Heart of Iron
Summary: Stephen is really proud of how fast he's learning after he makes his first portal but then comes the astral projection that changes his life forever as he comes face to face with a force from a universe not his own and an ancient relic that will change the fate of his world.
The Sorcerers of Kamar-Taj were a much merrier bunch for centuries. She and Agamotto studied together for many years before anyone noticed Agamotto's new abilities. The multiverse didn't notice him until he started gathering a following of many who wished to learn. Earth was, as such, for a couple of centuries completely isolated from other dimensions beyond drawing on their energies. Then, slowly, residents from other dimensions started coming to Kamar-Taj and not all were benevolent. That is how Kamar-Taj's tradition of being protector's of this reality began.
Centuries later, during the Late Iron Age, Agamotto created a vessel for the Time Stone named the Eye and labeled her vessel as the Heart of the Iron Maiden, which she found ironically fitting. She is not certain when or how the name later became the Heart of Iron but the Maiden part was forever lost not five generations of sorcerers after it became standard. Before the ancient Egyptian empire reached its peak in the Middle East or China developed some of the most peculiar aspects of its culture, Agamotto faced Dormammu and with his dying breath created a world wide shield to keep the demon trapped in the Dark Dimension.
His successor was the only one who knew about her true nature. He erected the three Sanctums over the points Agamotto created the protective shields and started training the sorcerers to both heal and fight. Kamar-Taj began hiding, seeing that all sorts of people with either good or bad intentions came to learn magic. Kamar-Taj faded from common knowledge except for wise old men and women or those in desperate need. Everyone else assumed them to be a religious cult like Shaolin monks or something those people up in Tibet, on the other side of Mont Everest. War always avoided Kamar-Taj. Emperors and conquerors left them alone unless magical aid was needed. Agamotto's successor was the first 'official' Sorcerer Supreme, meaning the title was known at royal courts and respected like visiting royalty. Agamotto became practically a god. It reminded her of that old paradox and often made her snort as she advised or studied with the Sorcerer Supreme: Did God make man or did man make God? A question that may as well outweigh even the seemingly silly which came first, the chicken or the egg? Those questions somehow led to Kamar-Taj teaching its sorcerers philosophy and she had great fun cackling at the younger students with no patience for such riddles grumble about the problem as they tried to figure out an answer. Even the Sorcerer Supreme asked her, but not even she knew, not that she was going to tell him as much.
Centuries passed and so did he. She remained the same and greeted the new Sorcerer Supreme with as much enthusiasm as she had the first two. The young Greek woman was more powerful than her teacher but not as powerful as Agamotto. Her 'reign' as Sorcerer Supreme was short, though, when Romans started invading her village and she had been visiting her family. They killed her and she had not left a successor in her place. A young Persian boy took her place, barely reaching adulthood, but his mandate was even shorter as he tried taking the Time Stone out of the Eye of Agamotto in an attempt to reverse the former Sorcerer Supreme's death. The next Sorcerer Supreme, coming from somewhere in Nigeria, did not make that same mistake. He banned anyone from using the Eye of Agamotto until they master other forms of magic. He died after a long, natural life, leaving Cagliostro as his successor, the man who wrote a book on the manipulation of time. Cagliostro remained Sorcerer Supreme until, during the 9th century AD, he found his destined successor, Myrddin or, as most of the world came to know him, Merlin. He rivaled Agamotto in power and far outweighed him in wisdom.
It was during his reign that someone first tried to steal and use the Heart of Iron and the sorcerers learned the folly of such attempts. She was not amused and the protection spells she herself had placed on her vessel were merciless. She had no regrets. Her vessel was only for her to use. Still, she had Merlin spread rumors that only a chosen sorcerer will be able to wield the power of the Heart and let human imagination do its work for her. Merlin took great care to never let her fall into the wrong hands again, or that no one can attempt it.
She was possibly the only one who knew of his conflict between loving Freya, the Lady of the Lake, and King Arthur Pendragon of Kamelot, the uniter of Albion. Both their deaths were a near devastating blow to the sorcerer but he recovered as best as he could and continued his duties. It is when all the relics Kamar-Taj would later protect were hunted down. More came over the centuries, but in a single decade, most of the space in the three Sanctums and Kamar-Taj itself was filled up with all sorts of relics and magic books or scrolls and tablets.
Around the time Columbus found the Americas, a young Celtic woman appeared at the doors of Kamar-Taj and she knew the time was approaching. She let Merlin train her as he saw fit, especially as the future Sorcerer Supreme showed unease around her. Instead, she finally devoted some of her time to other pursuits.
Namely, Asgard.
She had visited Odin once before, warning him of how he treated his daughter, Hela. She had told him she needed help to adjust to peace after centuries of conquering wars that led to Asgard's riches and control over the Nine Realms. She hadn't checked in on them since Thor was born and she wasn't entirely sure when Loki will be adopted but he had to talk to Odin about his treatment of the young Frost Giant and the secret keeping. If Loki finds out and snaps, certain things will be set in motion. Not that she can't stop them, but she'd rather not deal with them at all. Sure, it might mean the Mind Stone will be left in her nemesis' possession but that over the possibility of him getting his hands on the Space Stone is an almost acceptable loss. Besides, he only learns of the Space Stone's location because a Prince of Asgard tells him. She would bet her right arm that he wouldn't be any wiser to its whereabouts for years to come if he had not been told in Loki's attempt to spare his own life and sanity.
As she half expected, Odin was as hardheaded as ever. He would not budge on revealing to Loki his true heritage and would instead rather keep him in the dark. Frigga and Hela were disgusted by him in that regard but at least Loki had someone in his corner until Thor hauls his head out of his ass and stops being so arrogant. She wonders if she is being a hypocrite. She remembers very well just how arrogant she at one point used to be, even if it was only a mask to hide her numerous vulnerabilities.
She and Hela are decent friends. Thor does not know her or of her, per her own request, much the same as Loki. Her path with them will intertwine when the time is right. For now, Hela is the only child of Odin she speaks with and she prepares the seasoned army general for the trouble to come. Hela is reasonable and listens to her, as does Frigga. For all that Odin is considered the strongest in their family, it is the two of them and later Loki who are mages to be feared. Hela teaches her Asgardian battle magic and introduces her to Fenrir, her gigantic wolf. Frigga, on the other hand, teaches her magic the likes of which Earth has never seen before. For all that she had once been the Sorcerer Supreme of Earth, it was in the first hundred cycles that she has any memory of and it is all fuzzy. Magic comes to her with ease for this very reason, no matter how bad her recollection is. She studies for two Earth years in Asgard before returning to Earth to share her knowledge with the Sorcerers of Kamar-Taj. Merlin learns it with ease, as does his successor. Years later, Asgard even sends them books of spells and beasts and worlds to look out for. Kamar-Taj grows, even as it is forgotten in the minds of men.
In Asgard, only the King, Queen and army general know of their existence, know of her and know of him, her adversary. She works for centuries later to secure Earth's protectors so Earth itself can be secure.
It is sometimes an exercise in futility, other times she manages to make progress.
Odin remains a dick.
Merlin passes down the mantel of Sorcerer Supreme to his greatest student in the late years of the 16th century, finding a nice part of an enchanted forest to turn himself into a tree and await the return of his Once and Future King that was prophesied to happen when Albion needs him the most. She had never actually bothered to check in previous cycles if that prophecy ever came true but she figured she might as well keep an eye on her old friend this time around. His student, the now bald Celtic woman, has exceeded him in power and after only a century earns herself the moniker 'the Ancient One'. She has a good heart and a set of morals that were, despite their seeming rigidness, rather elastic. She follows the rules but understands when they must be bent or outright broken in order to protect the people of Earth and the multiverse itself. She makes a list of entities, beings and people that must be watched for they could or already are a threat. She starts teaching people how to heal themselves of even the most helpless cases. She is firm and kind and cruel and merciful. She is wise but grows cryptic and she has managed to mostly suppress her pride.
But only mostly. She, too, is human, after all. She hesitates for the longest time to seek the Heart of Iron's council until she realizes the wait only does harm in the end. They build a working relationship and a rapport not many would understand how it works. They never become friends, like she had with most of the Sorcerers Supreme before the Ancient One, but the two women get along splendidly most of the time.
The Ancient One comes crying for her forgiveness, one day, when an army of the Mindless Ones somehow manages to come to their dimension from the Dark Dimension. There had been too many and their presence disrupted the natural flow of magic, disabling the sorcerers, even the Sorcerer Supreme, from drawing on the energies of the multiverse in order to fight. The Ancient One kept crying to her how there was no other way and the mark of Dormammu glowed a fierce red on her forehead, a stigmata of her shame. The Celtic woman begged the oldest adviser of her order for forgiveness for allowing herself to strike a deal with Dormammu to draw power from the Dark Dimension. The bald woman was so shaken up that she fell asleep in the chambers containing her vessel as she stroke her head to keep her calm and wrangle the new power under control.
The Ancient One put up a wall between them ever since, out of shame and fear of the temptation the Heart of Iron now represented. The entity within said relic never needed to remind her how the last person who tried to abuse her power had ended up. Still, the Ancient One learned to be far more reserved around her elder, which greatly annoyed her as they had been finally getting somewhere.
The Ancient One was a good Sorcerer Supreme. She cared, she defended, she fought, she learned and taught, she made mistakes and did her best to then make amends. Her guilt still ate away at her, so one day she took the Celtic woman to the Eye of Agamotto and told her many of her predecessors have used it to look in the future so they can prevent the worst ones, so the breach of the veil between dimensions can never happen again. The Ancient One refused at first, wary of disrupting the natural balance or going against its laws, but she persisted and the Sorcerer Supreme started learning. As the years passed, she used it more and more as trouble started appearing at every corner, magic being abused or hunted all over the world. Kamar-Taj was for a long while the only place where magic can be practiced freely, as even the Sanctums were now in the hearts of bustling city life. The Ancient One had them keep up with the times to not stand out, as the seals must remain strong. A few times, they nearly fell due to human stupidity. They would have, had it not been for the Masters guarding them and the protective shields soon erected to keep them safe from physical attack.
The first World War came around soon enough, much to the sorcerers' distaste as a whole. Their movements were restricted to the Mirror Dimension if they had to go out about their business and duties. The Ancient One forbid anyone from participating in the battles as they were not their's to fight. She had to agree with her there. Sorcerers on a battlefield on either side were a big bit not good.
That was when the schism between the duty of protecting the physical world and the metaphysical one occurred. The Sorcerers of Kamar-Taj were the protectors of reality as a whole, rather than any singular country's own interests. They started practically existing outside of the world with an isolation to almost rival that of Wakanda. The only difference was that Wakanda still sent spies and influencers into the 'white man's world', whereas Kamar-Taj contended themselves with getting information through scrying. Still, Wakanda remained as closed to the world as ever while Kamar-Taj still gladly accepted anyone who would want to learn the Mystic Arts. They, too, brought cultural differences and stories of the war. Many of them were amputated soldiers, who had heard of the mystic place and had been hoping fir a miracle. They got it, though not how they expected it. They had to be practically rehabilitated in order to be calm enough to do magic. The Ancient One refused anyone who had plans of taking the knowledge of Kamar-Taj back to the armies and the wars.
Soon, WWI passed, there was a truce that lasted about twenty years before WWII started. It was then that the ancient presence within the Heart ventured out to, for the first time, observe the world of men. After all, her parents will be there. It is time she figures out why she won't exist. Besides, this is when her sometimes friend, sometimes enemy, most of the time teammate, occasionally partner, often times rival and rarely lover will come into his own as the first scientifically enhanced human and become a war hero. It never hurts to check on someone's start of their greatest journey.
Finding her father is easy and following him after that even easier. As the war ends, it eventually leads to her watching as her parents meet, fall in love and eventually marry. A child is not even in the back of their minds as they live their lives and enjoy their fame. It doesn't worry her. She knows she is supposed to be born later. Or adopted, as it sometimes happens. The family relations of each cycle is as weird and as random as gender is. She never knows how life will go for her this time around, but she is still somehow always the same person, has the same name, the same identity, always the same memories. She has some constants in these cycles. Other times, she meets completely new people she never sees again. Those who shaped her always remain. The date of her birth varies, the date of her rebirth also varies. She's taken up her mantle of protector, defender and warrior at the most random points in her life. As an old man, as a young teenage girl, a middle aged man, in her early twenties, as a high school boy genius, as a kid in middle school and so on and so fort.
Still, she knows when to expect the best opportunity for these events. She always knows when she will be born. Which is why it had been so shocking and disturbing to find that no such dates existed in this universe. And now she was following her parents to find out why.
The answer comes soon enough. 16th of September 1970, her heavily pregnant mother and panicking father get into a car as they realize the contractions have started two weeks early, on the day they were transporting her father's version of the supersoldier serum to a secure safe. She watches with a heavy 'heart' as they travel down the road and, suddenly, the car swerves out of control and crashes off the road. Moments later, a far too familiar man appears, mask covering half of his face and metal arm gleaming as he rips open her father's door, drags him out and starts punching his face in until his pleas for his wife's and unborn daughter's lives go quiet. Her entire being turns colder than a black hole as the man then takes her mother by the throat and squeezes the life out of her.
And then, in a final, chilling moment of unnecessary cruelty, the assassin takes his knife and cuts open her mother, dragging out the dying baby that was supposed to be her. The man stares down at her and throws her dead should-be-body into the ditch on the side of the road before taking the serum and mounting his motorbike, speeding off without a trail.
Hours later, far too late to help either of the three broken little family, authorities pass by and the horrific scene alerts the organization she both loves and hates. An even more familiar man, one whom she has both hate and respect for, accompanies the woman who has almost always been her godmother and he is the one to find her frozen little body. He, her honorary uncle, the man she had never seen shed a tear, clutches her close to his chest as though to keep her warm and weeps. He holds her long after her parents' bodies were checked over, identities confirmed - not that it was needed; even with his whole face bloody and ruined, her father is still far too recognizable - and he fights when they take her away.
She wonders at the wisdom of going to him as she had planned and ponders letting it fade, letting the hurt settle, maybe a few years, maybe until the day this tragedy should have happened, but ultimately decides this can't wait. The fate of the world rests on how she treats these events. If she has been able to get over the fact that she won't exist in this world, than so can the world.
She follows him to his apartment building and quickly goes to the apartment itself as soon as she learns which one is it, waiting there, in the dark, letting her glow be the only source of life. She's never seen him so down that he is completely clueless to another's presence as he bangs open the door, goes straight for his stash of liquor and takes a deep, long drink of whiskey. When he lowers the bottle, only then does he notice her and she is not at all surprised as a gun is whipped in her direction faster than in those cliche cowboy movies. The bullet goes straight through her, as do the rest of the ones left in his gun. Not one to be deterred, he rushes forward with the full intention to try and punch her - which makes no sense, given she had been intangible to bullets just a second ago, but she's willing to blame it on the emotional joyride he must be going through right now - but she doesn't want him to crash through the window and fall to his death, so she catches his punch and catches him off guard.
"Stop that," she commands and pushes gently back and he staggers as though she had used more force than necessary, which she hadn't. She'd had her cycles of being enhanced. After a certain number, she always made sure she was enhanced. It bettered her chances, in the end. Either way, she had learned control a long time ago. It was just shock that was making him so pliant and unbalanced.
"Who ... ? What are you?!" Asked the shocked man, looking shaky and increasingly uncomfortable, which was fair. He was technically seeing, well, a ghost of a woman who should have been born today. Not that he knew that. Not yet.
"My name is Toni Stark," she told him, with the same pride and flair found only in a true Stark. "We need to talk."