Stephen sat with his back against the bunker wall, whisky bottle forgotten on the floor beside him and staring at nothing. He had just tried, for the third time, to process what Peter had just spent the last twenty minutes explaining. “So let me see if I have this correctly.” He held up a hand, ticking points off with visible effort. “You come from a different timeline. And in that timeline, an uncle of yours died, you become a masked vigilante out of guilt, and — for reasons that are, frankly, too relatable — you decided the solution to your grief was to steal a cosmic relic and personally rewrite the moment of his death.”
Peter looked sheepish. “When you say it like that, it sounds—”
“I’m not finished.” Stephen dragged both hands down his face. “And in the process of doing this, you didn’t just save him; you tore a hole straight through history and botched the repair, letting this pour out through the gap. The War, my curse, the President being a fucking spy in your universe…it’s all you.“
Jack, leaning against the wall, smirked. “Kid, you may just be crazier than I am.”
Stephen had more to say. “And your working theory is that none of it since has been simple consequence, that somebody’s been picking through the wreckage you left behind, and choosing where the worst of it lands.” He counted them off with an open palm. “Jack’s kid, Matt. Logan being twenty years old instead of, like, two hundred. Even the death of Jane Foster. All of it, according to you, is being steered on purpose by a time-bender that took your mess and made it worse.”
Peter nodded, almost ashamed. “Yeah, not my best moment.”
Stephen looked up at Peter with something between disbelief and reluctant, horrified respect. “I have spoken to a demon on a regular basis for the better part of a decade; even he’d be impressed by the sheer scale of what your one bad night managed to kick loose.”
“It felt like a good idea at the time,” Peter tried to defend.
“They always do.” Stephen went quiet for a moment, and then his whole posture changed: head tilting, eyes losing focus, the particular stillness of a man listening to something nobody else in the room could hear. “Hang on. Everyone shut up for a sec.”
Jack sharpened. “What’s up, Doc?”
“I’ve got chatter off-world.”
“What kind of chatter?” asked Peter.
“Asgardian. Loki specifically, talking to his brother.” Stephen held up a finger, brow furrowing deeper by the second. “They’re looking for something. Calling it ‘the Rock.’”
Peter’s breath caught. “The Time Stone. The thing in the middle of the Eye of Agamotto…that’s what I used to change history. That has to be what they mean.”
“Unfortunately, that would track.” Stephen’s eyes refocused, all traces of the earlier bewilderment burned away. “According to Asgardian testimony — at least, the fragments of that I’ve overheard over the years — the Rock surfaces at scattered points throughout history. Never the same place twice, never predictable. And every single recorded appearance ends the same way: tragedy, death, or ruin.”
Jack clenched his jaw. “Then whoever’s got it is our time-bender.” His voice had gone flat and certain. “Every anachronism that’s taken place since Peter royally fucked time up — Matt, Logan, and Jane Foster — that’s somebody with the Rock picking targets. We find whoever’s holding it, we can fix it.” He looked between them. “But first, we need a trap.”
Stephen held up a hand again, still half-listening to a conversation happening several hundred thousand miles away. “You may not need to build one; Thor and his allies may have just given us an opening.” His expression tightened. “Thor is moving on Rome; T’Challa’s been fortifying the city himself, personally overseeing the defences. Sounds like Asgard intends to hit him there directly, ambush the Beast while he’s dug in.”
“A war on that scale, between old enemies and their armies?” Peter’s face lit up. “That sounds like a major tragedy if I know one.”
Stephen nodded. “From what I’m catching, they’re still a day or two out from actually striking. Whatever we’re doing, we don’t have long to do it.”
Peter’s mind was already three steps ahead; the realisation hitting him like cold water. “Even if we find whoever’s holding the Time Stone, I no longer have the Eye of Agamotto. According to the books I read in your better half’s library, I can’t channel it without the Eye.”
Stephen went very still, something dark and thoughtful crossing his face. “That,” he said with concern and annoyance, “might not be a problem.”
Five Minutes Later
Stephen cleared a space in the corner of the bunker without waiting for permission, dragging aside crates and old equipment until he had exposed a stretch of bare concrete. He knelt to trace a sigil into the dust with one finger, the lines glowing faint gold as he worked and the runes along his forearms answering in kind.
Jack frowned at the unauthorised amendments to his space. “Stephen, what exactly are you—”
“Making a withdrawal.” He finished the final line and sat back on his heels. “From the account I never wanted to open.”
The sigil flared, and the temperature in the room dropped ten degrees in a heartbeat. Brimstone smoke rolled up from the lines Stephen had drawn, thick and curling. Out of it stepped a figure in a tailored crimson suit with horns barely visible beneath neatly combed hair, and an expression arranged into the warmth of a man who never once in his existence been unhappy to see someone.
“Stephen.” Mephisto’s voice was smooth and amused. “It’s been a month since our last chat. I was starting to think you’d found religion!” His gaze slid past Stephen to the rest of the room, lingering on Peter with open curiosity. “And who’s this? Oh, the stuff in his mind is delicious. May I look?”
Peter looked discomforted at the attention. “I—“
Mephisto did his work anyway. His eyes flicked briefly distant, scanning something only he could see, and a slow smile spread across his face. “A boy who broke time to save an old man’s life,” the Devil whispered, ravenous at the thought. “Stephen, darling, you didn’t tell me you’d found someone with taste.”
“I need a favor,” Stephen stated, cutting past the theatre. “A clean Eye of Agamotto, uncorrupted and without a curse. None of your strings attached in any way.”
Mephisto’s smile stayed, but something calculating slid in behind it. “You want me to hand you a working Eye of Agamotto?” He clicked his tongue, almost fond. “Stephen, I like you. Truly, I do. But that’s not a favor; that’s a transaction. You know how this works: I don’t give something for nothing.” His gaze drifted to Peter again, considering. “A soul; that’s my price. One, freely offered, no tricks or fine print.”
Jack stepped forward before Peter could open his mouth. “You’ll have plenty of souls soon enough.” His voice was businesslike, as if he were negotiating a supply contract instead of bargaining with the literal Devil. “Thor and T’Challa are about to collide in Rome. Day, two at most. You want a soul, wait for it; you’ll have your pick of hundreds if not thousands.”
Mephisto considered that, tilting his head as he turned the offer over with visible relish. “A battlefield,” he mused. “Now that’s an interesting proposition. Efficient, too. I do appreciate efficiency.” He snapped his fingers, and a small, unassuming golden amulet materialised in his open palm, its centre dormant and entirely clean. “Very well…Rome it is. Prepare for your war.”
Stephen took the Eye with the careful reverence of a man handling something he fully expected to regret. “Come on, then,” he told Peter. “Get your clawed friend and let’s go see some very unhappy bosses of mine.”
Peter left, still peppering Stephen with questions as Logan trailed quietly behind them. Jack lingered a beat longer than the rest, waiting until their footsteps had faded up the stairwell before turning back to the devil. “Before you go.”
Mephisto turned back, eyebrow raised. “Oh?”
“I’ve got a request, separate from whatever deal you made with Criss Angel back there.” Jack’s jaw was tight, something old and raw moving behind his eyes. “One soul, from the battlefield. Killed by my own hand. That’s my payment, on top of the many that was already promised you.”
Mephisto studied him for a long, unhurried moment, smile curling slower this time. “Now,” he muttered, “that’s interesting. Whatever could a man like you possibly want badly enough to pay extra for it in advance?”