Too Little Too Late

Stephen Strange

Stephen didn't stop at 14000605 futures. Maybe because he liked round numbers. Maybe because what he was seeing wasn't good enough. All those possibilities for only one victory, it definitely wasn't good enough. Captain Marvel had asked him to look more. He understood why she asked.

In most futures, Thanos was winning, most of the time easily. Earth was never fully prepared for someone like the titan, for a power like the infinity stones brought together. Half the universe was erased and the Avengers couldn't do anything about it. Sometimes Peter would manage to take the gauntlet, sometimes Tony would make Thanos bleed, but the endgame was always the same. The one timeline when the people of Earth won, it was at a great cost that nobody would really understand. So, Stephen looked a bit further.

That future wasn't what he expected really. They were victorious. It wasn't the best but still better than the other one. With a little more time maybe he could have found yet another victory, a complete one. His brain couldn't take much more anyway. From what Stephen had seen on television, a good victory would have meant a better past. Nothing he could change now. Even with the time stone, going back and changing everything, even for the better, could provoke a lot of distortions for a great number of timelines. So, they had no other choice but to hope that this slightly better outcome would be theirs.

The sanctum had been a secret for centuries and now, Strange completely understood why. Of course, the U.N. wanted to know more about them, about what they did. And that was fine. They understood pretty quickly that the sorcerers from his order were dealing with things that were beyond their capacities. They just wanted to know more and maybe offer help when they could. Mostly with supplies, they weren't fools. Overall, they were just happy to have more people to fight for them. Thanos was here.

The U.N. never wanted to control anything per say. It had just become essential with all the collateral damages and property destruction that the Avengers were leaving behind them. As a proof of good will and as the head of the sanctum, Dr Strange signed his set of the accords. But he made things very clear from the start. They were not Avengers and they would never be. The sanctum was dealing with magic and other dimensions. They were trained and sought improvements through knowledge. The sorcerers were following rules both within the sanctum and outside. They had strictly nothing to do with people like Wanda Maximoff.

But of course, the message didn't seem to get to Captain America's brain. Even though he had no idea what they were dealing with, Steve Rogers wanted to order them around. Worse than that, he wanted to put the witch at the head of the magic division. That woman had never been a leader like that before. It was definitely not the time and place to put her there. Carol Danvers put Steve back in his place and an argument of epic proportions would have started if not for the first wave of Chitauri warriors.

There were so many, swarming from the ships in different massive groups. Thanos had been faster than anticipated. His front lines anyway. The defenders of Earth had wanted to take the main fight in a valley away from the big cities. That was out of the question now.

Golden portals were opening everywhere, Avengers, armies and sorcerers alike going through. The mad titan was attacking New York once again. They moved everything, shields, weapons, armoured vehicles as fast as possible. The sanctum was already showing how helpful they were with their ways of travel but it still felt like a bad omen. When the battle actually started, it wasn't time to think about that anymore. Just fight and fight again. Kill as many as you can in one go. They had to try and conserve their energy as much as they could. That was only the start.

Dr Strange saw some people going down and others taking them out to get fixed up if it was possible. Part of him, the doctor part, wanted nothing more than to go and help them. The main part knew that right now, the sorcerer was more important. Just like it started, that first fight stopped. It was now clear that Thanos was testing them. He liked worthy opponents apparently. Made it worthy for him.