloak of levitation - crossing his arms and throwing up shields around his fellow teammates, the sorcerer cursed to himself silently as what seemed to be a terrifying out-pour of dangerous, alien creatures.

he could sense the time stone, feel it calling to him, for him to protect it - but knew that this was his utmost important threat to go after. looking down, he spotted someone else helping him against the brood and reached out, taking a grouping of them and bringing them into the air with eldritch energies and slamming them back down with a crack of their spines. “are you alright!?” he called out, floating towards them. “we need to find where they’re ascending from and  cut that off now.”

Tony wasn’t combat trained per se, but he’d spent enough time in the field to know that someone sneaking up behind you was usually bad news, and he whirled immediately, lashing out and flinging a punch towards the person’s solar plexus. 

Only to scream a bit as he realised who it was, pull his punch, lose his balance, go crashing into Stephen Strange, and send them both sprawling to the ground.

With him on top.

Nice.

“Oh,” he said, conveniently forgetting to move. “Hello. Wait, aren’t you the time wizard? Can’t you just hop skip and dance back to the future? You are from the –”

He paused. “Wait. No, I can’t tell you.” His face crumpled for a moment as he remembered the last time he’d seen Strange. There was no telling when the man had come from, but Tony was leaning towards the theory that this was pre-dusting. 

in an instant, stephen felt himself lying flat on his back with a weight of another man on top of him. making a very indelicate noise, he reached up to shield his face before sighing heavily at tony. “i tried to stay as far back from you as i could because i knew this was likely to happen and yet...”

he shimmied a bit to work himself a little free before realizing that the movement and friction was probably a bit too provocative.

well.

poking tony in the chest, stephen raised a brow as he began to ramble at him. “my name is doctor stephen strange, not ‘time wizard’ and yes, stark, i can - but not physically, not like this.” he gestured at himself, completely aware of his entirety of his personal space being invaded in that moment.

sighing, he rolled his eyes, “you mean from the point whence i turned to dust at the snap of the mad titan’s fingers? yes, you can tell me.” he tried to offer a smile as he laid there, waiting for the other to move - but not entirely fighting him.

“we need to figure out how to get out of this living hell,“ okay sure, maybe a bit dramatic on his part, but stephen wasn’t exactly one to play himself down. “and if i see any animal-print anything i will personally rip it off of someone and burn it in front of them,“ he stated, raising a brow and challenging anyone to try to disprove him.

stephen concentrated with trained precision, the time shift was off - it was wrong, and almost immediately as it happened, he knew. the comet had come and hit and one moment he was within the sanctum in new york and the next he was.... somewhere else. inhaling sharply, he closed his eyes and began to astral project, taking the time to view his immediate area from a safe perspective.

spotting a familiar silhouette, stephen returned to his body and with the aid of the cloak of levitation, stephen floated over and down to her.  “wanda maximoff,” he stated, not surprised at seeing her as they had previously both been a part of the decimated fifty percent and now they were not. “something has gone very wrong - do you feel it too?”