ᴅᴏᴄᴛᴏʀ sᴛʀᴀɴɢᴇ (mysticism) wrote in valloic, @ 2022-03-18 18:25:00 |
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Stephen hadn’t tried all of the bagel places in Vallo but he also didn’t really feel the need to either, not with Glenn the Minotaur’s bagel cart right here. Apparently the art of it was in the ‘hand-rolling’ aspect, but also a science too because bakers needed to adjust their proofing times for weather and humidity-related reasons, as all of that changed on a month-to-month basis. The minotaur, whatever secrets he used, seemed to have a knack for it all - so when the goal was to enjoy some good bagels in honor of and dedication to New York City (where the perfect bagel had a crispy crust and was chewy on the inside), it just seemed like a good idea to hit up the cart in the morning. Not too early, of course - Stephen wasn’t sure how late Billy had stayed at Stone House partying the night before, but he’d been there to enjoy the revelry before calling it quits himself. His own days of revelry were far behind him, for the most part, and he wanted to be in bed by a decent hour since, well. He valued sleep. He also valued indigestion meds, though admittedly not even those had helped much yesterday - he still couldn’t eat a lot of the food, not even the amazing trash can nachos he’d contributed, not without feeling sick. Sure, he’d managed, but it had been rough and he hoped he figured out this situation sooner rather than later. Hopefully he could also enjoy this everything bagel with cream cheese he currently had, plus a large coffee, so he’d see how it went. The weather was nice, spring breeze feeling like a comforting hand on the shoulder with the trees and flowers starting to bloom - Stephen sat on a bench near the cart, unwrapping the bagel while the coffee cooled off in its to-go cup a little beside him so he’d be able to drink it without scalding his tongue. “So was your birthday everything you hoped for and more?” “Yeah,” Billy replied, smiling a bit down at his own bagel (cheddar garlic with way too much schmear, Billy was of the opinion you could remove too much cream cheese, but you couldn’t add it on). He also had a large coffee (no cream, but enough sugar to send his blood sugar through the stratosphere and to where the coffee was thick like road tar) and had somehow not spilled it on the way to the bench. Birthday miracle. “It was great.” There had been a lot of food, cake, laughter, and teasing, which was basically exactly what Billy wanted on his birthday. It felt like home, his brain supplied, and Billy knew that was right. He’d always miss New York and the Kaplans, his friends, Teddy was an ache Billy still wasn’t ready to really think about yet, but here, in Vallo, it felt like home. His family and friends didn’t look exactly the same, but they were still his family and friends, no qualifiers or anything like that needed. He nudged Stephen with his shoulder, again still not spilling lava coffee over himself so double win there. “Thanks for coming. I know it’s not exactly your type of thing.” “Not usually, but - “ Stephen laughed a little, sheepishly, because he knew he wasn’t really much of a party animal. They had their soirées at Kamar-Taj, when the moon was full and bright as a manmade street lamp (and have you ever seen a sorcerer partying when the moon was full? Wild, a good time for them to really let their hair down) and all of that magic flowed, the stars themselves tied to hands; they were one with nature and in tune with themselves. But things were difficult and more serious during the In-Between times - after he’d bargained with Dormammu, before Thanos. “I don’t mind making an exception for family.” They were family, right? He liked to think so. And not just because he happened to be the guy marrying Billy and Tommy’s mother - but, well, Stephen cared about the both of them and wanted them to be happy. He also knew they’d deal with a lot of bullshit because that was just the way life was. “Did you like all your gifts?” he asked. Might be a good segue into talking about one particular gift. Billy rolled his eyes, the movement somehow blending sheepish, fondness, and sass all in one. “That’s so sentimental of you,” he teased, grinning. But that too was colored with affection as much as ribbing, the true sign of familial acceptance. Truth be told, Billy would have accepted anyone who loved Wanda and wanted to take care of her the way she deserved as family, but it meant more that Stephen had tried to be an active part of that family. Even when that family looked like AU sons who were legal adults popping up out of the multiverse who communicated through memes and gifs and nerdy references, he tried. “Oh, yeah, everything was amazing but–” he set aside the coffee, demonstrating just how important this was. “Are you sure you want me to have it? Now?” The ‘it’ in question was very much the Book of the Vishanti, not that he didn’t love the classy Game of Thrones set too. Billy had stepped out of his time and reality and seen all possible timelines and realities, saw them as individual panels in a comic book (to no one’s surprise) and becoming the Sorcerer Supreme happened in many of them. Sure, he would have to pass the Trials of the Vishanti, but considering the Demiurge created the Elder Gods that created the Vishanti…it was sort of a foregone conclusion he’d pass. Which really just begged the question if the Demiurge created the Vishanti so that the Demiurge could come to power, but that sort of thing was something Billy both loved debating and made his eyes cross with the logic of it all. And in any case, he was pretty sure this wasn’t Stephen handing over the mantle, or Cloak, as it were. Did he want Billy to have the Book of the Vishanti now? Well, maybe not. To Stephen, Billy was still young - the last thing he deserved was to end up like the sorcerer sitting next to him. Stephen himself was hardened by battle, and when he’d arrived in Vallo he was on the path of reckoning - reckoning with his lonely place in the entirety of the multiverse, and deciding what that meant for him; he never expected to be getting married because he was already married to his work. To his duty of keeping the fabric of reality intact, ensuring that the tapestry didn’t unravel - but it was going to. It was going to was the theme of his life - time wasn’t frozen, it wasn’t hoarfrost suspended in the air or when he closed his eyes. Time kept ticking forward, marching onward and was one of the few certainties he knew. “I’m sure,” he rumbled, sipping his coffee - he took a few swallows before letting the cup rest on his leg, stiff fingers wrapped around the cardboard sleeve. “Can I be honest with you though? About my intentions. About - what you may need to do with the book.” “Of course you can be,” Billy started. He preferred it that way, in fact, for too long other superheroes had focused on the ‘young’ part of the Young Avengers instead of the fact that those ‘kids’ were right at their sides in battle. And Billy had experience firsthand, treated as if he couldn’t know things or make decisions because as the son of the Scarlet WItch along with her reality warping powers he’d inherited what others deemed as instability. So yes, Billy wanted honesty. He looked off in the distance, not looking at anything so much as looking through. Billy didn’t have full access to all of his Demiurge magic all of the time (honestly, that sounded just straight up tiring) but when he let mind wander a bit, he could see the very way the fabric of reality was knit. How easy it could be altered. The impact that tugging at one string had, or when another string was attached to nothing at all and could be removed without consequence. “But should you?” “I think I owe it to you to be.” Stephen had a few talks recently about acceptance - and how it was just really damn hard. He was a person who had sought magic to heal his hands, and then morphed into someone who forced himself and Dormammu into an endless time loop in order to save the world from being devoured by the Dark Dimension; it was the ultimate test for becoming who he was today, requiring him to give up the universe he knew and loved, the people he knew and loved, in order to die over and over at the hands of a creature who could not love at all - a creature who was utterly soulless, and Stephen willingly volunteered to keep falling deep into it for presumably the rest of time. Whatever this had been, it set him on a path of service to the multiverse. But he wasn’t always going to make those kinds of decisions, not in every timeline. He’d seen himself when acts of selflessness were erased, evaporated like when mist was hit by the sun’s rays - Love can break more than your heart. It can shatter your mind. That’s exactly what happened to him. It was very human, very heavy - and he would have to live with that. “When I held the time stone I saw a myriad of paths and possibilities,” he said. “Not all of them were good and while I can’t guarantee any will happen, I want to be prepared in the event that the worst ones come to pass. The Book of the Vishanti is the only thing that can destroy the Darkhold. And if I’m not around, or if I can’t - I need you to do it.” Fact of the matter was, he knew Wanda - he knew her intimately, and he knew himself. Knew that they both had it in them to lose control - it was actually very easy, and what mattered to Stephen wasn’t even himself anyway. Wanda was who mattered. They were powerful, both of them, but they were human and had their own weaknesses - and yet Stephen would always, always put her above him. He wouldn’t let her moral wheel fall too off course, the way he knew it could because he recognized her flaws (his flaws). And he was going to do whatever he had to do to ensure that she didn’t veer too far - she would come back to him. “Funny,” Billy’s lips quirked up a bit, because he couldn’t resist a quip. “When I held it all I saw was the back of my eyelids after.” But even with that teasing, Billy understood. He hated to steal Peter Parker’s line, but when it was so fitting he found that he had to. With great power comes great responsibility. There was a difference between forcing the world to be what you wanted it to be and making nudges towards what did the least amount of harm. Billy had learned that lesson the hard way, many times. His heart still gave a lurch when he thought of Nate, traveling through the time stream over and over and over again in an attempt to avoid becoming someone else–and it caught up to him in the end. Billy still missed him. Would probably forever miss Nate Richards, his friend who believed him when no one else did. He was more than Kang the Conqueror. He picked up his coffee, the heat sinking into his hands. “I’ll do it.” That part was easy, barely a decision at all really, because Billy figured at some point in time he’d have to do something with the book. Right now, it lived in a pocket universe, just a thought away because Billy absolutely did not have a good enough display case yet. Once again Billy stared off until the world blurred into threads and bits and bobs. “Did you tell Wanda?” Stephen didn’t want this particular path to be the winding road Vallo chose to put them on - and yet he knew it was inevitable. Their time here was tremulous, it was delicate like bone china cups caught in an earthquake, and it made Stephen weary - and wary, yes. Because for all of the good things that happened, there was heartache too - there was still home that lingered at the edges of their collective Outlander consciousness, and what that meant for them was different for each person. For Stephen, it meant the bill coming due - in a few ways. He’d messed with time when he put himself into a loop to fight off Dormammu. When he resurrected Wong, bringing him back from the dead. When he repaired the London Sanctum after the zealots destroyed the building. When he saw over fourteen million outcomes, when he lost everything personally, when his mind nearly shattered from the weight of it all - from the weight of one. That wasn’t going to go without some type of consequence. For Wanda, it was different but also similar. She was on a path to become something very dangerous, because she had sacrificed a lot after Westview. She’d sacrificed having friends, living away from society, proper grieving; she didn’t accept help since she mistrusted people (understandable) and also herself and would likely turn into what Agatha said she would, a vicious self-fulfilling prophecy, and he knew her moral wheel had already been wrenched far off from where it had been when she brought down the Hex in Westview. Because of that damn book. Because she was trying to handle a dangerous artifact she knew nothing about other than what a person told her who tried to steal her magic. “Not yet, not about giving you the Book of the Vishanti - but she’s been studying the Darkhold. She had a dream about it, in her last memory update,” he said, taking a small bite of the bagel - breaking off a piece, really. “And we both know it’s only a matter of time.” What did Wanda say before, when she asked Stephen if he was sure he wanted to marry her? A sorcerer who’d do everything to protect reality, and a witch that very well might break it. “I love her,” he added, and Billy knew that. “So much. It’s going to be hard, but - I also know we’ll be okay.” He didn’t know if Wanda would try to kill him (possibly) or if he’d give in to those parts of himself that he knew were mangled and hurt enough to be tempted by the Darkhold too (also possible - that was why he was giving Billy this counteractive book, Stephen didn’t trust himself either) but he knew that he loved his family. That had to be enough. “I know,” Billy said, simply, with another shoulder nudge to Stephen. Because he did know it, but just Stephen felt the need to say it, Billy wanted to acknowledge it as well. “I do too.” Which also didn’t need to be said, of course Billy loved his bonus mom. And he was the Demiurge, more magic than magic, Tommy and Billy had originally been created out of literally a wish and a hope, and then played hopscotch with the timeline to be reincarnated. Billy wasn’t always that confident in his magic, but his magic was rooted in his own determination and want, and he always, always wanted to defend and protect the people who meant most to him. He didn’t need a book for that, Billy’s magic would be enough, even when face to face with Wanda. But he would be lying if he said it wasn’t super cool and helped with that whole confidence bit. Billy had always been more of a ‘magic rules, what are they anyway’ type of caster, reality altering didn’t need any because that was the entire point of altering reality, breaking all of the rules. It was the same with chaos magic too. “I don’t think we should keep it from her. That’s happened too often, and I think–we shouldn’t do that. Out of anyone, we shouldn’t.” He didn’t know what the right solution was, or how to broach the topic of ‘hey just in case this evil book shows up, FYI, here’s the plan’ but…it didn’t sit right with Billy. And he still retained that hope that whatever drew Wanda to the Darkhold in the first place, that time and space had done enough healing for her that she didn’t feel called to it. Stephen really wished that it would be as simple as revealing the plan and then executing the plan without a hitch - and yet it wasn’t going to be. Call him pessimistic, call him a downer, but - when the heady chemicals of love settled into more of a simmer, you looked into the depths of the concoction and saw your partner’s flaws for what they were. It didn’t mean blowing up into an argument, it didn’t mean leaving them, because when you picked up one end of the stick (the good) you also picked up the other (the bad) - and you didn’t let it go. But it did mean that you had to accept that the same energy that was put into the things you loved about your partner was also put into their less than desirable characteristics too. Sometimes that was hard to do. He also wanted to believe Wanda wouldn’t even feel like she needed to touch the Darkhold. However? We didn’t always get what we wanted, and Stephen Strange was well aware of that little fact. “We’ll talk to her,” he promised. “I don’t know if all of the details are necessary. That may be hurting more than helping, if that path is never walked upon. Vallo is quirky too, after all. But honesty is important - and I do always want to be honest with her.” Stephen wouldn’t ever lie to Wanda. He was just used to knowing too much, and dealing with that burden which often meant hurting himself far more than anyone else. One out of fourteen million also rang a bell - a very loud one. And he knew he’d end up paying the price for that too, at some point. For not just letting half the universe cease to exist (this job sucked, had he ever mentioned that before? Because it did). Billy nodded, taking a moment to take a long swig of coffee. “Okay. Okay.” Talking to Wanda was what he was most concerned about, he never wanted to take away her autonomy. That had been done to his Wanda too many times, it had been done to Billy enough as well to know the deep betrayal and self-doubt that came along with it. He knew enough about this Wanda to know how much she’d experienced already and he’d always, always want to protect her and take her side. He tapped his coffee cup against Stephen’s as a sort of toast. “Welcome to the family. If we’re not breaking the laws of speed, reality, time, magic, really, whatever rules there are, we disregard them entirely.” Billy’s nose wrinkled, probably not as endearing as Wanda’s. “That’s an awful toast. Do not ask me to be your best man. Have you picked one yet? This is important, I hear.” Chuckling, Stephen returned the toast with a gentle knock of to-go coffee cups. “Glad to be here,” he said, and he meant it. If he admitted it to himself, he’d always wanted kids - always wanted a family. But he never had them, back in the clusterfuck that was his timeline - had chosen not to, despite his own desires, and that was really the crux of his life. His duty. He did what he had to do, not necessarily what he wanted to do. In Vallo, it was a lot different - more of a balance, really. Both he and Wanda had an appreciation for the way things worked out - that they weren’t necessarily tied to ‘destiny’ or ‘prophecy’ or shouldering the same responsibilities. For Stephen, it was a big deal. “I haven’t picked one yet though - we still need to select a date,” he added sheepishly, taking another bite of bagel. “But when we do, I know she’ll want you involved in some way. So do I.” Groomsman, maybe? Was that a thing? Gods, he had no idea who he would ask to be his Best Man. Stark, maybe. That felt appropriate. “Tommy can be the ringbearer and the flower carrier basically at the same time,” Billy pointed out, smirking at the thought. “Throw some petals, speed back, bring the rings around. He could probably work as the wait staff for the reception too.” He sat back and took a thoughtful bite of his bagel. Because of the time that had passed, it had cooled off, so with a flash of white-blue magic Billy set it back to perfectly crisp and toasted. Perhaps it wasn’t the best use of powers, but it also did the trick. “I mean it, you know,” he said. “Welcome to the family.” The shovel talk was totally coming by the way, eventually!! But right now? Now was for a little sentimentality. Probably a little late for the shovel talk (or was it ever too late?) but Stephen appreciated the thought. He didn’t exactly know what was in store for them, despite seeing a light-up maze of potentials when he held that glowing green rock in his hand - and he hoped that whatever path they traversed, they would all have each other to walk beside each other. That was what he wished for the most. What he wanted. “I know,” he smiled a little, surprised that he’d managed to keep the bagel down - but he wouldn’t look a gift horse in the mouth. The ‘everything’ part of it had him pushing his limits in terms of spice (sad) but so far, so good. “You’re a good kid, Billy.” He wasn’t technically a kid - but was also probably not all grown up either, and honestly, it took awhile to get there. Some oldsters hadn’t even made it yet. But so far, this particular Billy cookie dough was baking pretty well - and he’d come out well done at the end of it all too. |