Through The Multiverse [Dr. Strange]

There Was No Other Way

Sometime's all I think about is you, late nights in the middle of June
Heat waves been faking me out

Five years. Five years since the last time I saw his face. Four years since Wong took his place as the Sorcerer Supreme. Three and a half years since I took Wong's old position as his secondhand man. Three years since I realized I was in love with him. Two years since the last time I said his name aloud. One whole year since I expressed my feelings for him to Wong and he just laughed at me. Five years of constant change and bullshit feelings that will never be able to take flight. "There was no other way."  There had to have been another way.

I sat myself up and looked at the picture frame beside my bed. Inside was a picture of us at Kamar-Taj during the full moon party just before reality collapsed in. It was a weird night but it was one of the best. That was the night I knew I had some feelings for him but was fully aware I couldn't make any moves, he was my teacher and I was just another one of his students. Well, maybe not just another one of his students, our bond was different. I knew I wasn't just a student to him but I knew I wasn't anything further than Wong's title as friend. That's all I ever trained myself to be but when he disappeared, I knew that my feelings were stronger, more intense. I missed him more than ever and I didn't know how to cope with it and telling Wong was the wrong technique. "Are you just going to sit and mope or help me save the world?"

There's no way. I jumped out of my bed and held my fists up to see him but how? Orange circles appeared at the end of my fists, prepared for whatever was to come next. "This is the first time you've seen me in five years and this is the greeting I get?"

"How would you know it's been five years if you weren't even here?" My questions were flying out of my mouth before I could even think of them. The events taking place currently were messing with the head and I wasn't sure how to slow it all down. How is he standing here nonchalantly after five years?  "Are you really real?"

He just chuckled and walked himself over to me. My fists never declining as I adjusted my position to face him once again, attack mode ready. His blue-green eyes sparkled and for the first time in five years I felt butterflies forming in my stomach. I couldn't control my emotions anymore as my fists fell to my sides slowly and my eyes shared what he had missed for five years. Pain, longing, love. The words didn't formulate like I had wanted them to so we just stood in the first comfortable silence I've endured in half a decade. "Now that you know it's me, are you going to help me save the world?"

"Hell yeah." I took my hands and ran them over myself to change out of the pajamas I've been sulking in for a week, into the robes I've only been able to wear a few times. For once, I was happy to be putting them on. Stephen opened a portal to what I recognized to be the Avengers Compound but much more...destroyed than I recall it being the past few years. Hitting my fists together, I formed more orange orbs like the ones I held to Stephen and prepared myself for the battle I was definitely not prepped for. "This is the Thanos guy?"

"Yup, he's a real charmer."

"He is sore to my eyes." Stephen laughed as we stepped through the portal and lined ourselves up with the other hundreds or potentially thousands of warriors ready to defend our world and others from this ever happening again. If this really was the only way to get it done, then I trusted Stephen but god help me if this all blows up in our faces.

"AVENGERS!" I get the man I've fallen deeply in love with back and I'm an avenger in the same day?

"No fucking way." I murmured to myself, realizing it was out loud when Stephen and Wong took curious looks at me. I just shrugged as the sound of a hammer hitting soaring through the air, breaking the silence among the rest of the group.