Dr. Stephen Strange (doctor__strange) wrote in avengers_logs, @ 2018-03-30 23:07:00 |
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Entry tags: | -complete, -gamewide plot, nick fury, stephen strange |
Who: Fury and Strange
What: full disclosure about the timeline, AKA why Dr. Strange has been so shifty about details.
When: After Fury asked for Strange.
Rating/Warning: Green
Stephen Strange stepped through a portal into Nick Fury's apartment. Maybe not stepped through, as much as the cloak of levitation caused him to float down a step to the floor. The portal closed in on itself behind him as he took a look around for the occupant. He didn't need an escape route, because he didn't have any reason to feel distrustful of Nick Fury. He was on his way to get a talking tree out of the Black Forest in Germany and back home to its own dimension before it started dropping seeds. But the second he dropped off the welcome pack he got a read of the man's aura. There were secrets hidden there, but there was a strange sort of goodness there at the heart of it all, that let him know that this man would go against all of the odds to set things right if possible. It was like the universe said that Fury wasn't going to be a problem. Unlike some others. Which was why he left that note. It was better to send him to the source of some recent problems, even if Stark seemed like he was trying to get himself back on track and not cause as much trouble. There was a connection there between them. An unseen silvery thread that, when Strange plucked it, gave off the same forceful but chaotic red fluctuations that he associated with Tony Stark. Fury seemed a much more stabilizing entity. There had been a brief glimpse of Fury's aura, a steady and consistent shadowy black strewn with warm gold clung around the former spy. It was uniform. It didn't fluctuate. After recent events, perhaps that's what everyone needed right now. "Mister Fury," Stephen called out, to let Fury know he was present. "I'm Doctor Stephen Strange. You summoned me." Fury looked dispassionately at the man as he sized him up. So this was the illustrious Strange. Meddler of time. Bah. He looked like a sissy. Within seconds, Fury was bored and he returned his attention to what he was doing: chopping vegetables. Cooking had always been a soothing activity, something that he enjoyed doing. A man like himself, who travelled frequently, and had no specific routine... well, it was comforting to have a home-cooked meal. He'd made passable spaghetti carbonera in fox holes, with only a Bunsen burner, a lighter, and a pot of water. He'd made bread at altitudes that would make pastry chefs cry. Risottos? Pshhhh. Not even a challenge. So that's why the table was set, fresh bread on a cutting board, while he finished up the salad. "Have a seat, Doctor Strange. You're not getting out of here any time soon, so you may as well make yourself comfortable." So it was a dinner invite. "Great," Stephen said, with a sigh of relief. At least Fury was someone who could take a talk about magic and time breaking. That first talk with Stark had been a truly trying experience. Trying on his patience, that is. Throw in the fact that he was still having a battle of wills with his possessed fridge that was trying to kill him, and Stephen was ready for a sit down meal. There was only so much delivery food and tea that a man could stand, even if it was New York and the options were available. It was hard to explain how to get to a building that passersby on the street were magically ignoring, though. He often had to wait outside on the sidewalk. As he sat down, Stephen shrugged and the cloak lifted itself off his shoulders and floated off to one side, to wait out of the way, by the wall. "This is a first. Most people don't cook for me when I'm the bearer of bad news," Stephen said. "I know you have many questions. I'll try to answer as best as I can, given the complicated nature of our...being here." "I don't believe in bad news." The older man put the finishing touches on his caprese salad, and brought it to the table. "That only means you didn't prepare appropriately. There is nothing that can't be dealt with." He met Strange's eyes in a cold stare. "Nothing. I think you're the type of man that can agree with that. There is always another measure, maybe just not what makes people happy." Motioning towards the table, Fury cocked an eyebrow. "Red or white wine?" "Red, please." Stephen said, although he wouldn't be drinking too much. Not when he had too many background spells running for alerting to him to potential planetary catastrophes in the making. "Since an eternal entity from the dark dimension was already over Hong Kong, intent on feasting on the entire planet and the rest of the universe? I didn't have a lot of time to consider other measures, as much as a last ditch effort to reverse time and loop it, to drive a bargain and save everything I could. Everything afterward was unintended." Not much choice there, or time to contemplate. He wished there had been. Stephen looked over the salad and then up at Fury, his own gaze resolute in doing what he would to save the planet and protect every life he could courtesy of his doctor's oath. Pouring Strange a glass, and one for himself in the process, Fury contemplated the man's answer. In the grand scheme of things, it did appear that this was the best option over planetary destruction. How many times had he had to make a call, knowing full well that the residual trauma wouldn't be simply a few broken buildings. Without responding, he abruptly headed to the stove, puttering around for a few minutes, before returning with a dish in hand. "Family style," he said, unironically, as he set the ravioli down. He sat down himself, holding the wineglass by the stem, as he rolled the liquid around slowly. "Help yourself. I'm still thinking of questions for you." Stephen liked quiet. Of the comfortable variety, of course. Where it was a quiet library and a good book about how to deal with entities from various dimensions using cosmic origami. This was more of a tense silence, but one he didn't seem to be adverse to or made uncomfortable by. He logged many hours in surgery, with moments of tense silence during delicate procedures. "Thanks," Strange said, helping himself to some of the salad and ravioli. Before he took a bite, he watched Fury for a moment. "I'm sure there's a lot of questions. I've heard a lot of them. I'll try to explain, although I'm looking at it from the perspective of a sorcerer, and not a physicist. So the answers might not be satisfactory." "Try me." One bottle of wine, an empty pasta platter, and an hour later, Fury finally felt like he had a good grasp on things. That didn't make him any happier though. "So, just to make sure I got this straight: timeline split in Hong Kong, Asgard is blown up, this timeline is actually bringing people into it, for reasons we don't quite know, other than they're needed and no one can fix this. This is where we live now." He leaned back into his chair, and tapped a finger on the table. "Oh -- and my life here is basically my life there only I'm here. Not there." He let out a deep breath, nostrils flaring slightly as he stared down the magician. "So what I am supposed to do with all this information?" "Essentially," Stephen said, his hands folded together on the table. "What happened was this alternate reality was created during the Hong Kong incident. No one realized it yet. It was unstable, but not noticeable. When Asgard fell, the destruction of a super dense realm sent a shockwave throughout this already fragile timeline, which caused time to fracture further." It wasn't a pretty picture. Whenever Strange stepped into the astral plane of this universe, it sounded like the tinkling of breaking glass, with the occasional racket of glacial ice cracking under a great strain. Needless to say, he wasn't getting as much of his night-time studying done on the astral plane while his body slept. "First, people started to sense the change or to be pulled here from other parts of the world," Stephen explained with a nod in the affirmative. "Then it became people pulled from different points in time. Even as far back as the original timeline before it split. Or a copy of what was in your timeline over-writing the place of Nick Fury in this timeline, as it seems. The other universe still has a Nick Fury in it. I checked. It's complicated and involves dimensional hopping. "So now that you know, I think we both realize that the general population of this world is incapable of handling such knowledge. Not about magic, or the larger mystical or alien threats to this world, or that they are alternate versions of themselves. And that's why I'm about to share something that I haven't even shared with the rest of those on the network. The timing and the personalities involved were not right, until you were awakened to what's happened." Some things were set in stone and could not be changed, in both universes. It ran the risk that humanity at large - (which weren't very smart in Stephen's opinion) - might think that being a copy in a copied world 'didn't matter' and would start behaving badly. And there wouldn't be enough superheroes or people in the know, to stop that sort of mass worldwide rampage and rioting. Something they had best avoid. And not cause their superheroes and hangers on even more undo anxiety than they were already experiencing, either. "I believe your place is to do what you do best," Stephen suggested. "Help me keep things quiet, while simultaneously keeping this world and its inhabitants safe. It isn't a task anyone ever expected, but it's equally important to anything happening in the original and much more stable universe. This is very real in its own right, a perfect copy of everything and everyone that existed up until the point that we branched off in our own timeline. If we fail in such a duty, this world can, and will, fall to pieces. As the focal point, the entire universe will collapse along with it. Killing every living being in it." That was the thing at stake that he hadn't disclosed to anyone else. Stark had too much on his plate that was causing anxiety and sarcasm, and it didn't seem like anyone else was able to process and deal with such news. But he could see that Fury was someone who could process such knowledge, and know what to do with it while keeping it under wraps to not cause the chess pieces to go into a disarray. So he didn't have a second thought about being frank and open about the truth of it all. Nick Fury was a rock, and what more, a rock that knew some secrets were better left...secret. Fury understood completely what Strange was getting at. There were always gatekeepers, and he was one of them. The amount of classified information he was in possession of .... it made his head hurt sometimes. Not that he would ever admit it, of course. "So keep being me, basically." That was easy enough to do. "Are all my contacts still here? I'll need to travel then, am I able to do that?" He gestured to the network phone on the table beside his plate. "When I got that thing, I was in the middle of packing and I had this feeling that I shouldn't leave NYC. Is that this timeline keeping me here?" "Keep being you," Stephen confirmed with a steady gaze. It really was like being a gatekeeper, and what made it through that gate or what was stopped in its tracks was very much of grave importance in the grand scheme of things. "Your contacts and everything else you knew would remain the same as they were, before. Everything is the same. Only now, you know what is going on here. Behind the scenes." Stephen looked over to the phone, remembering when he dropped it off with his snarky note. He hoped that having Fury visit Stark would give the other man a reminder that this was all more than about himself. "As for that feeling, I think it's a shared one. This seems to be the epicenter," he told Fury, but looked uncertain. "We aren't bound to one place as far as I can tell, but I'm unsure to what extent. No one has tested those limits as of yet. And if they have, they haven't shared such information with me." Fury took a plug of his wine and gave a decisive nod. His mind had been made up before Strange spoke but it was nice to get the full story. He hated secrets. "I'm in." A pause. "And happy to test any boundaries as necessary." |