[ when do the avengers ever just call shield? and when does anyone with a little power think they might need to ask for help? (he's not an avenger, but he'll include himself in that batch all the same). ]
[ nobody calls shield because, outside of coulson's team, nobody even knows if shield is Still A Thing ]
i don't know, because apparently the world ended and then didn't end in between you leaving and coming back? am i ever going to get the spoilers on that, btw?
[ there's a reasonable delay here while he's talking with carol, waiting to find out how much she knows, how much is likely to make it out into the public sphere.
[ Stephen drops a pin to the as yet unopened sports bar. he wouldn't want to be eating, and it's not the sort of news to share over anything as normal as a drink either.
but it means they can talk in private. and he can fix her something strong afterwards. ]
[ she comes as called. easy enough to do when the world isn't Currently Exploding, anyway, and with her hoverbike it's even simpler. point a to point b, quick as can be.
there's a smudge of dirt and dust across her cheek when she enters, but it mostly just makes her look more at home amidst the work-in-progress of the bar. of the few feasible seats, daisy claims one that offers the most comfortable option for sprawling. manspreading, even. ]
Doctor.
[ she's not calling him dad. it's a signal, she guesses. a way to signal that she recognizes the seriousness of the spoiler game. ]
[ doctor. it's been a long while since he's had that out of her, if ever. Stephen emerges from behind the bar, hands empty of alcohol or food, looking somber. there's no use in beating around the bush here so he dispenses with any small talk, but there's something to clarify before he goes into detail. ]
I'll tell you as much as I can, but I know more than I'll tell you. I need to know you can accept that.
[ to know some of what approaches but not everything might be painful. but he's only going to give her what he judges to be safe. if she can settle for that, good. if she can't, they'll need to re-evaluate this conversation. ]
[ she doesn't like it. how could she? daisy's the kind of person who wants to know everything, who wants to make up her own mind and decide for herself what she thinks and believes, and having someone intentionally withhold information from her really gets in that way of that. but she trusts stephen strange, and that has to be enough. for now, anyway. ]
I don't want to. [ he already knows that. ] But I will if I have to.
[ no two ways around it: she'd rather have what information he's willing to give her than none at all. ]
[ good enough, anyway. this situation isn't going to be satisfying for either of them, whether or not he could give her everything she could hope to know. ultimately, it wouldn't make any difference— or, if it did, a negative one. any single difference could change the entire outcome, and the outcome they had was the only one in which more survived than died.
he doesn't cross to sit down. it seems too informal to do things that way. stays stood where he is - and begins. ]
The universe came under threat from a man who believed it was time to perform a cull.
A "cull". [ jesus christ. what is it with megalomaniac assholes and wiping people off the planet? ] Is this like, space Nazi situation?
[ she could shut up and let him speak, but they both know that's unlikely. it's nice of him to build in pauses to his own ted talk so that she can ask her questions and/or pose commentary. ]
Wait: did you say "the universe"? Like this is more than just an Earth thing?
[ it's better that he gives her the opportunity to guide the conversation. what he has to say isn't anything easily digested - to take it in her own time is the only way to do this gently.
usually he wouldn't worry about gentleness where she's concerned. but this is too big to deliver as a speech. too heavy to hand to her without breathing room. ]
[ it's a good question. has she? the name doesn't ring a bell — but whether that's due to daisy's own memory getting the new amsterdam scramble or the fact that nobody tells anyone in shield a fucking thing is really up for debate here. ]
I don't think so. [ and if she does know about them, she doesn't know enough to really contribute anything to the conversation, so it's as good as knowing nothing anyway. ] I'm guessing they don't have anything to do with an infinity scarf.
[ the slightest uptick at the corner of his mouth, but he's not to lose his train of conversation here. he acknowledges, but doesn't play. ]
No. Six stones: Mind, Power, Reality, Soul, Space, and Time. Individually they can be used to control their corresponding universal aspect. Together...
[ a slight hesitation, not big enough to be called a pause. just a small space for memory to creep and be swallowed. ]
And in hands capable of wielding them, they can be used to do anything.
[ it sounds like he's trying to rewrite sailor moon or the power rangers or some ridiculous japanese-inspired tv show. the mind stone? the reality stone? who came up with these names? ]
Right. [ but he is serious, and so she can't just completely dismiss it. ] Anything, like... space Nazi the universe.
[ like space Nazi the universe. unfortunate that it's apt, but Stephen doesn't chase that along yet. she's asked a question. ]
It depends on the stone and the wielder. Typically they've been contained and channeled through artifacts of one kind or another. I wielded the Time stone using the Eye of Agamotto, a magical artifact that enables the user to blend the power of the Time stone with the Mystic Arts.
Thanos collected the stones in a gauntlet that connected them all, allowing them to channel their power according to his will.
The Eye of... [ she doesn't say it. she doesn't say anything. she just trails off and sighs and purses her lips together, the slight shake of her head saying all the what the fuck is wrong with the naming committee she would need to say. it's a stupid name, stephen strange, but you probably already know that. ] Okay.
[ sure. why not. she'll go with that. ]
Wait, hang on. Did you say a gauntlet? What, somebody just let this fuckhead show up with a fancy glove for all his shit and z snap all over the universe? I feel like I'm missing something here.
[ this is WILD. who approved this??? why didn't they just take the stupid glove??? ]
[ a small sigh. she's within her rights to question the situation, but boy if he doesn't wish she wouldn't. still. patience is a learned skill just like any other: by now, when he needs it, he's got it in spades.
his answer is calm. but there's no humor in it. ]
Each stone made him more capable than the last. Attempts were made to remove the gauntlet, but those attempts were unsuccessful.
[ she knows, deep down, that what he is telling her is true. it has to be. there's no reason for him to make this up, or for him to deliberately deceive her. strange has never been anything other than honest with her, even when he knows she doesn't want to hear it. she can't expect that to change now. ]
Nobody... I mean, nobody told us anything. People just — we could have helped. [ could help, in future tense, if daisy was paying attention to the timeline. but it's in the past for strange, so she follows suit. ] We could have tried something.
[ what, she doesn't know. but shield had some of the greatest minds on the planet, and god only knows what they were doing when this was going down. ]
[ that much he can spare her. the wondering. what could be done, what could we have changed, how much of a difference made if only we'd had the chance?. there was no chance. and it wouldn't have made a difference significant enough to change the way things went. not for the better, anyway.
all this he knows, not as supposition, but as fact. ]
[ it's meant to be reassuring. it's meant to be some small comfort in the face of unthinkable loss — that it isn't her fault, that her failure to act or inability to do so didn't completely skewer the scales one way or the other. but it doesn't feel reassuring.
if anything, it only makes daisy angrier, more defensive; her arms cross over her chest as if warding off invisible arrows, mouth setting in a firm line that's only mirrored by the set of her brow. ]
How is that even fair? We don't get to know what's happening, and we don't even get to try and help? We're just, what? Supposed to sit around with our heads in the sand and then go 'well shit, guess the world ended'? You know that's bullshit!
[ it's a fair stance. if he were in her shoes, he'd be taking it too. there are a lot of things he might've done were he in anyone else's shoes.
but people don't get that luxury. he played the role that was needed of him. having played that role, the corners of his mouth turn down slightly before he specifies. ]
That wasn't a platitude. If you'd been involved, the entire outcome would've come off its axis.
[ he's not trying to baby her. these are the facts as he knows them, cold as they might be, unsatisfactory as they might be. ]
I don't see what the point of going back is, then, if it's better that we're not even involved.
[ maybe that's snippy. maybe that's defensive on a personal level that strange isn't making this conversation about. maybe it's not about daisy johnson at all and more about whatever special skills the avengers have that she doesn't.
or, alternatively, maybe she's right. maybe figuring out how to go back is a waste of time and effort on her part if her presence is literally meaningless in stopping the end of the universe. maybe her efforts can be spent elsewhere. ]
I guess I should just be grateful you're telling me anything, at this point.
[ A jump in his brow indicates surprise at that, a flash of shock that this is where she's taking them. But it's a fair reaction to being told your input would do worse than nothing, isn't it?
He swallows down the lump of complicated something risen hard in his throat. She lays her gratitude on the table like a sharpened knife and Stephen lets it sit there, untouched. If she feels the need for a weapon, so be it. He has no idea what it's like to stand in her shoes.
She wants to know.
After several seconds of steadily watching her, Stephen finally opens his mouth. Expression saying little. The face of a sentimental man who hasn't been afforded the luxury of sentimental choices, and who won't be afforded the luxury of them now. ]
Before Thanos added it to his gauntlet, I used the Time stone to see the future. Every possible future, every potential sequence of events from that moment until it was clear that everything that could've been done had been. There were fourteen million, six hundred and five potential timelines. In just under eight million of them, only half the universe died, and the rest were left to cope with the aftermath. In the rest we cycled through a variety of nightmare scenarios. In the two most popular, either half the universe's sentient life was wiped from existence and the Earth's leftover population murdered or enslaved before Thanos swept across the universe stamping out hope wherever he found it, or Thanos cut out the middle man and took out all sentient life with the infinity stones and started over.
There was only one where things went anything resembling our way. One. The half of all sentient life that Thanos had removed from existence was brought back and he and his army were destroyed before he could put things back how he liked it.
[ Billions across the universe still irreversibly dead, but billions more saved. He has to hold on to that. Billions more saved. ]
You weren't part of it.
[ Not any kind of comfort, and he doesn't expect it to be. But it is a fact. And compared to the size of the reality from which it stems, it's one of the kindest facts there is.
There's no point in her leaving here angry, resentful of her part in a future she doesn't understand. It's too much bigger than her. Too thoroughly impersonal, even at its ideological core.
The upside is worth more than the down. ]
And that means that none of you died in a battle that was only a fraction of the story. I cannot effectively describe to you how much they're going to need you now.
[ Survival was only the beginning. Coming back from this will be bigger than any of the battles they had to fight to survive it, and they're going to need everyone they have. Hope is a critical resource now. People are hope. ]
[ she doesn't sound convinced. she listened to him — really listened. because, for strange, daisy always affords that courtesy. she doesn't cut him off, she doesn't roll her eyes or stare at the ceiling. she listens as he talks, intensely quiet as her eyes watch his every microexpression.
but that doesn't mean she's happy about it. ]
I'm not — [ she pauses, mouth twisting into a firm line; there's a moment in which her lips press in between her teeth, as her head attempts to battle back words she has yet to speak aloud. ] I'm not going to go back.
[ the world will survive without her. it has not missed her, and will not miss her in the future. the avengers will save the world, strange has told her that. shield will continue on, fitz has told her that. no one even knows daisy exists, and thus, no one will miss her if she doesn't. ]
[ ah. that wasn't an impulsive thought. it's something she's considered seriously.
Stephen affords Daisy the same courtesy she did him. earnestly listening, quiet attention. what she has to say doesn't have much of a word count, but that's not to undermine the weight.
she's got a lot going for her here, that much he knows. someone that matters. there are too many variables at possible play here for him to dismiss that out of hand, but he still has to ask. ]
Why?
[ that's a big decision to make. less so if it's a transient one, if they end their entrapment here with the flexible ability to stay or to go, but if it's a one time deal? if it's here or there, this world or that one? no take backs, not ever?
giving up everything you've known for everything you've come to know is a big choice. he wants to know where she's coming from - not to approve or reject, that's none of his business.
but because he's worried. and he'd like to understand. ]
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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Why break the habit of a lifetime?
[ when do the avengers ever just call shield? and when does anyone with a little power think they might need to ask for help? (he's not an avenger, but he'll include himself in that batch all the same). ]
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i don't know, because apparently the world ended and then didn't end in between you leaving and coming back?
am i ever going to get the spoilers on that, btw?
[ nobody tells her anything ]
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eventually: ]
You can have them, but you won't like them.
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you want to do this over drinks or over dinner?
[ will it be easier for her to handle if she's buzzed? or should she be sober enough to deal with it? ]
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but it means they can talk in private. and he can fix her something strong afterwards. ]
I'll be here.
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there's a smudge of dirt and dust across her cheek when she enters, but it mostly just makes her look more at home amidst the work-in-progress of the bar. of the few feasible seats, daisy claims one that offers the most comfortable option for sprawling. manspreading, even. ]
Doctor.
[ she's not calling him dad. it's a signal, she guesses. a way to signal that she recognizes the seriousness of the spoiler game. ]
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I'll tell you as much as I can, but I know more than I'll tell you. I need to know you can accept that.
[ to know some of what approaches but not everything might be painful. but he's only going to give her what he judges to be safe. if she can settle for that, good. if she can't, they'll need to re-evaluate this conversation. ]
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I don't want to. [ he already knows that. ] But I will if I have to.
[ no two ways around it: she'd rather have what information he's willing to give her than none at all. ]
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[ good enough, anyway. this situation isn't going to be satisfying for either of them, whether or not he could give her everything she could hope to know. ultimately, it wouldn't make any difference— or, if it did, a negative one. any single difference could change the entire outcome, and the outcome they had was the only one in which more survived than died.
he doesn't cross to sit down. it seems too informal to do things that way. stays stood where he is - and begins. ]
The universe came under threat from a man who believed it was time to perform a cull.
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[ she could shut up and let him speak, but they both know that's unlikely. it's nice of him to build in pauses to his own ted talk so that she can ask her questions and/or pose commentary. ]
Wait: did you say "the universe"? Like this is more than just an Earth thing?
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usually he wouldn't worry about gentleness where she's concerned. but this is too big to deliver as a speech. too heavy to hand to her without breathing room. ]
Yes. More than just an Earth thing.
Have you heard of the infinity stones?
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I don't think so. [ and if she does know about them, she doesn't know enough to really contribute anything to the conversation, so it's as good as knowing nothing anyway. ] I'm guessing they don't have anything to do with an infinity scarf.
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No. Six stones: Mind, Power, Reality, Soul, Space, and Time. Individually they can be used to control their corresponding universal aspect. Together...
[ a slight hesitation, not big enough to be called a pause. just a small space for memory to creep and be swallowed. ]
And in hands capable of wielding them, they can be used to do anything.
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Right. [ but he is serious, and so she can't just completely dismiss it. ] Anything, like... space Nazi the universe.
[ she pauses for a second, considering. ]
How exactly do you wield an infinity stone?
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It depends on the stone and the wielder. Typically they've been contained and channeled through artifacts of one kind or another. I wielded the Time stone using the Eye of Agamotto, a magical artifact that enables the user to blend the power of the Time stone with the Mystic Arts.
Thanos collected the stones in a gauntlet that connected them all, allowing them to channel their power according to his will.
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[ sure. why not. she'll go with that. ]
Wait, hang on. Did you say a gauntlet? What, somebody just let this fuckhead show up with a fancy glove for all his shit and z snap all over the universe? I feel like I'm missing something here.
[ this is WILD. who approved this??? why didn't they just take the stupid glove??? ]
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his answer is calm. but there's no humor in it. ]
Each stone made him more capable than the last. Attempts were made to remove the gauntlet, but those attempts were unsuccessful.
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[ she knows, deep down, that what he is telling her is true. it has to be. there's no reason for him to make this up, or for him to deliberately deceive her. strange has never been anything other than honest with her, even when he knows she doesn't want to hear it. she can't expect that to change now. ]
Nobody... I mean, nobody told us anything. People just — we could have helped. [ could help, in future tense, if daisy was paying attention to the timeline. but it's in the past for strange, so she follows suit. ] We could have tried something.
[ what, she doesn't know. but shield had some of the greatest minds on the planet, and god only knows what they were doing when this was going down. ]
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[ that much he can spare her. the wondering. what could be done, what could we have changed, how much of a difference made if only we'd had the chance?. there was no chance. and it wouldn't have made a difference significant enough to change the way things went. not for the better, anyway.
all this he knows, not as supposition, but as fact. ]
It's best that you didn't.
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if anything, it only makes daisy angrier, more defensive; her arms cross over her chest as if warding off invisible arrows, mouth setting in a firm line that's only mirrored by the set of her brow. ]
How is that even fair? We don't get to know what's happening, and we don't even get to try and help? We're just, what? Supposed to sit around with our heads in the sand and then go 'well shit, guess the world ended'? You know that's bullshit!
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but people don't get that luxury. he played the role that was needed of him. having played that role, the corners of his mouth turn down slightly before he specifies. ]
That wasn't a platitude. If you'd been involved, the entire outcome would've come off its axis.
[ he's not trying to baby her. these are the facts as he knows them, cold as they might be, unsatisfactory as they might be. ]
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[ maybe that's snippy. maybe that's defensive on a personal level that strange isn't making this conversation about. maybe it's not about daisy johnson at all and more about whatever special skills the avengers have that she doesn't.
or, alternatively, maybe she's right. maybe figuring out how to go back is a waste of time and effort on her part if her presence is literally meaningless in stopping the end of the universe. maybe her efforts can be spent elsewhere. ]
I guess I should just be grateful you're telling me anything, at this point.
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He swallows down the lump of complicated something risen hard in his throat. She lays her gratitude on the table like a sharpened knife and Stephen lets it sit there, untouched. If she feels the need for a weapon, so be it. He has no idea what it's like to stand in her shoes.
She wants to know.
After several seconds of steadily watching her, Stephen finally opens his mouth. Expression saying little. The face of a sentimental man who hasn't been afforded the luxury of sentimental choices, and who won't be afforded the luxury of them now. ]
Before Thanos added it to his gauntlet, I used the Time stone to see the future. Every possible future, every potential sequence of events from that moment until it was clear that everything that could've been done had been. There were fourteen million, six hundred and five potential timelines. In just under eight million of them, only half the universe died, and the rest were left to cope with the aftermath. In the rest we cycled through a variety of nightmare scenarios. In the two most popular, either half the universe's sentient life was wiped from existence and the Earth's leftover population murdered or enslaved before Thanos swept across the universe stamping out hope wherever he found it, or Thanos cut out the middle man and took out all sentient life with the infinity stones and started over.
There was only one where things went anything resembling our way. One. The half of all sentient life that Thanos had removed from existence was brought back and he and his army were destroyed before he could put things back how he liked it.
[ Billions across the universe still irreversibly dead, but billions more saved. He has to hold on to that. Billions more saved. ]
You weren't part of it.
[ Not any kind of comfort, and he doesn't expect it to be. But it is a fact. And compared to the size of the reality from which it stems, it's one of the kindest facts there is.
There's no point in her leaving here angry, resentful of her part in a future she doesn't understand. It's too much bigger than her. Too thoroughly impersonal, even at its ideological core.
The upside is worth more than the down. ]
And that means that none of you died in a battle that was only a fraction of the story. I cannot effectively describe to you how much they're going to need you now.
[ Survival was only the beginning. Coming back from this will be bigger than any of the battles they had to fight to survive it, and they're going to need everyone they have. Hope is a critical resource now. People are hope. ]
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[ she doesn't sound convinced. she listened to him — really listened. because, for strange, daisy always affords that courtesy. she doesn't cut him off, she doesn't roll her eyes or stare at the ceiling. she listens as he talks, intensely quiet as her eyes watch his every microexpression.
but that doesn't mean she's happy about it. ]
I'm not — [ she pauses, mouth twisting into a firm line; there's a moment in which her lips press in between her teeth, as her head attempts to battle back words she has yet to speak aloud. ] I'm not going to go back.
[ the world will survive without her. it has not missed her, and will not miss her in the future. the avengers will save the world, strange has told her that. shield will continue on, fitz has told her that. no one even knows daisy exists, and thus, no one will miss her if she doesn't. ]
If I get the choice, I'm not going back.
no subject
Stephen affords Daisy the same courtesy she did him. earnestly listening, quiet attention. what she has to say doesn't have much of a word count, but that's not to undermine the weight.
she's got a lot going for her here, that much he knows. someone that matters. there are too many variables at possible play here for him to dismiss that out of hand, but he still has to ask. ]
Why?
[ that's a big decision to make. less so if it's a transient one, if they end their entrapment here with the flexible ability to stay or to go, but if it's a one time deal? if it's here or there, this world or that one? no take backs, not ever?
giving up everything you've known for everything you've come to know is a big choice. he wants to know where she's coming from - not to approve or reject, that's none of his business.
but because he's worried. and he'd like to understand. ]
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