It had been three weeks since the final battle with Thanos at the Avengers Compound. Ariana had made it clear she wanted her space and had practically refused to speak to Stephen unless it was on matters regarding the protection of the Sanctum or other Mystical matters specifically related to their duties as they caught him up on all that had happened in the five year he'd been gone.
The previous night they'd argued over his concern for her practices of using her astral form to stay up late. He'd done the same thing when he was just beginning his training. But he also knew that if done too much, it could start to have negative effects on the mind and the body. The next morning he arose early to find her missing from the Sanctum and went to question Wong. "Where is Ariana?"
Wong sighed. "How long is this thing going to last between you two?"
"I wish I knew, however the answer lies in her hands, not mine."
"Stephen, when you were gone, she grew hard—she's not the same Ariana she was when you left."
"Somewhere buried inside is my Ariana, I just haven't figured out how to break through that wall she's built up."
"Perhaps today is the day, then."
"What do you mean?"
"Ariana has gone to Kamar Taj to fight in the last round of a sparring tournament."
"Oh?"
"You think you can break down the wall, maybe you need to meet her on her terms."
"You mean fight her? Beat her at a sparring tournament?"
Wong laughed heartily. "Sure, if that's what you think is going to happen."
Stephen's eyebrow raised. "You think it might go differently?"
"I think you haven't seen her fight."
"Then care to come and bear witness to the outcome?"
"It would be my pleasure," Wong said, standing from his desk and joining Stephen as he created a portal and stepped through.
Stephen stood in the shadows and watched the match. The sun had set in Kathmandu and torches lit the training grounds that lay in the middle of the Kamar Taj Temple of the Mystical Arts. He couldn't believe the woman who stood in the middle of the grounds was his Ariana. The woman whom he'd brought here years before to fix the wi-fi was now giving a proper beating to one of her fellow Masters.
Wong was right. She was good.
After a final tap out, she was left alone in the center of a ring of observers. "Who's next? Or shall we finally call an end to the tournament."
"One last challenger!" he called out. Everyone, including Ariana, looked around to see where the voice had come from. Finally, he stepped out of the shadows.
"Who would challenge me?" Ariana called out, though she was almost certain whose voice it was.
Stephen stepped through the crowd and into the middle of the ring. Cloak had stayed far behind, not wanting to watch his two favorite people fight. He'd seen enough of their drama the past few weeks. "What are the stakes of this tournament?" Stephen asked, glancing around at several Masters and trainees whom Ariana had already defeated that day. Surely she would be getting tired by now.
"No stakes, no trophies, no prizes, other than the knowledge of the win."
"Then I would propose higher stakes for this particular fight."
Ariana's eyebrow raised, her hands resting on her hips. "Oh? And that would be?"
He approached and felt her tense as he did so. When he finally stopped he was so close he could smell her sweaty body. Somehow it still didn't detract him. He spoke quietly, but didn't care if anyone else heard. Before the snap, all the occupants of Kamar Taj had come to know of his and Ariana's relationship. Surely they were aware of the tension between them since he had returned because of the blip. It would have been hard to miss it. "The stakes are, if I win, you have to go out to dinner with me tomorrow night. And at that dinner we will speak about things other than matters related to the Sanctum, the Temple, we will talk about anything other than matters related to the Mystical Arts. We will discuss us."
She stared him in the eye a moment, but her gaze was set and not wavering. "And if I win?"
"Then things will proceed as they already are. I'll continue to give you your distance."
She stared a moment longer before stepping back, nodding, and giving a slight bow. "Very well."
He bowed to her and assumed a defensive stance. As they fought, Stephen began bantering with her.
"So, does it make you feel better?"
"What?"
"Fighting me. Swinging at me. I'd say hitting me, but you're not really doing that," he said with a small smirk.
She quickly wiped the smirk off his face as she grabbed a staff and had it at his ankles before he could react. He was on the floor, air knocked out of his lungs. She stood above him. "Still the same arrogant Strange."
He spun around, locking his ankles with hers and pulling her down to the ground too. He rolled over and was on top of her, pinning her down with his hands on her shoulders. "Is that it? Is that the problem? I'm the same me but you're different now? You're still you, Ariana."
She grunted and raised her knee into his gut, launching him off of her before rolling back up and creating shields over her fists. "I am not the same woman I was five years ago, Doctor."
He spun his hands and created mystical whips in his hands as they walked in circles around the sparring ring. "I thought we were beyond the formal names, Ms. Miller. Why do you insist on calling me Doctor when for almost two years I was always Stephen. The first day you met me you insisted on calling me Stephen."
She didn't respond, so he cracked one of the whips towards her, which she easily avoided.
"Remember?" he asked. "We decided that day we were equals. Ariana and Stephen. Even before you were—"
She yelled out and caught him off guard with throwing a mystical dagger towards him that he barely avoided. If it weren't for the protective spell around the sparring ring, it would have flown into the onlookers. As it was, if he hadn't just barely dodged it, he'd have been injured. He froze, still spun sideways, and stared at her. Her chest heaved. "You left me!" she yelled out at him before going back into a defensive pose to continue the match.
"Wh—what?" he called out, now caught totally off guard by her outburst.
"You left me at the Sanctum that day! You ran off with Tony, Wong, and Bruce and you left me there. I had no idea what was going on till you were off the planet! Till Wong came back and told me you and the Time Stone were taken! You left me! All alone! You went off and got yourself killed and at some point you knew full well what you were doing. You knew you were going to die if you stayed there. You could have come back to me, Stephen! You could have come back!" She was still shouting, not a care for who was watching and listening.
Stephen shifted from a defensive stance to standing up straight, arms spread. "You think I wanted to leave you? You think I wanted to leave you alone, to—to die and leave you by yourself? You think I didn't want to run away, leave those fools on Titan to fight Thanos by themselves, and come back to the Sanctum and hold you?"
She stalked around him as if she was about to pounce, but he continued to hold his hands out, attempting to placate her. "You talk about me being a coward, Ariana—what kind of coward would that have made me!? To leave them to fight that battle on their own!? And then what? We'd have all died. And he'd have only followed me back to Earth. And then what? He'd have found me by your side and I'd have done the same thing I did on Titan. I'd have given the Time Stone up, but it would have been to save you. I'd have done anything to save you, Ariana, and that's what I did. I left you at the Sanctum because I didn't want you trying to be in that fight. I didn't come back because I didn't want Thanos anywhere near you. And once I used the Time Stone and saw the possible outcomes, all I needed to see was 1)Thanos was dead and 2)You were alive."
"You said you didn't look at my path when you explored the future timelines."
"I lied. I looked just far enough to see if you were alive beyond the snap. I looked no further. I couldn't bear it. Not when I knew you'd make it and I wouldn't."
He had hoped he might notice a calming in her behavior, that her chest might rise and fall a little slower. Instead, all the sudden it seemed to explode and she ran towards him at full force, bending to send her shoulder right into his gut and knocking him back into the protective shield around the ring. She began swinging, kicking, and he blocked her punch for punch, kick for kick. He'd stopped fighting back and his only mission was to survive her attack. She flipped him to the ground and he hit with a hard thud, his head hitting the stone beneath them hard. He flinched and attempted to deflect a few more blows before he held his hands out, tapping one on the ground, and yelled. "I yield."
"What!?" She shouted, falling back off of him in shock.
"I yield," he gasped out, laying only a moment longer before rolling over gingerly and getting up. The shield was lowered and he started to limp through the crowd before she yelled after him.
"You can't do that!"
He paused only a moment, closing his eyes and taking as deep a breath as he could with his tender ribcage. She'd caught him good several times in the last few moments of their fight. "I most certainly can. I yield. You win. I'll meet the conditions we agreed upon before our match."
