⌠was in the sanctum, apparently. He thought heâd been at the Compound, but the Compound was gone, wasnât it? So of course he was at the sanctum. In the tea room, specifically.Â
Panic gripped him as he spun, yelling for his fiancĂŠ. He heard the sound of running footsteps before Stephen appeared, his eyes wild. Tony took a step forward, worried that he was hurt, when some instinct held him back.
There was blood on Stephenâs hands.Â
It dripped off them, and Tony somehow knew that it wasnât Stephenâs own blood. And the look in his eyes.Â
âWhat have you done?â he whispered. âWhatââ
He was so busy staring at Stephenâs face that he completely missed looking at his hands. A moment later, pain seared through him and the taste of blood filled his mouth. It was weird (strange, a part of his mind cackled hysterically), because he was fairly certain that the blade had gone through his stomach not his lungs, but â
The pain hit him and he doubled forward, and then Stephen pulled the blade out.
Blood went everywhere, and Stephen â Stephen was smiling and smearing the blood over Tonyâs face and Tony knew, he just knew that the thing heâd feared, the nightmare that lurked at the corner of his mind â it had happened.
Stephen Strange, sorcerer supreme, had finally succumbed to the demons in his mind.
âOh god, Steggy,â he choked out, as Stephen flashed back to sanity and apologised and all Tony could hear was âHelp me, help me, Tony, âend thisâ
âI canâtââ he screamed, but Stephen was suffering and mad, insanity lighting those beautiful eyes and this was what absolute power did oh my god Stephen, I love youâ
Power surged through his reactor, almost like a last, dying pulse, and the nanites moved. The unibeam cannon formed around his reactorâ
Cut a hole right through Stephenâs chest and all Tony could do was laugh and cry, hysteria and mental and physical agony the most awful of combinations in his veins.Â
Shot through the heartâ and youâre to blame
He fell to his knees and screamed.Â
there was too much going on, a surge of panic, a surge of fear - darkness, pain, blood. stephen gasped when the last thing he saw was the white-light of the unibeam aimed towards him and...
no, not gone -- he was back in the sanctum, this time he was upstairs in his bedroom. their bedroom. turning his head at the sound of tonyâs screams, stephen immediately rushed out of the room and down the stairs - rushing his way towards the tea room where he...
blinking at tony, stephen tilted his head at him and frowned, âtony, itâs me-itâs alright iâm alive iâm--â but he stopped when he took notice of his hands - he was in his astral form....but how?! he hadnât put himself in it so.... what?
sensing danger, stephen stepped back and whirled around, forcing himself back and towards their bedroom to search for his body, except.... it wasnât there. when he turned to face the door, he suddenly found himself back in the tea room, looking down at his mangled body and tony kneeling over it.
âtony, something is very wrong here. none of this seems real, tony, snap out of it!â and with that, Stephen made his presence known.