Time's Revenge - Doctor Strange

1 - The Sanctum

It was snowing outside. Heavily. White cotton was dropping from the sky lightly, gently, as if sprinkled by a heavenly hand. In the streets, children were playing with the snow, running around parcs and alleys, and some adults even took part in the fun.

  It was as if New York had been covered by a thin sheet of ice. While the city was usually grey, ordinary, depressingly dark, today the streets were living, full of joy and laughter, the citizens calling a temporary truce in their war against life, and taking a time to simply fall back, and enjoy living in the moment.

  Observing this from the top balcony of the Sanctum, Doctor Stephen Strange smiled at how quickly life had returned to Earth. It seemed the world had forgotten that, only a month ago, half of all humans were still missing. Five years before that, they had all vanished. At once - like someone had simply snapped their fingers.
 
  It was as if they had never existed. For five whole years, humanity had wandered, lost, unsure of what to do. Some had lost wives, fathers, sons, cousins, or even their entire family.

  Strange had been part of the missing. He remembered being slowly torn to ashes, his body gradually crumbling to dust, lightly, gently, alike a snowflake falling to the ground. These five years had felt like sleep. But without dreams. Five years of simple nothingness, void, floating in a place out of space and time.

  After their "revival", Strange had summoned every single Avenger in a single place; the Wakandan nation, the Guardians of the Galaxy, Spider-Man, Scarlet Witch, The Winter Soldier and the rest. All had fought, as an army, as a united nation, battling for the same cause: justice. Justice to Thanos. Justice to the disappeared, to the dead, to the living who had lost so much, to the entire universe. Together, they had defeated Thanos, and had erased his entire army with a snap of the finger, just like he had nonchalantly obliterated half of the galaxy.

  Doctor Strange hadn't lived it the same way the others had, though. Because he was the only one of the entire battle, on either side, to already have known the issue of the battle before it had even started. Using his precious Time Stone, he had seen every single possible outcome of the war. Millions of them. And only one - one - of them resulted in their victory. But it wasn't without great loss. In the end, they had lost some of their bravest heroes. But they had no choice. Everything required a sacrifice.

  He recalled slowly nodding his head at Iron Man to attack Thanos- he would take the infinity stones from him and destroy the whole army. But the assault would take his life, and he'd die a hero.

  Doctor Strange was taken aback by the memory. It was the first time he remembered it like that. In his head, he had saved the Earth from inevitable destruction - he hadn't considered that it was actually him who told Tony to attack the Titan. He had sent Iron Man to his death.

  Doctor Strange crumpled into his chair at the weight of this realization. He had indirectly killed Tony Stark.

  He tried to reassure himself - it was for the greater good. If he hadn't done that, Thanos would have won. He had no choice.

  But what if he had? Maybe he hadn't seen all the possibilites. After all, he wasn't that experienced in the world of the mystic arts. Could he have missed some outcomes where the Avengers won? Could there have been another way?

  This was his fault. Iron Man had died because of him. He hadn't even considered taking the stones from Thanos himself, being the selfish fool that he was. With a disdainful nod of the head, he had sent a hero to his death. And now he knew he would never be able to live with it.

Author's Note

September 7th, 2019

Hi! So, how do you like it so far? If you do, then please give me a nice little star and comment what you loved (and what you didn't)!
A next part is coming soon, but in the meantime, feel free to check out my other books! :)