Avengers fic: Time It Was (And What a Time It Was) 1/1
Title: Time It Was (And What a Time It Was)
Disclaimer: I own nothing.
A/N: For kristen_mara, as a very late Christmas present. She deserves so much more, but I do hope she can enjoy a tidbit of her favorite pairing, even if it is a little (lot) late. Unbeta'ed. Spoilers for the whole MCU up through Infinity Wars with future spec. Steve/Bucky focused with a lot of mentions of other characters. Title with apologies to Simon and Garfunkel.
Summary: Look for the start. Then you’ll see the end.
-o-
When Stephen Strange looks into the future that’s not all he sees. He looks for the ending, of course. That’s the point.
But he sees the beginning, too.
It’s inevitable, you see.
You can’t see one without the other.
He sees time like a tapestry, threads woven together.
All he has to do is pull one.
And the whole thing comes undone.
-o-
There’s an ending, you see. One where Thanos doesn’t win. One where the Avengers come together and make the universe right again.
It’s a universe where Thor leads the remnants of his people as refugees on Earth. Where Tony marries Pepper and they have that baby. Where T’Challa bring Wakanda into the world, emerging as a sound and steady world power in the age to come. Where Natasha and Bruce make it work, where Clint retires to his farm with his family. Scott Lang raises his daughter; Peter Parker grows up; Peter Quill comes back to Earth.
Steve Rogers settles with Bucky Barnes in New York, where they start, where they end.
Happy endings, all around.
The happiest.
-o-
Strange lingers there because he wants to understand.
He wants to know.
He wants to see.
All the ways things can go wrong.
All they need is one chance to get it right.
-o-
It’s not an easy path, and that’s to say the absolute least.
The strands are contrasting colors, and they overlap more than they should. Strange has to see them pull through the vestiges of time perfectly, just perfectly and it looks like disaster until the last moment.
Until it comes together.
-o-
That’s the end, though.
Strange knows this, believes it, clings to do it.
The end is what matters.
But the beginning.
Well, that’s how you get there.
-o-
Strange has the time stone. All of time.
From the beginning to the end.
Some say the Avengers started during the invasion of New York.
Strange follows the threads, though. He knows better.
It starts in New York, yes.
Nearly a century early.
-o-
In the 1930s, Steve Rogers is in New York. He’s a runt of a kid, small and sickly. He’s got nothing going for him, nothing at all. His mother’s alone, and they’re so poor that Steve doesn’t eat dinner every night. Their apartment is cold, and Steve’s face is bruised from another fight he couldn’t bring himself to walk away from.
This is how it is for days, for weeks, for years. Steve walks home alone to an empty apartment.
Then, one day, he’s not alone.
One day, another boy smiles with him as they walk home, kicking rocks down the gutter.
Two boys in Brooklyn, huddled together beneath a blanket as they do their homework. It’s a ratty blanket, threadbare in spots. It’s hand stitched, a meager defense against the cold.
It’s all they have.
It’s all they need.
-o-
You don’t get to pick and choose the strands, you see. Strange will try to explain this to people, countless times, countless ways. No one gets it. No one wants to get it. The strands in the tapestry of time: they are what they are.
It’s up to you how they go together, however.
A chaotic mess.
A beautiful mirage.
The truth is always the clearest image, though. Strange has found that for himself, after all this time.
The one you can’t unsee no matter how much of the rest changes.
-o-
See, when you look at the story, the whole story, in 2018, Steve Rogers is an old man. You can’t tell by looking at him, but it still shows. He’s too old to be doing this; too old for any of it. He’s wanted to walk away, but he’s still the kid who can’t walk away from a fight.
He’s still ready for what comes next.
He has to be.
That’s the thread that holds his narrative together.
The one thread that can’t unravel.
But when Thanos snaps his fingers, half of the universe disappears, taking Bucky with it.
Bucky disintegrates in the wind as time unravels strand by strand by strand.
And it’s the first time that Steve breaks.
It’s the only time.
-o-
It’s a conversation they don’t have in this timeline; it’s a conversation they’ve had, though. Strange knows it, even if Steve doesn’t. He still hears the question.
“When you looked, when you saw all the possible futures, did you see this?”
Steve doesn’t understand, after all. He doesn’t know what it means to live by sight and not by faith. He’s a man of faith, almost by necessity. Not religious faith, at least not necessarily, but faith in ideals, in humanity, in the inherent goodness of the world that needs to be protected.
That’s why he’s a hero.
The hero to start it.
The one to end it.
“That’s the thing about time that you aren’t quite grasping,” Strange explains in another timeline. Another life they might live, they could live, but don’t. “It’s not just the future. It’s the whole story, from beginning to end.”
Steve thinks about that, about the possible lives he could have had. He thinks about telling Tony the truth about Bucky, about keeping the Avengers together. He thinks about finding another way to land the plane, about taking Peggy up on that dance. He thinks about catching Bucky as he falls off the train and out of his life.
He thinks about never taking the serum.
He thinks about two little boys, sharing a single blanket.
Steve can only frown. “You saw everything?”
Strange can be a smug, arrogant bastard, that much is true. Not even dying a thousand, million, billion times could change that. It’s just who he is, as much as this is Steve Rogers.
Still, Strange smiles.
Not all the futures are good.
Some of their history is worse.
But he knows a reason to hope.
“Even the strange, disparate parts,” he confirms. “The ones you never know how to make sense of.”
Steve doesn’t quite know what to make of that; no one could. Holding the time stone at least gives Strange a reason to be an obtuse bastard and no one can question it. No one else can see the fractures of time and the infinite possibility being whittled down to single, inevitable choices.
“And you saw how it ends?” Steve asks, and he’s thinking of Thanos.
“No,” Strange tells him, because this story isn’t really about Thanos or any of the destruction he wrought. “I saw how it begins.”
-o-
When Steve’s mother dies, it’s not the tragedy you think it should be. It’s sad, of course. Steve is heartbroken. But he doesn’t come home to an empty apartment.
He comes home to Bucky.
Ash to ash, dust to dust.
The priest says it at the funeral but he doesn’t understand.
He doesn’t know what bitterness tastes like a century later when Steve reaches out for a hand that dissolves, as insubstantial and essential as air.
-o-
Strange knows that Steve will be asked to sacrifice a lot to stop Thanos.
Maybe everything.
It’s a lot to ask of anyone.
It’s even more to assume.
Anyone else, Stephen Strange might hesitate. Tony Stark, hell yes. Thor, probably. Bruce Banner, T’Challa, Natasha Romanov, Wanda Maximoff: they’re all good people, good heroes, but Strange would have second thoughts about any of them. Third thoughts and fourth thoughts about Stark.
But this is Steve Rogers.
By the time he faces the endgame, he’s already had the one constant thread in his life severed.
Honestly, he’s simply a man with nothing left to lose.
And everything to gain.
-o-
That’s why some people think he joined the army, for the lack of other options. They think he saw it as a duty, an obligation. An orphan with his best friend overseas: that’s why he kept applying under false pretenses. Everyone thinks Steve Rogers is a guy with nothing to lose.
But the past tells another story.
Steve had a lot to lose when he joined the army, and he knew it.
Maybe he knew, way back then, that his life was part of a bigger picture.
Maybe he was just following Bucky’s thread, wherever it led, wherever it had to lead.
Maybe it didn’t matter, maybe it doesn’t matter. Maybe it’s all those things and none of those things: the outcome is still the same.
Stitch by stitch, Bucky’s thread pulls at Steve and Steve’s pulls right back, until their destinies are woven together.
-o-
See, Steve’s not really a soldier. Strange can see that by looking at the end. It’s hard to tell, even at the start, honestly, and he doesn’t fault those people who think that’s all he is. A guy who has to fight, who doesn’t know how to live without a cause to lay down his life for.
Someday, no matter what universe you look at, and Strange has looked all of them, Steve puts down the shield.
Someday, he takes off the suit.
Someday, he’s back to being Steve Rogers, looking for someone to call his own on the streets of New York City.
-o-
Time, space, reality, memory: it’s all variable, you see. Strange appreciates that now that he’s held onto the time stone this long. None of it stands pure, not even when things are set right.
The things that are still standing when things go wrong, therefore, are the things that really matter.
-o-
When Steve goes to rescue Bucky, to rescue everyone on that first mission that he’s not supposed to be on in World War 2, he can only think about the last time he saw his best friend. He remembers seeing him on a boat as it left the harbor in New York, pulling slowly, slowly away. He’d stood there, on the docks, holding his breath and telling himself he’s not going to cry, he’s not going to cry, he’s not going to cry. He’s told himself, in all the years that have passed since, that it’s because he always felt that he should be going too that made it so hard.
But when he finds Bucky, when he finds Bucky alive and weak and alive, he knows in an instant it isn’t true. Steve’s an honest man to a fault, but God help him, it’s not true. The war Steve’s fighting isn’t just on a battlefield in Europe. It’s ripping apart the inside of his own chest with every beat of his heart.
Because he thinks about the last time he saw his best friend and how it broke his heart.
And he thinks about this time and how it makes the whole world right again.
The way Bucky’s face lights up when he opens his eyes and sees Steve, and he’s pretty sure that Bucky feels the same way.
There’s no time for that, though.
There’s no time at all.
-o-
That’s Thanos’ ploy, in the end. It’s how he wins.
Eliminate half the universe, and the second half will come crumbling after into submission. Sever enough ties until all that’s left is hanging in the vast expanses of space. If you can break their hearts, the will is not long after.
He calls it mercy, his ploy. He calls it kindness, his victory.
Strange can confirm this, in every universe, in every timeline.
It’s how he loses.
-o-
It starts with a little boy in New York, but it’s bigger than that now. When the Avengers are a thing, then there are more people in play, more variables to control. More strands to watch. And watch them, Strange does. A thousand lifetimes in a split second.
Thor finds his people and his throne. Tony finds his peace of mind. Bruce finds his inner anger again, but in the right balance this time. Natasha finds a sliver of truth. They all find something that matters, something that keeps them going, from the start to the end.
Steve, though.
It’s bigger than Steve now, but endings are beginnings and beginnings are endings. It comes back to Steve; it’s always had to come back to Steve.
And what does he find? What is it that Steve Rogers needs to make it through to the end? What is it that Steve Rogers wants for his last beginning?
Bucky, of course.
Bucky is the first to follow Steve and the last to come home.
But he comes home.
Again and again.
And one more time.
-o-
That’s why it’s okay, fighting for the world again. That’s why it’s okay when they have to make their stand in Wakanda. Because Bucky’s there.
If it’s a last stand they want, Steve will make it.
With the right people.
With the right person.
Steve will make it.
-o-
Battle is unpredictable, though.
It’s a lesson Steve should know by now. Strange wonders if it actually surprises him when it happens at this point. He is the guy, after all, who won the whole damn thing back in the past because he crashed a plane. Everyone talks about that like it’s crazy or something, some kind of suicidal heroic streak. Maybe. Steve is that kind of guy, the one who will jump on grenades and stuff.
But battle is unpredictable.
Steve crashes the plane because it’s what you do. He crashes the plane because it’s the only way he can think to make sure this ends. Steve crashes the plane because…
Because some people fall out of trains.
So, some people crash planes.
It’s all falling.
Strange knows that in a cold, clinical way, as he must from his perspective. He suspects Steve knows it, too, on a more visceral level, even if he rails against it with every fiber of his being.
The ending is the same, no matter how many different ways you write it.
-o-
That battle in Wakanda, the one with Thanos, it’s really the same. Strange sees that too from his perch on Titan. He sits on one broken battlefield and watches another. He watches as Steve puts it all on the line, gives it everything he has, and he loses because battle is unpredictable.
Then, Bucky disintegrates before his eyes.
Strange opens his eyes, out of his trance.
Because maybe it’s not so unpredictable after all.
-o-
And the world, the universe, all of it unravels.
Beginning and end and everything in between.
Strange watches as the strands fall apart and the image dissects into chaos. He watches as the pieces try to fly away, separate out and things knot and fray in equal measures. It’s a disaster, to say the least. In the moment, no one knows how to live, especially Steve.
This is a scary part of the story, wherein the anchor becomes unmoored. After all, Strange watches himself turn to ash, gone to nothing but a memory on a burned out hull of a planet where he doesn’t belong. It seems like that could be it, quite honestly. If the beginning has an ending, then maybe it’s time to stop.
There are no more trains to fall out of.
There are no more plans to crash.
There are no shields to break through iron armor.
Just broken heroes on a broken battlefield.
Not even Steve Rogers can find his footing, as he cries on his knees, wondering what the hell happened and where the hell he even is anymore.
He just knows it’s a place without Bucky.
So what the hell does that say for the rest of them?
-o-
But endings are beginnings; beginnings are endings.
Wait, Strange coaches himself, tempted by the distractions. Wait.
Look for the start.
Then you’ll see the end.
-o-
Steve’s the start.
Steve’s the end.
But who is Steve Rogers?
He’s a scrawny runt, alone in New York, waiting for the post for letters from his best friend overseas.
He’s a super soldier without an army, hearing word of a captured contingent behind enemy lines.
He’s a leader, watching the one person he needs to save slip through his fingers.
He’s regenerated, seeing the obscured face of an enemy and knowing there’s more to the story.
There’s more.
Because the Winter Soldier removes the mask and all the years reverse, fast forward, conflate, fold in.
That’s it, then.
That’s really it.
-o-
Steve will save Bucky.
Doesn’t matter when.
Doesn’t matter how.
Steve will save Bucky.
Some things are constant in the universe. Thor will rule with goodness. Tony will invent as many solutions as he does problems. Natasha will switch sides. Bruce will be angry. Thanos will be a bastard.
Strange will see them all, all of them, every time. That constancy matters; that constancy will make all the difference. It defines them. It defines the universe. It defines.
And Steve.
Will save Bucky.
-o-
It’s easy to think, putting a shield through Tony’s chest armor, that that’s the hardest choice he’ll make. Strange knows that’s the narrative a lot of people will tell. That’s the greatest sacrifice he’ll make in the name of Bucky. The accords, after all, that’s just political. Bucky is personal.
It’s easy to think.
Easier still to be wrong.
-o-
When Thanos snaps his fingers, Bucky disintegrates along with half the universe.
It’s those who are left behind, however, who really come undone.
Strange is one of them so he shouldn’t know.
Really, in retrospect, however, it’s impossible not to.
-o-
There was a moment, when Steve first left the Avengers, when he offered to stay. Moments matter, more than people think. Moments change everything, and that’s something Strange understands. He knows because a moment destroyed his career in medicine. A moment made him a superhero.
So it’s not so hard to believe that a single moment can determine the course of history and change the fate of the galaxy.
“We could do it, Buck,” he’d said. “You and me.”
“In Wakanda? That’s not what you want,” Bucky said.
“With you, anywhere,” Steve had told him.
Bucky had known better than to say Steve was wrong about that or to presume that Steve was lying or exaggerating or anything like that. Instead, he looked at Steve, really looked at him. “There’s still a war, you know.”
“So?” Steve had asked, shrugging one shoulder. “I’m one soldier. I don’t have to fight every battle.”
“Steve,” Bucky said, and he’d sounded sad. But he’d smiled. “Not every one. But maybe this one.”
“And when does it end?” Steve had asked, feeling his frustration mount.
“You’ll know,” Bucky had promised him. “You’ll know.”
-o-
Because Stephen Strange looks into the future and he sees the past.
They all have an origin story, all of them. It’s their reason for fighting. It’s Thor’s worth, and Tony’s heart, and Bruce’s anger and Natasha’s honesty. These things matter, these are the threads that start the tapestry, that finish it.
But the strand that holds it together.
The thread that runs through the center.
Well, that’s Steve, of course.
Fighting for those who can’t fight for themselves. Fighting because it’s the right thing to do. Fighting because he let Bucky Barnes slip through his fingers time after time and he can’t come up empty handed again.
That’s why it matters.
That’s why the beginning is the end.
Because on his knees, facing defeat, Steve faces a lifetime alone.
Dying, by contrast, doesn’t actually seem so bad.
And if he wins?
Well, then he gets to go back to the start.
-o-
Strange knows that this path will leave the Avengers thin. He knows it will hurt them more than they can probably handle. He knows that it will ruin them, mind, body and soul. He knows that they’ll wish they had died, too. He knows that all will seem lost. He knows that they have to lose and lose in the most spectacular, horrific way possible.
It’s like creating a ball of yarn when you unravel a blanket. A blanket keeps you warm; the ball of yarn stores well on the shelf.
It’s all still there, though.
It’s all still there.
Just waiting for someone to start weaving again.
-o-
Some people, if given the chance to see the way to save the universe, might be very particular about the details. Strange is not one of them. He died a million different ways at Dormamu’s hands, and that taught him a lot of things. One of those lessons was that the details aren’t really important.
No, that’s not it.
The details make up who we are.
It’s just that the details can be rearranged. They’re going to happen one way or another.
It’s the ending.
Which is to say, the beginning.
So Strange doesn’t look for an intricate battle plan. As best he can tell, he’s not going to be around for that bit anyway.
No, all that matters is that, with the right pieces in place, they’re going to win.
In all actuality, they really already have.
They won in the 1930s when Steve Rogers let Bucky Barnes get away and he spent the rest of his life trying to get him back.
-o-
Strange sees it coming.
He is, to be fair, the only one. He does have a bit of an advantage, after all.
It’s just funny to him, that with all this time, all this endless, vast time, it still comes down to the smallest moments. A single thread in the tapestry to hold it all together.
A strand of the cosmos.
A fragment of time.
That’s the stuff that lifetimes are made of.
-o-
The ending, when Strange finally gets there, looks a lot like the beginning.
Tony’s a control freak with PTSD issue. Thor is a good man struggling to be king. Bruce is a loner who doesn’t know what to do with his rage. T’Challa is a king bringing his country into the light. Natasha is a spy who is making her way out of the cold. All of them have been here before, and all of them will be here forever.
But time has change just enough to matter.
Tony finally marries Pepper and has that baby, devotes his time to fatherhood instead of robotics. Thor takes the remnants of his people to a refuge on Earth and rebuilds the Asgardian way of life. Bruce finds a way to be in a relationship, even if it worries him every day he wakes up. T’Challa joins the UN and Wakanda becomes a world leader, and he deals with criticism at home and abroad with his head held high. Natasha goes on the record, she really does, and she can’t forget her unique skill set but she doesn’t always have to use it.
Each of them, all the Avengers, they have a similar story. But for some reason, Strange finds Steve’s the most reassuring.
The First Avenger among them, maybe.
The Last?
Maybe just the Best.
-o-
When it’s over, when it’s well and truly over, it’s Steve who doesn’t know what to do. He’s been the leader of everything; he’s held the rest of the team together when things were falling apart. He’s been the heart, the soul, the mind, the everything. He’s had every battle plan and he’s orchestrated every plan of attack. This is Steve’s war to win, and win it, he does.
Maybe that’s why he takes the ending so hard.
It’s a hell of a thing, to invest so much of yourself in a cause. When it’s rectified, you wonder what’s left of you.
You wonder.
Steve can only frown when they’re standing, just the two of them, battle weary, exhausted and victorious. “You saw everything?”
Strange can be a smug, arrogant bastards, that much is true. Not even dying a thousand, million, billion times could change that. It’s just who he is, as much as this is Steve Rogers.
Still, he smiles.
Not all the futures are good.
Some of their history is worse.
But he knows a reason to hope.
“Even the strange, disparate parts,” he confirms. “The ones you never know how to make sense of.”
Steve doesn’t quite know what to make of that; no one could. No one else can see the fractures of time and the infinite possibility being whittled down to single, inevitable choices.
“And you saw how it ends?” Steve asks, and he’s thinking of Thanos.
“No,” Strange tells him, because this story isn’t really about Thanos. “I saw how it begins.”
Then, Strange does something more important than all the rest. Something more important than wisdom or insight or platitudes. Something that matters more than battles and victories and finally getting it right.
He steps aside.
Because behind him is the only other force on this planet that was there in the beginning.
Behind, standing whole, battered, confused and ready, is Bucky Barnes.
Steve looks at Bucky.
Bucky looks at Steve.
Strange smiles as he melts away.
It’s time now.
It’s finally time.
-o-
A lot of heroes, they come into their own. They finally claim their rightful place. They become the leaders they were born to be.
That’s not the path all heroes take, however. Some heroes, after saving the world, just find time to save themselves.
Thor, after all, is destined to lead his people. So is T’Challa.
Tony Stark, however, is supposed to let go.
Steve Rogers, when you get right down to it, needs to finally stop fighting.
The thing that changes isn’t that Thanos is dead.
No, the thing that changes is that Bucky is alive.
That’s all.
That’s all.
-o-
It’s a thing, to be sure, when Captain America puts down his shield. It’s also a thing when he walks away from the Avengers. No one blames him, though. All he’s given this world, this is his prerogative. He’s offered the world all he has.
Everything left is his to do with as he pleases.
So the first thing he does.
The last thing he does.
Is offer it to Bucky.
Strange is the only one who’s seen the future, but exactly no one is surprised by that.
Except, maybe Bucky.
Because he thought he knew how this story ended.
And he’s not sure this is it.
“I don’t know if it’s that easy,” he hedges.
Steve almost laughs. “Was any of this easy?”
“But isn’t that the point?” Bucky asks. “What if this isn’t over?”
“It’s probably never over,” Steve agrees.
That answer seems agonizing to Bucky. “So how do we walk away?”
“Pretty sure it’s just one foot in front of another,” Steve says.
Steve’s still holding out his hand.
When Bucky finally takes it, his grip is solid and real.
“I don’t know how this ends,” Bucky admits, and it’s a fact that scares him.
“Me neither,” Steve admits. He shrugs because he’s asked enough questions to realize that the answers aren’t all you want them to be. “But this isn’t an ending.”
“It’s not?” Bucky asks.
“No,” Steve tells him, fingers locked together. “It’s the beginning.”
One step in front of the other, then.
All the way back to New York.
-o-
Strange watches the universe unfold like string from a ball of yarn. He sees it tangle and knot, and he sees it wind up again before it unfurls stitch by stitch into something beautiful.
He still sees the single strands.
He still sees the stitch that anchors it.
If you pull it, the whole thing comes undone.
If you tie it off, however, then the whole thing stands for eternity.
-o-
It’s cold in Brooklyn, wind whipping the outside of the apartment building. The sky is gray outside, and the faded curtains are drawn closed. Inside, the heater is on high and tea is coming to a boil on the stove. In the bedroom, on a single bed, there’s a knitted blanket spread across the top.
The two men are finally showing some age, but they’re still older than they look. A lot older. They clutch the blanket to them, the well-worn fiber soft against their skin. It seems silly to think that a single blanket can help on such a cold day, that a single series of stitches can protect anyone from the cold, cold universe around them.
But they pull closer together, Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes, cuddled together, hands interlocked, sharing all the warmth in the world.
-o-
When Stephen Strange looks into the future that’s not all he sees. He looks for the ending, of course. That’s the point.
But he sees the beginning, too.
Disclaimer: I own nothing.
A/N: For kristen_mara, as a very late Christmas present. She deserves so much more, but I do hope she can enjoy a tidbit of her favorite pairing, even if it is a little (lot) late. Unbeta'ed. Spoilers for the whole MCU up through Infinity Wars with future spec. Steve/Bucky focused with a lot of mentions of other characters. Title with apologies to Simon and Garfunkel.
Summary: Look for the start. Then you’ll see the end.
-o-
When Stephen Strange looks into the future that’s not all he sees. He looks for the ending, of course. That’s the point.
But he sees the beginning, too.
It’s inevitable, you see.
You can’t see one without the other.
He sees time like a tapestry, threads woven together.
All he has to do is pull one.
And the whole thing comes undone.
-o-
There’s an ending, you see. One where Thanos doesn’t win. One where the Avengers come together and make the universe right again.
It’s a universe where Thor leads the remnants of his people as refugees on Earth. Where Tony marries Pepper and they have that baby. Where T’Challa bring Wakanda into the world, emerging as a sound and steady world power in the age to come. Where Natasha and Bruce make it work, where Clint retires to his farm with his family. Scott Lang raises his daughter; Peter Parker grows up; Peter Quill comes back to Earth.
Steve Rogers settles with Bucky Barnes in New York, where they start, where they end.
Happy endings, all around.
The happiest.
-o-
Strange lingers there because he wants to understand.
He wants to know.
He wants to see.
All the ways things can go wrong.
All they need is one chance to get it right.
-o-
It’s not an easy path, and that’s to say the absolute least.
The strands are contrasting colors, and they overlap more than they should. Strange has to see them pull through the vestiges of time perfectly, just perfectly and it looks like disaster until the last moment.
Until it comes together.
-o-
That’s the end, though.
Strange knows this, believes it, clings to do it.
The end is what matters.
But the beginning.
Well, that’s how you get there.
-o-
Strange has the time stone. All of time.
From the beginning to the end.
Some say the Avengers started during the invasion of New York.
Strange follows the threads, though. He knows better.
It starts in New York, yes.
Nearly a century early.
-o-
In the 1930s, Steve Rogers is in New York. He’s a runt of a kid, small and sickly. He’s got nothing going for him, nothing at all. His mother’s alone, and they’re so poor that Steve doesn’t eat dinner every night. Their apartment is cold, and Steve’s face is bruised from another fight he couldn’t bring himself to walk away from.
This is how it is for days, for weeks, for years. Steve walks home alone to an empty apartment.
Then, one day, he’s not alone.
One day, another boy smiles with him as they walk home, kicking rocks down the gutter.
Two boys in Brooklyn, huddled together beneath a blanket as they do their homework. It’s a ratty blanket, threadbare in spots. It’s hand stitched, a meager defense against the cold.
It’s all they have.
It’s all they need.
-o-
You don’t get to pick and choose the strands, you see. Strange will try to explain this to people, countless times, countless ways. No one gets it. No one wants to get it. The strands in the tapestry of time: they are what they are.
It’s up to you how they go together, however.
A chaotic mess.
A beautiful mirage.
The truth is always the clearest image, though. Strange has found that for himself, after all this time.
The one you can’t unsee no matter how much of the rest changes.
-o-
See, when you look at the story, the whole story, in 2018, Steve Rogers is an old man. You can’t tell by looking at him, but it still shows. He’s too old to be doing this; too old for any of it. He’s wanted to walk away, but he’s still the kid who can’t walk away from a fight.
He’s still ready for what comes next.
He has to be.
That’s the thread that holds his narrative together.
The one thread that can’t unravel.
But when Thanos snaps his fingers, half of the universe disappears, taking Bucky with it.
Bucky disintegrates in the wind as time unravels strand by strand by strand.
And it’s the first time that Steve breaks.
It’s the only time.
-o-
It’s a conversation they don’t have in this timeline; it’s a conversation they’ve had, though. Strange knows it, even if Steve doesn’t. He still hears the question.
“When you looked, when you saw all the possible futures, did you see this?”
Steve doesn’t understand, after all. He doesn’t know what it means to live by sight and not by faith. He’s a man of faith, almost by necessity. Not religious faith, at least not necessarily, but faith in ideals, in humanity, in the inherent goodness of the world that needs to be protected.
That’s why he’s a hero.
The hero to start it.
The one to end it.
“That’s the thing about time that you aren’t quite grasping,” Strange explains in another timeline. Another life they might live, they could live, but don’t. “It’s not just the future. It’s the whole story, from beginning to end.”
Steve thinks about that, about the possible lives he could have had. He thinks about telling Tony the truth about Bucky, about keeping the Avengers together. He thinks about finding another way to land the plane, about taking Peggy up on that dance. He thinks about catching Bucky as he falls off the train and out of his life.
He thinks about never taking the serum.
He thinks about two little boys, sharing a single blanket.
Steve can only frown. “You saw everything?”
Strange can be a smug, arrogant bastard, that much is true. Not even dying a thousand, million, billion times could change that. It’s just who he is, as much as this is Steve Rogers.
Still, Strange smiles.
Not all the futures are good.
Some of their history is worse.
But he knows a reason to hope.
“Even the strange, disparate parts,” he confirms. “The ones you never know how to make sense of.”
Steve doesn’t quite know what to make of that; no one could. Holding the time stone at least gives Strange a reason to be an obtuse bastard and no one can question it. No one else can see the fractures of time and the infinite possibility being whittled down to single, inevitable choices.
“And you saw how it ends?” Steve asks, and he’s thinking of Thanos.
“No,” Strange tells him, because this story isn’t really about Thanos or any of the destruction he wrought. “I saw how it begins.”
-o-
When Steve’s mother dies, it’s not the tragedy you think it should be. It’s sad, of course. Steve is heartbroken. But he doesn’t come home to an empty apartment.
He comes home to Bucky.
Ash to ash, dust to dust.
The priest says it at the funeral but he doesn’t understand.
He doesn’t know what bitterness tastes like a century later when Steve reaches out for a hand that dissolves, as insubstantial and essential as air.
-o-
Strange knows that Steve will be asked to sacrifice a lot to stop Thanos.
Maybe everything.
It’s a lot to ask of anyone.
It’s even more to assume.
Anyone else, Stephen Strange might hesitate. Tony Stark, hell yes. Thor, probably. Bruce Banner, T’Challa, Natasha Romanov, Wanda Maximoff: they’re all good people, good heroes, but Strange would have second thoughts about any of them. Third thoughts and fourth thoughts about Stark.
But this is Steve Rogers.
By the time he faces the endgame, he’s already had the one constant thread in his life severed.
Honestly, he’s simply a man with nothing left to lose.
And everything to gain.
-o-
That’s why some people think he joined the army, for the lack of other options. They think he saw it as a duty, an obligation. An orphan with his best friend overseas: that’s why he kept applying under false pretenses. Everyone thinks Steve Rogers is a guy with nothing to lose.
But the past tells another story.
Steve had a lot to lose when he joined the army, and he knew it.
Maybe he knew, way back then, that his life was part of a bigger picture.
Maybe he was just following Bucky’s thread, wherever it led, wherever it had to lead.
Maybe it didn’t matter, maybe it doesn’t matter. Maybe it’s all those things and none of those things: the outcome is still the same.
Stitch by stitch, Bucky’s thread pulls at Steve and Steve’s pulls right back, until their destinies are woven together.
-o-
See, Steve’s not really a soldier. Strange can see that by looking at the end. It’s hard to tell, even at the start, honestly, and he doesn’t fault those people who think that’s all he is. A guy who has to fight, who doesn’t know how to live without a cause to lay down his life for.
Someday, no matter what universe you look at, and Strange has looked all of them, Steve puts down the shield.
Someday, he takes off the suit.
Someday, he’s back to being Steve Rogers, looking for someone to call his own on the streets of New York City.
-o-
Time, space, reality, memory: it’s all variable, you see. Strange appreciates that now that he’s held onto the time stone this long. None of it stands pure, not even when things are set right.
The things that are still standing when things go wrong, therefore, are the things that really matter.
-o-
When Steve goes to rescue Bucky, to rescue everyone on that first mission that he’s not supposed to be on in World War 2, he can only think about the last time he saw his best friend. He remembers seeing him on a boat as it left the harbor in New York, pulling slowly, slowly away. He’d stood there, on the docks, holding his breath and telling himself he’s not going to cry, he’s not going to cry, he’s not going to cry. He’s told himself, in all the years that have passed since, that it’s because he always felt that he should be going too that made it so hard.
But when he finds Bucky, when he finds Bucky alive and weak and alive, he knows in an instant it isn’t true. Steve’s an honest man to a fault, but God help him, it’s not true. The war Steve’s fighting isn’t just on a battlefield in Europe. It’s ripping apart the inside of his own chest with every beat of his heart.
Because he thinks about the last time he saw his best friend and how it broke his heart.
And he thinks about this time and how it makes the whole world right again.
The way Bucky’s face lights up when he opens his eyes and sees Steve, and he’s pretty sure that Bucky feels the same way.
There’s no time for that, though.
There’s no time at all.
-o-
That’s Thanos’ ploy, in the end. It’s how he wins.
Eliminate half the universe, and the second half will come crumbling after into submission. Sever enough ties until all that’s left is hanging in the vast expanses of space. If you can break their hearts, the will is not long after.
He calls it mercy, his ploy. He calls it kindness, his victory.
Strange can confirm this, in every universe, in every timeline.
It’s how he loses.
-o-
It starts with a little boy in New York, but it’s bigger than that now. When the Avengers are a thing, then there are more people in play, more variables to control. More strands to watch. And watch them, Strange does. A thousand lifetimes in a split second.
Thor finds his people and his throne. Tony finds his peace of mind. Bruce finds his inner anger again, but in the right balance this time. Natasha finds a sliver of truth. They all find something that matters, something that keeps them going, from the start to the end.
Steve, though.
It’s bigger than Steve now, but endings are beginnings and beginnings are endings. It comes back to Steve; it’s always had to come back to Steve.
And what does he find? What is it that Steve Rogers needs to make it through to the end? What is it that Steve Rogers wants for his last beginning?
Bucky, of course.
Bucky is the first to follow Steve and the last to come home.
But he comes home.
Again and again.
And one more time.
-o-
That’s why it’s okay, fighting for the world again. That’s why it’s okay when they have to make their stand in Wakanda. Because Bucky’s there.
If it’s a last stand they want, Steve will make it.
With the right people.
With the right person.
Steve will make it.
-o-
Battle is unpredictable, though.
It’s a lesson Steve should know by now. Strange wonders if it actually surprises him when it happens at this point. He is the guy, after all, who won the whole damn thing back in the past because he crashed a plane. Everyone talks about that like it’s crazy or something, some kind of suicidal heroic streak. Maybe. Steve is that kind of guy, the one who will jump on grenades and stuff.
But battle is unpredictable.
Steve crashes the plane because it’s what you do. He crashes the plane because it’s the only way he can think to make sure this ends. Steve crashes the plane because…
Because some people fall out of trains.
So, some people crash planes.
It’s all falling.
Strange knows that in a cold, clinical way, as he must from his perspective. He suspects Steve knows it, too, on a more visceral level, even if he rails against it with every fiber of his being.
The ending is the same, no matter how many different ways you write it.
-o-
That battle in Wakanda, the one with Thanos, it’s really the same. Strange sees that too from his perch on Titan. He sits on one broken battlefield and watches another. He watches as Steve puts it all on the line, gives it everything he has, and he loses because battle is unpredictable.
Then, Bucky disintegrates before his eyes.
Strange opens his eyes, out of his trance.
Because maybe it’s not so unpredictable after all.
-o-
And the world, the universe, all of it unravels.
Beginning and end and everything in between.
Strange watches as the strands fall apart and the image dissects into chaos. He watches as the pieces try to fly away, separate out and things knot and fray in equal measures. It’s a disaster, to say the least. In the moment, no one knows how to live, especially Steve.
This is a scary part of the story, wherein the anchor becomes unmoored. After all, Strange watches himself turn to ash, gone to nothing but a memory on a burned out hull of a planet where he doesn’t belong. It seems like that could be it, quite honestly. If the beginning has an ending, then maybe it’s time to stop.
There are no more trains to fall out of.
There are no more plans to crash.
There are no shields to break through iron armor.
Just broken heroes on a broken battlefield.
Not even Steve Rogers can find his footing, as he cries on his knees, wondering what the hell happened and where the hell he even is anymore.
He just knows it’s a place without Bucky.
So what the hell does that say for the rest of them?
-o-
But endings are beginnings; beginnings are endings.
Wait, Strange coaches himself, tempted by the distractions. Wait.
Look for the start.
Then you’ll see the end.
-o-
Steve’s the start.
Steve’s the end.
But who is Steve Rogers?
He’s a scrawny runt, alone in New York, waiting for the post for letters from his best friend overseas.
He’s a super soldier without an army, hearing word of a captured contingent behind enemy lines.
He’s a leader, watching the one person he needs to save slip through his fingers.
He’s regenerated, seeing the obscured face of an enemy and knowing there’s more to the story.
There’s more.
Because the Winter Soldier removes the mask and all the years reverse, fast forward, conflate, fold in.
That’s it, then.
That’s really it.
-o-
Steve will save Bucky.
Doesn’t matter when.
Doesn’t matter how.
Steve will save Bucky.
Some things are constant in the universe. Thor will rule with goodness. Tony will invent as many solutions as he does problems. Natasha will switch sides. Bruce will be angry. Thanos will be a bastard.
Strange will see them all, all of them, every time. That constancy matters; that constancy will make all the difference. It defines them. It defines the universe. It defines.
And Steve.
Will save Bucky.
-o-
It’s easy to think, putting a shield through Tony’s chest armor, that that’s the hardest choice he’ll make. Strange knows that’s the narrative a lot of people will tell. That’s the greatest sacrifice he’ll make in the name of Bucky. The accords, after all, that’s just political. Bucky is personal.
It’s easy to think.
Easier still to be wrong.
-o-
When Thanos snaps his fingers, Bucky disintegrates along with half the universe.
It’s those who are left behind, however, who really come undone.
Strange is one of them so he shouldn’t know.
Really, in retrospect, however, it’s impossible not to.
-o-
There was a moment, when Steve first left the Avengers, when he offered to stay. Moments matter, more than people think. Moments change everything, and that’s something Strange understands. He knows because a moment destroyed his career in medicine. A moment made him a superhero.
So it’s not so hard to believe that a single moment can determine the course of history and change the fate of the galaxy.
“We could do it, Buck,” he’d said. “You and me.”
“In Wakanda? That’s not what you want,” Bucky said.
“With you, anywhere,” Steve had told him.
Bucky had known better than to say Steve was wrong about that or to presume that Steve was lying or exaggerating or anything like that. Instead, he looked at Steve, really looked at him. “There’s still a war, you know.”
“So?” Steve had asked, shrugging one shoulder. “I’m one soldier. I don’t have to fight every battle.”
“Steve,” Bucky said, and he’d sounded sad. But he’d smiled. “Not every one. But maybe this one.”
“And when does it end?” Steve had asked, feeling his frustration mount.
“You’ll know,” Bucky had promised him. “You’ll know.”
-o-
Because Stephen Strange looks into the future and he sees the past.
They all have an origin story, all of them. It’s their reason for fighting. It’s Thor’s worth, and Tony’s heart, and Bruce’s anger and Natasha’s honesty. These things matter, these are the threads that start the tapestry, that finish it.
But the strand that holds it together.
The thread that runs through the center.
Well, that’s Steve, of course.
Fighting for those who can’t fight for themselves. Fighting because it’s the right thing to do. Fighting because he let Bucky Barnes slip through his fingers time after time and he can’t come up empty handed again.
That’s why it matters.
That’s why the beginning is the end.
Because on his knees, facing defeat, Steve faces a lifetime alone.
Dying, by contrast, doesn’t actually seem so bad.
And if he wins?
Well, then he gets to go back to the start.
-o-
Strange knows that this path will leave the Avengers thin. He knows it will hurt them more than they can probably handle. He knows that it will ruin them, mind, body and soul. He knows that they’ll wish they had died, too. He knows that all will seem lost. He knows that they have to lose and lose in the most spectacular, horrific way possible.
It’s like creating a ball of yarn when you unravel a blanket. A blanket keeps you warm; the ball of yarn stores well on the shelf.
It’s all still there, though.
It’s all still there.
Just waiting for someone to start weaving again.
-o-
Some people, if given the chance to see the way to save the universe, might be very particular about the details. Strange is not one of them. He died a million different ways at Dormamu’s hands, and that taught him a lot of things. One of those lessons was that the details aren’t really important.
No, that’s not it.
The details make up who we are.
It’s just that the details can be rearranged. They’re going to happen one way or another.
It’s the ending.
Which is to say, the beginning.
So Strange doesn’t look for an intricate battle plan. As best he can tell, he’s not going to be around for that bit anyway.
No, all that matters is that, with the right pieces in place, they’re going to win.
In all actuality, they really already have.
They won in the 1930s when Steve Rogers let Bucky Barnes get away and he spent the rest of his life trying to get him back.
-o-
Strange sees it coming.
He is, to be fair, the only one. He does have a bit of an advantage, after all.
It’s just funny to him, that with all this time, all this endless, vast time, it still comes down to the smallest moments. A single thread in the tapestry to hold it all together.
A strand of the cosmos.
A fragment of time.
That’s the stuff that lifetimes are made of.
-o-
The ending, when Strange finally gets there, looks a lot like the beginning.
Tony’s a control freak with PTSD issue. Thor is a good man struggling to be king. Bruce is a loner who doesn’t know what to do with his rage. T’Challa is a king bringing his country into the light. Natasha is a spy who is making her way out of the cold. All of them have been here before, and all of them will be here forever.
But time has change just enough to matter.
Tony finally marries Pepper and has that baby, devotes his time to fatherhood instead of robotics. Thor takes the remnants of his people to a refuge on Earth and rebuilds the Asgardian way of life. Bruce finds a way to be in a relationship, even if it worries him every day he wakes up. T’Challa joins the UN and Wakanda becomes a world leader, and he deals with criticism at home and abroad with his head held high. Natasha goes on the record, she really does, and she can’t forget her unique skill set but she doesn’t always have to use it.
Each of them, all the Avengers, they have a similar story. But for some reason, Strange finds Steve’s the most reassuring.
The First Avenger among them, maybe.
The Last?
Maybe just the Best.
-o-
When it’s over, when it’s well and truly over, it’s Steve who doesn’t know what to do. He’s been the leader of everything; he’s held the rest of the team together when things were falling apart. He’s been the heart, the soul, the mind, the everything. He’s had every battle plan and he’s orchestrated every plan of attack. This is Steve’s war to win, and win it, he does.
Maybe that’s why he takes the ending so hard.
It’s a hell of a thing, to invest so much of yourself in a cause. When it’s rectified, you wonder what’s left of you.
You wonder.
Steve can only frown when they’re standing, just the two of them, battle weary, exhausted and victorious. “You saw everything?”
Strange can be a smug, arrogant bastards, that much is true. Not even dying a thousand, million, billion times could change that. It’s just who he is, as much as this is Steve Rogers.
Still, he smiles.
Not all the futures are good.
Some of their history is worse.
But he knows a reason to hope.
“Even the strange, disparate parts,” he confirms. “The ones you never know how to make sense of.”
Steve doesn’t quite know what to make of that; no one could. No one else can see the fractures of time and the infinite possibility being whittled down to single, inevitable choices.
“And you saw how it ends?” Steve asks, and he’s thinking of Thanos.
“No,” Strange tells him, because this story isn’t really about Thanos. “I saw how it begins.”
Then, Strange does something more important than all the rest. Something more important than wisdom or insight or platitudes. Something that matters more than battles and victories and finally getting it right.
He steps aside.
Because behind him is the only other force on this planet that was there in the beginning.
Behind, standing whole, battered, confused and ready, is Bucky Barnes.
Steve looks at Bucky.
Bucky looks at Steve.
Strange smiles as he melts away.
It’s time now.
It’s finally time.
-o-
A lot of heroes, they come into their own. They finally claim their rightful place. They become the leaders they were born to be.
That’s not the path all heroes take, however. Some heroes, after saving the world, just find time to save themselves.
Thor, after all, is destined to lead his people. So is T’Challa.
Tony Stark, however, is supposed to let go.
Steve Rogers, when you get right down to it, needs to finally stop fighting.
The thing that changes isn’t that Thanos is dead.
No, the thing that changes is that Bucky is alive.
That’s all.
That’s all.
-o-
It’s a thing, to be sure, when Captain America puts down his shield. It’s also a thing when he walks away from the Avengers. No one blames him, though. All he’s given this world, this is his prerogative. He’s offered the world all he has.
Everything left is his to do with as he pleases.
So the first thing he does.
The last thing he does.
Is offer it to Bucky.
Strange is the only one who’s seen the future, but exactly no one is surprised by that.
Except, maybe Bucky.
Because he thought he knew how this story ended.
And he’s not sure this is it.
“I don’t know if it’s that easy,” he hedges.
Steve almost laughs. “Was any of this easy?”
“But isn’t that the point?” Bucky asks. “What if this isn’t over?”
“It’s probably never over,” Steve agrees.
That answer seems agonizing to Bucky. “So how do we walk away?”
“Pretty sure it’s just one foot in front of another,” Steve says.
Steve’s still holding out his hand.
When Bucky finally takes it, his grip is solid and real.
“I don’t know how this ends,” Bucky admits, and it’s a fact that scares him.
“Me neither,” Steve admits. He shrugs because he’s asked enough questions to realize that the answers aren’t all you want them to be. “But this isn’t an ending.”
“It’s not?” Bucky asks.
“No,” Steve tells him, fingers locked together. “It’s the beginning.”
One step in front of the other, then.
All the way back to New York.
-o-
Strange watches the universe unfold like string from a ball of yarn. He sees it tangle and knot, and he sees it wind up again before it unfurls stitch by stitch into something beautiful.
He still sees the single strands.
He still sees the stitch that anchors it.
If you pull it, the whole thing comes undone.
If you tie it off, however, then the whole thing stands for eternity.
-o-
It’s cold in Brooklyn, wind whipping the outside of the apartment building. The sky is gray outside, and the faded curtains are drawn closed. Inside, the heater is on high and tea is coming to a boil on the stove. In the bedroom, on a single bed, there’s a knitted blanket spread across the top.
The two men are finally showing some age, but they’re still older than they look. A lot older. They clutch the blanket to them, the well-worn fiber soft against their skin. It seems silly to think that a single blanket can help on such a cold day, that a single series of stitches can protect anyone from the cold, cold universe around them.
But they pull closer together, Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes, cuddled together, hands interlocked, sharing all the warmth in the world.
-o-
When Stephen Strange looks into the future that’s not all he sees. He looks for the ending, of course. That’s the point.
But he sees the beginning, too.