Chapter Text
The first sign that something was wrong was when Tony Stark choked on his coffee.
He'd prepared it like always, in the same machine that had fueled his workshop efforts for years. The same blend, the same amount of sugar, the same settings on the touchpad. A call had come in just after he set it down, involving a major stakeholder with a forthcoming clean energy research lab in New Mexico. By the end, his throat was parched and the coffee would be only pleasantly warm, so he'd tipped the mug back to get all the liquid caffeine his body demanded.
And then he choked on his coffee, because it was as bitter as chewing on dry grounds.
At least he hadn't spat it all over his expensive electronics, but swallowing was a challenge. "Okay," he noted as he reached for the sugar, which he apparently hadn't added before the call. "Got off my rhythm."
The second sign came a few hours later, from the same stakeholder who'd called him that morning. Dr. Varela didn't mean to be pushy, but the documents he'd promised her hadn't arrived in her inbox. Would he mind resending? The submission deadline to the state office was that evening.
"I sent that," Tony insisted to himself as he saw that his last email to [email protected] was four days prior. He remembered searching for the right files, realizing at the last second that he'd missed the fifth in the folder, and grabbing that last document before he sent them off. And yet, there was nothing. All the evidence countered what his brain told him.
It was probably stress, he thought as he pushed himself back from his work bench. This wasn't a sign of anything serious. If he did have certain... medical... memory... problems, they wouldn't have debuted with this rapid one-two punch. "I'll take a break," Tony abruptly decided. Most people took time off for lunch. Perhaps he should also force himself to step out of his lab and let some of that stress ease.
"Hey, boss," Happy idly said without looking up from his computer. It appeared to be delicate work, as he made sure every spreadsheet cell was populated before really acknowledging Tony. His smile ebbed as soon as he did. "Everything okay?"
"I'm going out for lunch," Tony announced. "Might be a hot dog stand, might be Le Bernardin. But I'm going out."
"Oh? Oh!" Happy jolted to his feet and hurried for a closet, then turned with a sports coat in hand. "Dress code," he explained at Tony's blank look.
Tony blinked, then shook his head. "Never mind. I'll definitely do the hot dog stand." Anywhere with a dress code wouldn't help him relax, and since he clearly needed to decompress—
"Hey, boss," Happy idly said without looking up from his computer.
Slack-jawed, Tony slowly turned to stare at the computer where Happy once again sat. "What the hell?"
When Happy looked up from his computer, his concern was greater than before. "Everything okay?"
"I'm going out," Tony snapped without explaining his plans for lunch again.
"Boss?" Happy called after him. It barely slipped through closing doors.
Though Tony's hand naturally gravitated toward his favorite roadster in the building's basement, he pulled back before making contact. Still in a daze, he turned instead toward a SUV that was outfitted with nearly invisible sensors in its bumpers and self-driving technology in its dashboard. Whatever was going on, he shouldn't try to drive until it was fixed.
After he'd input the target destination and Manhattan began to stream by him, Tony ran over the day in his mind. This morning, he would have poured the sugar he always put into his coffee; he knew for a fact he'd sent that email; he'd actually seen Happy reset across the room. There was only one explanation: something was wrong with the flow of time, which had kept skittering backwards a few seconds. The interaction with Happy had taken long enough to make a reversion noticeable, but it had obviously been happening all day.
Yes, that had to be it. And that was why he had known what address to input: a townhouse in Greenwich Village, with someone who had better not be gallivanting off in some alien dimension.
Tony leapt out of the SUV when it pulled up to the curb, ignored the AI steering away in search of an empty parking spot, and bolted for the entrance. "Open up," he yelled as his fist pounded the Sanctum's door. Being teleported inside was disorienting, but he barely let it stop him. After spinning to locate Stephen Strange in this new room, Tony stormed over to him and demanded, "Stop messing with my timeline."
Stephen blinked, then groaned. "Oh, I was really hoping this was localized."
"What!" He'd tried to shout his question but it came out more like a squeak.
Sighing, Stephen angled his hands into the symbols needed to interact with the Eye of Agamotto, then opened it with a deliberate gesture. Inside, the Time Stone glowed softly... only to flash like it was being actively used. "It acted up a few times after everything, but had calmed down again until today."
"Time has already looped on me three times." Tony held up three fingers. "Three. Already."
"Yes, I heard you."
"Fix it!"
"That's obviously what I'm working on." The Time Stone flashed again and Stephen grumbled down at it. "It's acting like... it has the hiccups, basically. I'm trying to find the mechanism to settle it." He poked one side of the golden amulet, careful to keep his finger away from the exposed Stone. "What's your equivalent to a phrenic nerve?"
Now that Tony knew for sure what was causing this, at least some of his stress eased. Though it was obviously dangerous to have one of the most powerful objects in the universe malfunctioning, a diagnosis was a first step toward a solution. "You could have mentioned that it was having problems."
"It only happened a couple of times. It's completely normal for there to be some ripple effects from something as enormous as it only happened a couple of times. It's completely normal—" Stephen closed his eyes. "Did I just repeat myself?"
"Mmmhmm."
Stephen sighed.
"Fix it."
"I am working on that," Stephen snapped, "and you're distracting me."
"You didn't even know that the problem was happening outside of the Sanctum! Seriously, you need to get this fixed ASAP, Doc." Tony snapped his fingers a few times to emphasize the need for haste. "Because I was able to take a self-driving car, but if these rewind effects start hitting other drivers... especially at rush hour..." Spreading his hands in front of him, Tony lifted his eyebrows and let his expression add, I'm just saying.
"And what exactly do you suggest?" Stephen wondered. The Time Stone flashed green again, and again. He glowered down at it, closed the amulet, and continued, "With all of your expertise?"
"Cut the sarcasm. You know I've learned things about Infinity Stones."
"Yeah, well, I've used this one a lot more than you have. Possibly, more than anyone has in the history of the universe." Stephen opened his mouth to keep arguing, but then trailed off with a speculative look.
"Oh, don't look so impressed with yourself," Tony demanded. Was there anyone who could top this man's ego, Tony wondered as green flashed again through the cracks in the Eye. "Oh, don't look so impressed with yourself." He groaned. "Dammit, Strange, fix this! Because if you don't, I'm going to—"
Another green surge consumed his vision. Disorientation struck like he'd stood up too fast. That mild dizziness worsened as emerald faded into hunter, then into black nothing. His whole body tingled like nerves were waking up, even as oblivion still held him. It felt like eternity, yet when reality returned he somehow knew it'd been seconds.
As soon as darkness faded, someone's elbow impacted his chest. He stumbled backward, trying to regain his balance. A void opened under his heels and Tony tumbled down a staircase that shouldn't be there. "Ow," he mumbled. Fortunately, it'd been a short staircase before a broad landing, but his frantic grab for a banister had cracked his skull into the wall. Oh God. Time hiccups. When had he ended up? And why did it have to hurt?
"Is he okay?"
"Dude! You hit Stark!"
"Oh! Oh God. Mr. Stark! I'm so sorry!"
Tony, squinting through the pain, waved off whatever drunken man was apologizing for gesturing too broadly. Was this a party? It looked like a party. He thought. Maybe. It was hard to focus. Okay, things were going black, that wasn't good.
"He hit really hard, someone should call 911..."
"I'm fine," Tony mumbled. Seriously, when had this been? He didn't remember this party. Had this been to announce the new energy research center?
"I'm fine," Tony insisted as people steered him to a sitting position on the stairs.
"I'm fine," Tony told the paramedics as he was directed into an ambulance.
Okay, he admitted through his pounding headache. He wasn't fine. Inside the ambulance, his eyes fell closed and he grimaced each time they hit a rough patch in the road. Every bump echoed inside his skull. He definitely, one hundred percent was not fine, he thought again as the paramedics directed him into an emergency room.
"Mr. Stark?" asked the doctor leaning over him. "You're in the hospital. I'm Dr. Bhatt. You bumped your head pretty hard. Do you remember that?"
"Nhgh. Yeah." Lights were bright even through his eyelids.
"I want to check your pupils, all right?"
Tony tried to comply with the request, but opening his eyes sent spikes of pain through him. He groaned without trying to hide it. As the doctor made the request again, promising to move slowly, Tony mumbled assent and let one set of lids be pried open, then the other.
"They're reactive and even, so that's a good sign." Bhatt's voice had a slight accent, which was a good distraction to focus upon. He seemed confident and competent, too. As the doctor explained what steps lie ahead, Tony found himself agreeing to whatever was suggested. When someone came with paperwork, he signed it blindly.
He apparently had clear signs of concussion, but the length he'd tumbled down the staircase, coupled with his headache and light sensitivity, also indicated a CT scan. "Sure," Tony sighed as he let himself be rolled down the hall. The ER had sounded busy and he suspected that fame was earning him priority treatment. If not for how much pain he was in, he might feel a little bad about that.
By the time he was in a private room—they were definitely giving him the VIP experience—his headache had improved. Tony was able to slit his eyes open without (much) pain and his vision was barely blurry. Nurses came to take his pulse, draw blood, and attach monitors, and he allowed all without complaint. Whenever he figured out what party guest had sent him tumbling, he was going to start crafting an epic guilt trip.
Why wasn't his phone frantically ringing? Tony struggled back to full awareness as he considered the question. It seemed like Happy should be checking on him. Oh, they'd changed him into a hospital gown. His phone was... somewhere, then. He'd need to get it back to start answering the worried texts. And Happy would tell Pepper, and then she'd start texting him, and they might tell Rhodey, and... actually, maybe he'd enjoy this little vacation from people fretting over him. His headache wasn't totally gone, after all.
Some time later, Dr. Bhatt woke him from shallow sleep. Tony opened his eyes and took in the man's appearance: well past sixty, white-haired, and balding. He didn't know what a bald voice sounded like, but he'd expected more hair. "So what's my deal, Doc?"
"It appears that we're well past cause for immediate concern," Dr. Bhatt said with a smile. "It seems like the pain is improving already?"
Tony nodded, very carefully.
"Good, good. There's no internal bleeding. Our on-site radiologist looked at your results and I had someone in neurology sign off on them as well, just to be sure."
Tony smirked faintly. Yeah, they were giving the billionaire the VIP treatment.
"Now that I've addressed that pressing issue, I'd like to further measure the extent of any concussion." That took a while. Bhatt took Tony through what was probably a standard sequence of questions to measure his memory, concentration, and recall. All answers seemed satisfactory, from Tony's full name to his birthday to the city they were in, and Bhatt frequently punctuated the exam with nods and approving murmurs. "Very well, Mr. Stark. You appear lucky, for I don't think you suffered much harm from the fall. Still, I'd like you to stay here overnight for observation, just to be sure. Is this room all right?"
VIP treatment, baby. "Sure," Tony tiredly agreed. "Hey, can I get my stuff back? And oh, leave my chart. My people will probably have some specific questions."
"Certainly." Bhatt handed him his file. "Please call a nurse when you're done with that. I'll go to the station and request that they bring your belongings to this room."
Nice guy, Tony thought as he flipped open his file and was pleased to note that all blurriness had resolved. It was hard to remember the party itself, though, or the moment of impact. Head trauma must have removed that from his memory banks, which explained why he couldn't recall the time loop landing pad he'd ended up (literally) falling into. Given that the previous Time Stone hiccups had been a matter of seconds, it was no wonder that a stronger surge had sent him back a few... days? Weeks?
It was a little weird that it had landed on this particular night, though. Previous hiccups had been inconsequential, yet here he'd managed to loop back to exactly the moment before he experienced a painful injury for (apparently) the second time. "I hate Infinity Stones," Tony sighed as he flipped through more of his chart, making mental notes on the explanations he'd need to give to worried callers.
A moment later, he flipped back.
"Nah," Tony decided and turned to the next page.
A few seconds after that, he flipped back again.
Okay, that radiologist's signature meant nothing, but Tony thought he could make out something familiar in the typically casual doctor's signature below. "Sturng," Tony slowly said as he squinted his way through the hastily scrawled letters.
Doctor Sturng.
Whose first initial was an S.
Nah. No way. Nuh uh. ...Although it would explain why he'd landed on this moment. Right? No, it wouldn't. Because they hadn't ever met before that Central Park encounter. He thought. Probably. Yeah? Hmm.
After groaning in uncertainty for a few seconds more, Tony smacked the call button.
"I'd like to talk to the neurologist who signed off on my scans," Tony explained when a nurse arrived. "I have a few questions to ask." If this hospital did actually have a Dr. Samuel or Scott or Simon Sturng on staff, then he could certainly come up with some medical cover story when that stranger appeared.
"Of course, Mr. Stark," the nurse promised with a smile, only for it to drop away after she flipped to the appropriate page in his chart. "Um, did you have a specific question for the doctor? I might be able to answer it."
"I'd really like to talk to him," Tony insisted.
Her smile plastered back in place. "Of course. Let me see what I can do." As she turned, the smile vanished as quickly as it'd reappeared. Resignation filled her gaze and her stride out the door was that of someone who didn't want to talk to whoever was at the end of that hunt.
"It's him," Tony hissed the second he was left alone. He'd been sent back in time to intersect with Dr. Sturng, who showed signs of being a huge prick.
Oh, it was him. It was so him.
It took a few minutes, but rapid footsteps eventually clicked against the floor. As the sound approached his room and stopped outside his door, Tony raised his hand to point accusingly at the man who'd been messing with time. "I knew—"
Stephen stepped into his room, wearing a lab coat, scrubs, and at least ten fewer years on his face.
A thin, strangled noise escaped Tony's throat. His finger continued to point uselessly at who he'd expected, and yet who was impossible to see. How was he even old enough to wear those scrubs?
"I understand you want to question my diagnosis?" Stephen asked with a tone that was barely on the proper side of professional.
At his side, the nurse from earlier slipped past him, quietly put Tony's belongings on the bedside table, and then slipped back out before the conversation could continue.
"What?" Tony weakly asked as he stared at the ancient technology that was sitting in place of his actual cell phone. "What the hell?"
"Mr. Stark?" Stephen asked with a slight frown and a significantly less confrontational tone.
Ignoring him, Tony twisted toward a nearby scanner unit to eye his reflection. It was difficult to make out specifics in the stainless steel, but his hair seemed uniformly dark from temples to crown. He retracted his hand from pointing at Stephen and soon yelped at how youthful its skin looked. "What year is this?"
Stephen eyed him sidelong, then said nothing as he stormed over and snatched Tony's chart off the side table. "Gurdeep," he snapped as he slammed the file closed, shoved it into a holder on the wall, and turned for the door.
"No, wait!" They needed to figure this out, dammit!
Stephen did not wait. As he rounded the corner and disappeared down the hall, Tony heard him yell, "Gurdeep, what sort of incompetent concussion screening was that?"
Tony tried to stand, only to nearly tangle himself in the wires attached to his many monitors. Did the VIP treatment have to involve this much attention, he wondered as he started ripping off the small, circular pads that dotted his head. Machines started to beep with each removed wire. All were ignored.
"Mr. Stark, we really do want to keep you here for observation," another nurse pleaded as he rushed in and tried to direct Tony back to his bed.
A ringtone sounded. Its harsh, synthetic sound was a jolt of unwelcome technologic nostalgia. Tony grabbed for his ancient cell while simultaneously trying to bat away his worried nurse.
"Sir, you're really not supposed to use one of those in a hospital—"
Holding his hand up, Tony ignored him and answered the call.
"Oh my gosh, Tony! I heard you were in the hospital? I knew I shouldn't have stayed here. It's already been days longer than you said you'd need, and—"
"Wait, wait, wait." Tony closed his eyes hard and tried to focus on this familiar voice. "Where are you?"
Pepper paused. "I'm still out in L.A. Like you told me to."
His eyes closed harder. "Pepper, I need you to answer this question and not hesitate. Don't ask me any questions in return. Just answer it." He inhaled, then asked, "What year is it?"
"You don't know what year it is? That's it, I'm flying out—"
"Year! Tell!"
She swallowed loud enough to hear over the phone line. "I mean. All right. It's September 15, 2007."
"Shit!"
"Tony?!"
"Stay in L.A.," he groaned. "Or wait, no, fly out here. I need to pick your brain on something. No, wait! Stay in L.A." Timeline! If he'd been sent back in time, he couldn't impact the timeline. As much as he wanted to, he couldn't ask Pepper for help. 2007 Pepper couldn't ever know that she was talking to a Tony from more than a decade later.
"Tony, I am flying out."
"Stay in Los Angeles!" Dizziness swept him at the full scope of what this date meant, and Tony added, "That's... that is an order from your boss."
She sighed. "Promise me you'll come back soon. You were already supposed to be be back last Tuesday."
"Sure. Yeah, you've got it. I, uh, may call you to verify a few more things?"
Another sigh. "All right. Happy's been losing his mind trying to get in to your room. He called Obadiah to try to make them cooperate, and Obadiah called me... what's wrong? I heard a noise. I heard a bad noise."
Just biting my tongue, Tony thought, and tried to fight back a hysterical giggle with the same force he'd used to block any suggestions of what Pepper and Happy should do with that goddamned traitor. "Nothing. I'm good. I'm great! Don't worry about me, I should turn off the phone and get some rest."
The nurse, who'd never stopped his pleading gesture to turn off the cell phone that hospitals apparently distrusted in 2007, nodded frantically.
"I. Okay. Fine. I'll tell this to Happy and Obi, all right? Wait, I heard a weird noise again."
Tony thumped his fist in useless frustration against the bed. "Nothing!" he promised when he'd regained control of his voice. (Fucking Obadiah.) "Bye!"
"I can't wreck the timeline," he hissed to himself after ending the call and ordering out the nurse. "Can't, can't, can't." He literally could not warn anyone about Obadiah, because that would prevent Tony from being kidnapped and needing to make his first Iron Man suit, and that cascading sequence of dominoes would prevent him from ever standing in the Sanctum to yell about a malfunctioning Time Stone, and that paradox could rip apart reality itself. His one and only hope was that some of Stephen's consciousness had also been sent back, but based on his behavior before, that wasn't looking good. So if Tony couldn't—
—Suddenly find himself consumed by green light, which soon retreated to show the Sanctum around him.
"I'm back?" Tony asked blankly. A second later he whipped out his cell phone—modern!—and turned on its portrait camera, and laughed in delight as he saw himself looking like he should. "Oh, thank God. I actually wasn't sure how to solve that one."
Oh.
Oh, no.
"Stephen?" Tony hesitantly asked the man opposite him when he saw him warily eying the Cloak's pointed red collar, barely visible in the corner of his vision.
"What," Stephen hissed, "is that. Where am I. And who the hell are... Stark?!" Stumbling backward a few steps, Stephen looked Tony over with a look of open disbelief.
Yeah, Tony thought with sick resignation. If the last time you'd seen him was only a few minutes earlier in 2007, this would be quite a change. "Calm down. There's a... slight situation and we're going to need to think through this." At another flash of green coming from the re-opened Eye, Tony winced and added, "And you're kinda wearing one of the most powerful objects in the universe, so—"
"What?!"
"So try not to jerk around too much."
"What?!"
Well, he'd better have learned some things about the Infinity Stones, Tony concluded as he watched 2007-Stephen spiral toward a panic attack in modern-Stephen's body. Because clearly, this guy wasn't going to be any help.