Chapter Text
You had never been to New York before. Not in this life, or any other. You weren’t sure this counted either.
Seeing a city from the airport cab ride to Doctor Strange’s place in the city seemed like cheating. You’d seen the famous skyline, but hadn’t step foor anywhere.
“Is there some superhero directory I’m not aware of,” you ask Druig, craning your neck. You were pretty sure that was central park, gone in a flash.
“Sanctums are quite stationary,” he shrugs, licking ketchup off his fingers. You thought airport hotdogs were a bag idea. “This one’d been around since the 1700s. When it was New Amsterdam.”
“Wasn’t Hong Kong closer?”
Druig shakes his head, “we need someone…flexible about all those rules they made about the mystic arts.”
“Two thousand years and it never occured to you until now,” you ask him, slouching into the seat. The world was still intact. The news hasn’t stopped reporting on the new chain of islands in the indian ocean that look like fingers.
Tiamut was neither alive or dead in some weird cosmic energy thing you didn’t understand.
Druig looks over at you sheepishly, “I had other things on my mind.” His gaze flickers down to your chest.
It’s probably the whole averted apocalypse that has you in such an indulgent mood; you lean you head against his shoulder and smack his chest lightly.
“Careful my lady,” he says sounding terribly smug, “Ikaris did attempt to murder me.”
“I guess I’ll have to finish the job,” you rest your hand against his chest, feeling his ribcage move as he breathes. He wasn’t fine.
Druig was careful to keep weight off his left foot.
Phastos had given him the all clear which didn’t make you feel much better. Not when two of them had died in the span of days.
Phastos had left quickly, unable to be away from his family for any longer.
“Oh, is that how it’s gonna be,” he laughs.
“I guess I could let it slide,” you meet his gaze, feeling immense relief all over again, “you did just save the world.”
Druig tips his chin up, looking full of himself.
There was a lightness to him that you’d missed, a playfulness that was so characteristic of your Eternal lover. Your eyes rover over his features that you knew so well. The scar on his cheekbone, near the outer corner of his eyes, had not faded at all. The way his brilliant blue eyes crinkled with easy smiles and how his laugh filled a room.
He was there. Alive. You were both alive.
So many lives and you continued to be enamoured of him. It never got old, being in love, making a home with him. Anyplace, anytime.
There were tears in your eyes.
Again.
All you’d done this week was cry.
“I did,” he nods, pressing his lips against your hair. “Though if you hear Phastos tell it-”
“Yeah,” you clutch the fabric of his shirt.
Sensing your somber mood, Druig wraps his arms around you. “I’m right here, love.” He tucks your head under his chin, “‘S alright.”
“When the plane started to shake,” you say quietly, “I thought that was it-” It was over. The world ending with you in a private plane.
There had been so many close calls.
“The world’s always ending,” you mutter, breathing in his scent. You understood Lizzy, finally.
It was never over. Earth was still in trouble after Thanos.
Captain Marvel had her hands full with the rest of the universe.
“Is this what being part of the universe is like?” Always being scared some empire would come in and take over, being invaded, some asshole destroying your planet for no reason. You didn’t want to sit by and hope for the best. You couldn’t.
It would drive you mad.
“I-,” he frowns. “Well, I wouldn’t really know. Don’t remember anything but Earth.”
“All those planets-” you shift your gaze out the window as the cab pulls to a stop. What about the planets where Arishem got their way?
“I know.”
Druig’s expression grows weary. It was the same way he’d looked when Ajak had forbidden them from aiding the Mexica from smallpox and the genocide on the horizon. He wasn’t going to let this go.
You pay for the cab.
The sanctum is an unassuming building. The plaque is the only way you know you’re in the right place.
You’re surprised there’s no awards for saving half the universe. No Avengers insignia for Doctor Strange.
Druig holds your hand.
“This isn’t some…” you pause, “He can help right?” You didn’t understand much of anything when it came to magic.
“If not,” his eyes glow. “I can always…”
It’s comforting.
“Okay.” You nod.
The world was still spinning. There was nothing else you could do but go for it.
Dr. Strange seemed the type to break whatever rules suited him, very Iron Man-esque who thought he was above the Sokovia Accords. Right? You try not to think to hard about Ultron. About ashes and world heritage sites getting destroyed by the latest threat. The London Eye was still closed.
You breathe.
And knock against the door.
It swings open.
You aren’t sure what to expect as you step through: cauldrons and black witches hats covered in dust and cobwebs. The last sanctum had been ordinary for it’s time, filled with students and ancient sayings in calligraphy hanging on the walls. That isn’t New York either. It lacks the faux orientalism prevalent in Europe circa the 1800s.
No, the New York sanctum feels like a rundown hotel that’s decades past its prime but no less grand for it. There’s tasteful tables with relics you imagine are just as magical as Phastos inventions.
You peer around the grand staircase, expecting to see someone. “Hello?” You don’t have to check to know Druig’s a step behind you. His presence is an anchor as you venture further into the sanctum.
There were no students.
It feels abandoned compared with Hong Kong.
Your chest tightens at the thought of the sleepy fishing village. Hong Kong was nothing like that now. There was a certain pain that came with knowing the world was transformed each time you lived. You thought of street food vendors whose names only you knew.
All that history you carried with you. The faces of people you’d loved. The memories of books that had not survived.
You press your tongue to the roof of your mouth.
In your mind’s eye, the ashes of the Snap were the same as the smoke of Tenochtitlan burning.
Druig sets his hands on your shoulders, “do you think they have an Instagram we can message?”
“Ha, very funny,” Dr. Strange walks in from a corridor, looking over his shoulder like a teenager sneaking out of the house, “do you mind if we move this into the laundry room. Don’t want Wong to interrupt us,” he says even as he leads the way.
“You were expecting us…Dr. Strange,” you state aloud looking for confirmation. It was a parlour trick for these sorcerers.
“Yes and no.” He whips his head, turning to you as he opens a door, “and please call me Stephan. Dr. Strange is grandiose even by my standards.”
“And the discount Jedi robes aren’t,” Druig says cocking his brows.
You elbow him, “look who’s talking.”
“My lady,” he holds his hand against his chest in mock offence.
You roll your eyes at him.
Stephan looks on, amused. “I foresaw the high possibility that you’d stop here…it the world wasn’t destroyed, if you both survived, if you chose to leave. There’s so many factors. A background in statistics is useful in the mystic arts.”
“Well that’s no fun.” You’d been hoping for less maths and more wand waving. In the news, it seemed so easy, just a wave of his hands and-TA DA.
“And neither is reincarnating,” Stephan snarks back, taking a seat on a laundry basket full of either robes or linens.
You purse your lips. “It’s not ideal. But not awful.” You never really remembered dying unless it was awful. That hadn’t happened in a while. No, it was more like being homesick for a time and place that didn’t exist but people struggled with that all the time. People moved so often in this century: never knowing when they’d go back home.
And that wasn’t even touching on displaced people. Millions of Sokovian refugees…
“So you’re not here to get that fixed?” Stephan asks pointedly.
He must’ve decided to become a doctor by watching House M.D. Copied the whole schtick off there.
“I thought it couldn’t be…changed.” You frown, crossing your arms over your chest. You wish you could google this magic stuff. You didn’t like being so badly informed.
“No. The spell you cast can’t be modified,” Stephan agrees, “I’d have to break it and create a new one. Though granting any type of immortality is a big no-no in the mystic arts.”
“Which is why we’re hiding,” Druig infers.
Stephan Strange frowns ruefully, “I’m not Sorcerer Supreme anymore or it’d be my call. I still-I’m still going to help.”
“Right?”
“Earth needs all the allies it can get.”
“So not out of the kindness of your heart,” you surmise, feeling like a pawn. You’d never liked how Ikaris and Ajak had made you feel like a tag along. Like Druig’s human pet. It left a bad taste in your mouth.
“You don’t think you’ve lived long enough?”
And wasn’t that also true. You’d been lucky to witness so much. History and people and spend it with the man you loved, your soulmate, not just once but over and over. It was far longer than most people got. You’d told Druig something similar once.
What made you so special you deserved an exception?
“Oi,” Druig stiffens.
But this wasn’t his call. This wasn’t about him. Not really.
This was about you. You who was just another human having an unusual conversation with a peer. Often, you’d be the token human in the Eternals conversation and no matter how long you’d lived there was still something unique about the human experience that you could relate to Stephan Strange in a way that Druig and Sersi would never understand.
(You’d talk about this with Sprite one day.)
“I think I’ve been very lucky,” you acknowledge. “But all I want is this life. For however long that is. I think I’ve done enough reincarnating, y’know.” It had all been a cosmic accident you didn’t even remember creating. Had you been trying to save yourself and the magic came out like this? Had you meant to create another spell?
These memories were lost to you now. And they didn’t matter.
You were done with living again and again. You didn’t want to forget and remember and forget again. You wanted to hold onto all of you, your memories and thoughts and your muchness as it was right now in this moment and die knowing that was the end. Just like everyone else. (You were curious about what came after, if anything.)
“Okay,” Stephan smiles kindly. “I’ll help you. But- this’ll be it. No second chances. No next time. No do overs. You’ll be frozen in time. You’ll still have your magic, but you won’t age. You couldn’t ever have children. You’ll still be just as breakable as me and every other sucker in New York.”
“Alright.” You nod.
“You sure? I can always just break the spell.”
“I’m sure.”
He nods. “Well then, try and stand still. I need to concentrate.” Dr. Strange waves his hands in cyclical movements.
It’s like a buzz under you skin. Something’s happening, but it’s too foreign for you to understand what. The small cramped room fills with light.
You shut your eyes and count, steadying your breath. This was it.
By this time tomorrow you’d be in space.
It was crazy when you thought about it. No less crazy than Thanos and New York and falling in love with an alien.
1. 2. 3.
Deep breath.
***
Makkari waves her pointer finger in a circular motion, the most universal hand gesture for spin around.
You indulge her, “you’re acting like I grew another head or something.”
The speedster smiles, I am glad you are coming with us.
You grin, “you’re only saying that so I help you with your eReader. Or did you splurge on an Ipad? Wait, you probably stole it.”
Looking awfully mischievous, Makkari holds her finger to her lips, hush now. Didn’t happen if there’s no witnesses.
You laugh, figuring there were worse crimes than stealing from the Apple Store.
The Domo floated above head. Thena was all packed up and ready to go. You’d said your goodbyes to Sersi, Kingo, and Sprite days ago.
Now it was just about leaving. Leaving this green and blue rock you called home.
You bite your bottom lip. It had been hard packing up, mostly because you didn’t know when you’d be back. Clothes, essentials, a magic book from Dr. Strange. Saying your goodbyes hurt the most.
What would Sprite look like at twenty? You were so used to her as an adolescent. Your siblings…
“We don’t have to go.” Druig reaches for your hand. “We can stay if you wish, my lady.”
North Dakota was gloomy today.
“I want to.” That was true. You also felt bittersweet at leaving this planet. “I want to see the stars. Find the other Eternals.” You meet his startling blue eyes, cupping his cheek. “I want to do all of it with you.”
He rests his forehead against yours. “I love you.”
“I know,” you nod, “just, give me a moment.” You squeeze his hand, before slowly heading towards Thena. You take your time, gazing over the landscape. The grass was brown and dead for the season. You’re pretty sure it’s going to rain tonight.
It was frightening to say goodbye to everything you knew. It was frightening to begin a new chapter after so long. There’s security in the known, in the constant, and now that is gone. But you were ready for it. You were ready to begin a new chapter. You weren’t in this alone. You had Thena and Makkari, and the man you loved and that was all you really needed. The people you loved.
You look over your shoulder, watching as Druig hugs Phastos, ready to explore the stars.