Idea for an ironstrange with peter au. Instead of tony dying after infinity war, he becomes like a celestial being or a star and only someone like dr strange could vist him. Peter wanting to be able to see tony again decides to become a wizard to.
Tony is so far away. Yet Thor and Hulk and Nebula and Strange - and eventually even Peter, in his Iron Spider suit - all come to visit him, so he’s never lonely for long. ;_; Still!! I want him back!!
…
Maybe the Infinity Stones mess with him and he becomes, not something celestial, per se, but something trapped beyond space and time, something with fluctuating power and mind and life. Like those trapped in the mirror dimension or an astral projection, but far, far more complicated.
At first, Stephen thinks he’s gone mad. Too many worlds looked at too quickly, too many timelines in which he’d gotten to live years with Tony, gotten to fall in love with him. And for the sake of the universe, he had to let this man go before he could ever be with him. So when he feels like Tony is right beside him, or he’s in his astral form and thinks he sees Tony next to him, he fears he’s allowed the knowledge of multiple realities to bleed into this one. It makes him infinitely glad the time stone is gone.
He watches over the kid. Unofficially, but when the kid’s field trip kept getting interrupted by cataclysmic events, he’d gotten involved, watching over him the way he would have if he and Tony had gotten together by this time. Eventually, the kid senses him, and he lets himself get caught before Peter can become paranoid.
It’s as he explains why he’s there - leaving out the bit where he and Tony would have been friends, lovers, husbands, a lost piece of him he’d never even gotten the chance to find - and as they speak together, in hushed tones, about the man they both grieved for, that Peter told him he sometimes still felt Tony’s presence. That suddenly, out of nowhere, his spider sense would tingle and he would feel like Tony was right there next to him. It would always feel so urgent, like there was danger nearby. That was why it had taken the kid so long to properly notice Stephen’s presence nearby when he fought dangerous opponents - oftentimes the kid would feel that same presence, would even sense it calling to him in certain places, notifying him of something to dodge or a tool he could use to stop his enemies. The kid thought Tony’s spirit could not rest.
What if, Strange thought with horror, Tony truly was not resting?
He did not tell the teenager. He didn’t want to get his hopes up. Especially since Tony’s body had already been buried and weeks had passed. There would be no normal body for him to return to.
At first, Strange struggles to even find a way to locate Tony. He realizes he saw actual, physical visuals of Tony in his astral form and uses that knowledge to try to pin Tony down. It’s only months later that he’s able to call upon that strange energy that made up Tony, and one night as he works on creating a small time loop outside of space and time - much harder without the time stone - that he finally catches a true glimpse of Tony. His eyes widen. Tony looks exactly as he did in the fight before he snapped his fingers, tired and battle-ready and afire with determination. ‘Strange?’ he says, blinking, seeming to take in Stephen and the fact that he was looking right at him. Quickly, he speaks again. ‘I’ve been like this since I snapped away Thanos. I don’t know what happened.’
Stephen opened his mouth, ready to explain it all, but shut it again. The time loop would only last for a few more seconds, and then it would simply loop this moment over and over again. The moment he let it go, however, they would be back in the normal time stream, and he would lose sight of Tony once more. “I’ll get you out,” he promises, looking Tony straight in the eye. “I swear it.”
For a long time, he tells no one. Wong is the first to figure out the biggest parts of it; Stephen starts losing sleep, acting erratically, and sometimes, Stephen starts speaking to seemingly no one, and he calls that no one ‘Tony.’ Wong goes up to Stephen one day and admits that, if it weren’t for the fact that he felt the presence himself, he would have thought Stephen had lost his mind.
Wong delegates some of Stephen’s efforts in finding a way to bring Tony back to other masters and even students of Kamar-Taj, acting like it’s a complicated problem they can work on for extra credit, the manipulative genius. It’s the forty-year-old female student who makes a random note that ‘ghosts,’ as they’re perceived by those unlearned to magic, are often believed to be embodiments more of emotion than anything else, and that perhaps this thing they were searching for was a being held together by its emotional attachments.
Stephen has nothing to lose and has spent nearly half a year spent in tiny time loops, in which Tony would tell Stephen a snippet of information on his circumstances or make a couple quick conjectures with him or, in rare cases where Tony seemed incredibly lonely, they would just share moments together, with Stephen sometimes updating Tony on the lives of those he loved, on Rhodey being asked to take on the leadership of the Avengers beside Ross or how Pepper handled the fallout of Stark Industries’ stocks by releasing one of Tony’s works in progress to her staff, or how Peter had barely escaped the defamation Beck tried to place on him by hacking into Beck’s illusory technology and showing the fact that it had been running at the time the supposed video had been recorded.
So Stephen goes and meets with Tony’s loved ones. He starts with Rhodes, the one most likely to understand Stephen’s explanation. In fact, Rhodes did not understand, despite being well-versed in listening to tech babble from his best friend, but he did parse out the part where a part of Tony was still alive and completely cognizant, and that the presence he’d sometimes thought he’d felt was in fact very, very real. After freaking out about the rotting body thing, Rhodes agrees to do whatever he can to help Strange bring Tony back. When prompted about any lingering feelings Tony might have toward him, Rhodes admits to Tony’s feelings of shame and guilt that Rhodes had sustained a permanent injury that, in Tony’s eyes, was thanks to him. “It was Rogers who demanded the fight and Rogers who chose to run away from responsibilities, even from those he had toward his friends at the airport. But people who run from responsibility aren’t the ones to feel guilty about it.” When Stephen asks about kinder lost feelings, Rhodes just smiles sadly and says, “who wouldn’t feel at least a little regret, knowing they’d left behind people who loved them?”
Virginia Potts is similar. “This whole thing you’re talking about is all beyond me, but Tony loved helping me take care of my adopted daughter, Morgan. Maybe he felt like we might have a hard time if we lost him? …No, Tony doesn’t think he’s good with kids. It’s why he got Happy to take over watching out for Peter. Maybe he’s just… maybe it’s because he saw me crying. Maybe he just doesn’t want me mourning him.” She tears up at that. “Idiot,” she says. “Who wouldn’t cry?”
He speaks with Happy, who says he doesn’t think Tony would have anything to regret with him. “He gave me a better life. He believed in me when no one else would. The only regret should be mine, that I couldn’t save him.”
Stephen is humbled over and over again by the love and loyalty Tony has from those he loves. He goes to speak to the Avengers, finding Thor easiest, sitting in his home. “A good man,” Thor says. “Perhaps he holds regrets because he was unable to stop Thanos before? Though that was my responsibility, not his. And I failed.”
There’s something slightly off about it, something Stephen doesn’t get until he’s already spoken with Bruce Banner and Vision. They say little about Tony, do not speak of having lost him themselves. It’s as he speaks with Clint Barton that he first hears the man say, ‘if Tony’s still kicking, then that means the disasters aren’t over. Not my business. I have my family. I’m not losing them again.’
With that, Stephen realizes that these people were not like those who loved Tony Stark. In those cataclysmic universes he’d lived through with Tony, Tony had always worked with these people. Even in the one he’d had Tony choose, he’d gone to help them go to the past. Yet here, for the first time, he wondered if these Avengers weren’t exactly like members of the Stark Industries boardroom, who demanded what they wanted and tried to bend the CEO - their leader - to their will. Cutthroat. Selfish. Skeptical. Demanding.
He stops asking for anything from the Avengers.
This leads him to Peter. He didn’t want to place this pressure on someone so young, but Peter ends up being the one to understand the most the fastest. Stephen is impressed by how much the kid understands and, perhaps more importantly, how much the kid rejoices over it. “You mean this feeling I’ve been getting means Mr. Stark might be alive?” The kid cries with happiness. “Anything you need, I’m your man!”
The kid is the one who says Tony might be an amalgamation of the stones, that, instead of his wish destroying them, they might have fused with him. Which meant Tony would need to learn to control them with his own body, even without his suit or the Hulk’s gamma radiation. He’s the one who figures out that Tony’s emotions actually grant him a level of stability - when Tony wanted something desperately enough, he was able to touch the physical world and make it happen.
With that information, Stephen starts working on helping Tony focus. His time loops can last for almost a minute at a time now, and he quickly sends Tony the information the kid gave him. His message makes Tony smile. “Peter’s a wonder.” It was all he said, yet he looked so happy. Stephen couldn’t help but smile back. Tony stares at Stephen’s smile for so long their time almost runs out before Tony says, “that looks good on you, Stephanie.”
Before Stephen had known it, they’d fallen into a few of the moments Stephen had already seen. They were well on their way to being in love with each other once more.
Stephen sucks in a breath at the thought. Because there was still time, and he might still have the chance to be with Tony.
The kid demands to go with him one day. “You can do the magic, and I’ll work on the science!” Stephen knows the kid just wants to see Tony, but he can’t deny the kid has a good point. He even has Tony’s glasses, which would help them get readings on just what Tony was now.
So they return to the sanctum, and Stephen shows Tony to Peter. Holding the time loop with another present is a million times harder, and he can only keep it for a few seconds again. But it’s worth it, as Peter and Tony immediately start crying at the sight of one another. “You’ve started growing into your suit,” Tony says, and Peter blubbers too hard to respond. Tony smiles softly at the sight before him, and Stephen goes mushy at the sight of Tony’s mushiness. Thank goodness it ended quickly; he was certain he had a dopey smile on his face.
It becomes routine, while EDITH ran scan after scan as quickly as she could. They worked from there. Somewhere along the lines, Peter starts asking about the magic Stephen is using to get them to see Tony, then what he is doing to try to affix Tony back to their dimension - preferably before he started really traveling between them. Dormammu had sworn to no longer enter their dimension, but that wouldn’t protect Tony if he entered the Dark Dimension. In fact, Dormammu would take out his frustrations about Stephen’s interference on Tony with extreme prejudice.
Without thinking, he starts explaining the basics of his work, oftentimes busy with putting together brand new patterns to try to get Tony back. Unbeknownst to him, the kid has started going to Wong for answers, too. And reading the books. And using EDITH to translate said books. And secretly practicing magic. Until finally, Wong interrupts a short conversation Stephen is having with Tony with a short, deadpan, “you need to start officially teaching that kid, Strange, or he will undoubtedly harm himself.” Stephen is shocked to learn Peter’s learning magic; Tony, before the loop ends and starts over again, expresses feigned outrage that the kid has ‘defected’ to his side. Strange rolls his eyes, huffs a tired breath, and gets to his feet. “Where is he?” he asks.
Peter has gone home, and Strange has an awkward moment when he steps inside and is greeted by Aunt May with a sharp, “you better be a superhero, bud, because you’re too old to be one of Peter and Ned’s LARPing pals.”
Peter saves him from having to explain too much, saying, “he’s the sorcerer supreme, Aunt May! I told you about him! He was on Titan with me!” She immediately lets him in, apologizing and thanking him for trying to protect her quote ‘idiot nephew’ from getting himself killed on that planet. Stephen didn’t bother explaining that he hadn’t, that he’d let Peter die in order to save the universe. He didn’t explain how, in the universes where Stephen had indeed kept Peter alive, he’d done it partly to save Peter and partly to defend Tony from heartbreak. He certainly didn’t admit that he’d chosen to hurt both Peter and Tony to defend the universe.
He speaks with Peter about the magic, and Peter admits that he wants to be able to help there, too. “I know I can’t get good enough to be of any real use,” the kid says, “but I’m sure I could at least learn enough to help you make those time loops longer! Or to help you use the emotional bond we have to bring Mr. Stark back!”
“This isn’t something you should learn just to help others,” Stephen says, not even certain why he’s saying that when that’s exactly the best reason to learn anything. He meant to say that Peter needed to think of himself, too, and take care of himself and not overwork himself. He opens his mouth to try again when Peter interrupts.
“Magic is amazing,” he says. “I could use it to advance my suit, or to save someone’s life, or even to give myself a couple of extra hours to work on my homework.” The kid blushes at that one, as if it’s shameful to think about his grades or his future in the same context as his hero work. It is, in fact, wonderful to hear that he did. “It’s like chemistry and physics all rolled into one, as if the mental lines we draw are the same as nature’s elemental blueprints.”
Stephen listens to the kid speak and realizes he sounds an awful lot like the Tony from the few universes in which he’d taught him some magic, in that interim between life and death. “You’re so much like him,” he breathes, and stills when Peter’s words stop mid-sentence and his eyes widen.
Somehow, Peter understands who he’s talking about. “Thank you,” he says quietly. “That’s always been my dream.”
Once more unbeknownst to him, Stephen seems to have also ended up loving this kid, mentally adopting him. He tells Tony that night how amazing Peter is, and all Tony says is, “I know, right?”
They work together. After eight more months, Peter learns enough to make the loop last twice as long as they speak with Tony instead of half as long with Peter’s presence. He figures out how to take the presence of Tony nearby and amplify it - by making his own emotions strong and broadcasting them via magic. Over time, Tony begins to help with the time loop, not by using magic but by focusing his own will. He sends thoughts through whenever they feel his presence, matching his mind to theirs. He blocks attacks against Peter when Peter’s fighting. He helps Stephen find Scott Lang when he hears the man’s gone small again. And one time, when Stephen is sleeping, he wakes up to find Tony sitting in a chair, nose-deep in one of the books Stephen had been studying. Tony looks up, completely human-looking, and sends a quick thought that, ‘these are more helpful than I realized,’ before Tony blinks and disappears. When Stephen jolts up and creates a time loop to speak with Tony about it, Tony admits that it’s harder to keep control when he uses two powers at once.
Time. Mind. Power. Life. Space. Reality.
Slowly, Rhodes and even Potts get in on the act; they gather in the old Avengers building one day, Stephen and Peter and Tony all working overtime to make the time loop last long enough for Potts and Rhodes to see Tony. They cry. They beg Tony for forgiveness for burying his body, but Tony just says, “I’d be far more concerned about you if you didn’t.” Rhodes chokes out a laugh. They bombard him with questions, with news about their lives, until time runs out.
Rhodes is the one who says Tony should link himself to his tech to help ease his return. Potts is the one who notes the BARF system and how it might be able to link to Tony’s mind. Peter and EDITH are the ones who manage it, with a single, very long and likely expensive video call with Wakanda to ask for their tech’s help on the matter.
Within weeks after that, Tony has linked himself to a computer and made himself into a sort of virtual AI. It shows a hologram of him, it lets him move more naturally, and finally, it lets him exist in this world once more, without constantly bouncing through space and time so rapidly he showed up nowhere.
Peter helps Stephen work the magic needed to keep the computers from overloading at Tony’s power. He helps Stephen teach Tony control over the new powers he wields. And finally, over two years after Tony ‘died,’ it is Peter, together with Stephen, who gets to see Tony successfully alter reality to allow him a new, fresh body, Peter who gets to hug Tony tight and feel those arms wrap around him for the first time since the battle against Thanos, as Tony solidifies in a single space and time with the stones. It is Stephen who allows Tony to pull him into the same embrace, who gets to hear Tony says, with a voice scratchy from disuse, “thank you. I love you guys.” And it is Peter and Stephen who get to cry on Tony’s shoulders, Peter for having Tony back, Stephen for having the opportunity to hear those words.
Tony refuses to use his powers, fears how they can be used if mishandled, and largely relegates himself to the sanctum, where he will be watched over by the Sorcerer Supreme for what may turn out to be eons. Thankfully, the Sorcerer Supreme is willing to take up that burden for as long as necessary, with Tony’s life, power, and time stones all working to keep the Sorcerer Supreme alive with him. And if they favor one of their students more than the others, it’s probably just because he’s exceptional, and not just because he’s as good as their son.
