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“There was no other way.” Dr. Stephen Strange uttered his last words as he could feel himself fading out of the world. He knew it was coming; he’d seen it. The only universe out of 14,000,605 that they won.
He sighed as his body turned to ash, only feeling slightly guilty about the grief-stricken look on Tony’s face. This is the only way. Stephen had to keep repeating it to himself until he believed it.
He knew that there were infinitely more universes out there, and that they probably won in other universes, but there was no way to know how to win without previewing for days at a time. They hadn’t had the time for that.
He just had to be patient until the time travel was completed.
Easy.
Stephen opened his eyes, blinking a few times as he adjusted to the harsh orange light. Was he lying in a puddle? Where was he?
He pushed himself off of the ground, looking around. He spun in a full circle slowly, taking in the vast expanse of… nothing. The floor (ground?) was a classic orange color, as was the sky. There was no sun, but the whole sky seemed to glow a bit, so it wasn’t dim. About three inches of water coated the ground, completely still, apart from where Stephen stood.
And, most importantly, there was no one in sight.
He closed his eyes and rubbed his forehead. He didn’t see this in the possible outcomes. The Stones must have hid it from him. Maybe there was a reason he was there.
When he had decided a course of action (sit in silence to try and get his magic to work), he opened his eyes. He was about to sit back down in the water, but a speck appearing in the distance gave him pause.
“
I am GROOT!
” The speck announced, and Stephen sighed. He didn’t have time for an over-active tree child. At this point, he’d even prefer Tony’s kid, Peter.
No, he wouldn’t; he took that back.
Pressing his lips together, he elected to ignore the glorified sapling. Maybe it’d leave him alone if he pretended it didn’t exist.
He sat down in the water, considering there was no other option, and focussed all of his energy on his magic. He figured there must be a way to–
“I am GROOT!” The shout was closer this time, and Stephen huffed in exasperation as his eyes snapped open.
The tree (Groot, as it proclaimed) continued to shout the same thing repeatedly as it came closer, eventually stopping right in front of Stephen.
“What do you want,” he demanded at the living twig, staring at it with the most unimpressed expression he could manage while being inspected by a
literal
tree.
“I… am Groot.” It responded, and Stephen rolled his eyes.
“Yes, you’ve mentioned that. Where’s your trigger-happy man-child?” He couldn’t remember the man’s name, but he figured the tree would know who he was talking about. “I have things to do.”
“I am Groot.” The tree stated, and Stephen wished he had a better way of communicating. Could ‘Groot’ even understand what he was saying? What if the conversation wasn’t one-sided at all, but rather both participants were lost?
He sighed again. “Can you understand me?”
The twig child nodded.
“Oh, good. Go find your human. I’m not your babysitter.”
The amount of emotion that showed up on the tree’s bark-covered face surprised Stephen, and he couldn’t help but raise his eyebrows when it repeated its catchphrase with an extremely mocking tone.
He didn’t know what it said, but he got the gist. “Don’t talk to me like that.”
“I. Am. Groot.” It spat back, sounding like a pouty teenager.
Stephen scoffed. “Excuse me? Don’t you take that tone with me. Go find someone else to bother!”
The tree rolled its eyes and wandered away a few steps, then plopped into the water as well. It turned its back on him deliberately, huffing.
“Drama queen,” Stephen muttered, then closed his eyes again. Now, to really get into the magic bit.
First, he had to determine where he was. Then, why he was here. And lastly, how to get out. He took a deep breath and allowed his magic to flow over him. Flashes entered his mind, as usual, but they seemed… dimmer. As if they were being strained or put through a filter before they reached him.
His lips pressed together in concentration, and he tried to really focus on the images. Blurred squiggles turn into words, and just as he reads “The Stones have come to the decision”, a splash of water hits his face. He flinches, and the words fizzle out.
“Are you kidding me?” He snaps, opening his eyes to glare at the tree, who’s grinning smugly at the irritation on Stephen’s face. “Why would you do that? I’m trying to get us out of here, you know!”
“I am Groot.” It snarks at him, and kicks more water his way.
Stephen stands abruptly, his cloak wringing water out of itself. “That’s it. Come here, you little twig.”
He starts after the tree child furiously, trudging through the three inches of water as fast as he can without breaking into a run. Groot had no such qualms, however, and switched between sprinting away and turning to stick its wooden tongue out at the sorcerer.
Having had enough, Stephen used whatever strained magic he could manage to pull water from the ground and shoot it at the branch’s cocky little face. When the tree spluttered in surprise and retaliated by trudging closer and kicking water back at him, he knew a war had begun.
He released the cloak from his shoulders, and watched as it too went after the tree. Stephen watched as his cloak scooped water from the ground, flew to above Groot, and dumped at least a gallon on top of it.
As they all chased after each other, kicking water, dumping water, and just generally soaking one another, Stephen didn’t realize the onlooker until he was getting pelted from behind with one steady stream.
He whipped around to see a young girl, maybe 18 or 19, her hair up in twin braided buns and a water gun in hand. How she got such a gun, he didn’t know. He glared at her.
“Who are you?”
“Why does it matter? I want in on your… water fight.” She said, accent thick, and squirted him again.
Stephen stammered. “Wh– no, it’s not– it’s not a
water fight
, I’m just– making the tree-child leave me alone!”
Her eyebrows furrowed. “Sure, you are. Either way, I want to join you.”
“There’s nothing to join!” Stephen protested.
Just then, another voice made him turn to a new direction, where he met the eyes of a man who looked only a few years older than the girl. “It is better to just let Shuri join you. She is too stubborn for her own good.”
The girl scoffed and blasted him with water, too. “You’re one to talk, brother.”
Stephen glanced back and forth between the two, completely ready to deny the girl’s request again, but then a buttload of water dropped from above him. His shoulders hitched up to his ears, and he gasped in surprise, immediately looking up to see his cloak wringing out its last drops onto his head.
“
Really
?!” He barked at the cloak, which he
swore
could’ve giggled, then watched as it flew away to keep terrorizing the tree. He turned his sharp gaze toward the girl, groaned exceptionally loudly, then relented. “Fine, you can join. But it’s
not
a water fight!”
She snorted. “I don’t care what you call it, as long as I have an excuse to use this!” Holding up her high-tech water gun (which, seriously, how did she get that?), she ran after the cloak and tree.
Stephen sighed and sat right back on the ground. Maybe, with the girl to occupy it, the tree would leave him alone so he could meditate. He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and promptly got splashed in the face again. When he grunted in frustration and looked up, he saw the Spider-Child running toward the other group with web-shooters designed as makeshift water guns.
The King was watching over the group of children with a fond smile on his face, but Stephen was just annoyed.
Just as he was considering leaving to find an unoccupied section of this seemingly never-ending, orange, water-covered abyss, someone else ran past. For once, however, it wasn’t a kid. No, this was a grown man. A
grey
grown man, at that.
This was one of the people that they ran into on the spaceship– what did they call themselves? The Galaxy Guards? Either way, Stephen was pretty sure this man had also said “die, blanket of death” to the cloak.
The man ran toward the commotion, quickly followed by the tree’s human (also an idiot), the Winter Soldier, and the new Avenger– the Falcon. How these people were playing in the water as they were, he had no idea. But apparently, getting out was the last thing they had in mind as they splashed and played to their hearts’ content.
He rolled his eyes and let out the most annoyed groan he could fathom, throwing his head back to stare at the unimpressive orange expanse.
He stood up and started walking away from all of these insane beings, when the
bug girl
from space trotted past him in the most halting, skip-like run he’d ever seen.
“Guys, wait for me! Guys, wait!” She called, and Stephen just about lost his mind.
He whipped around to scream at everyone to leave him alone, because he’s
trying
to get everyone
out of there
, but a jet of water hit him square on the chest. He scanned the crowd (which had frozen) for the culprit, and saw Peter looking particularly guilty. “That’s it,” he snapped, and stormed over.
As soon as he got within splashing distance, the tree screamed out, “I AM GROOT!” and everyone took that as the cue to pelt Stephen with as much water as humanly possible. Even his own cloak scooped some up to dump on his head.
Conjuring his own sparkly shields, Stephen deflected most of the water back to their owners, effectively soaking them right back. Squeals of delight sounded all around him, and soon enough, even the King was joining in upon his sister’s begging.
Stephen soon found himself smiling, unable to stop the light peals of laughter spilling from him as he played in the shallow water among everyone else. He grinned as the cloak joined his team again, switching between shielding him from oncoming attacks and dumping water on others.
At some point, Peter ran out of the group a little bit to coax in the Scarlet Witch, who was standing off to the side shyly. She hesitantly stepped closer, and seemed to attempt to use her powers, but quickly learned that they weren’t going to work.
Stephen’s working theory was that their souls had been captured inside of the soul stone, hence the orange theme of their entire surroundings, and therefore her stone-based magic wouldn’t work.
She took a deep breath, looked to Peter for reassurance, then kicked water at the Falcon, who immediately retaliated by splashing her full force. Scarlet Witch (Stephen was then realizing how many names he didn’t know) burst out laughing and joined whole-heartedly into the fun.
As Stephen was observing this interaction, a certain nuisance appeared behind him, holding Shuri’s spray gun. “I… am…
GROOT
!” It declared, shooting at Stephen’s face with no mercy as he spluttered.
He held out his hands toward the stream of water, hoping to reduce the amount that was hitting his face, but he only managed to accidentally knock into the gun, causing it to drench the Winter Soldier instead.
Aforementioned Soldier turned around slowly, a murderous grin on his face. “You’ll pay for that, Doc,” he warned. He then bent down, stuck his metal arm in the water, and recalibrated the plates. This action caused water to spray
everywhere
, soaking everyone within twenty feet to their bones.
After that, the fun calmed down a bit, and everyone sat or laid down in the cool water, out of breath and laughing.
For once, Stephen was glad the tree started up chaos.