-Unbetaed and not a native speaker so please kindly point out any mistakes
-Warning: language, description of torture but not very graphic, PTSD and most likely incorrect ways to cope with that.

Apparently, knowing the theory was different from actually playing it so Tony and Stephen, who got roped into it, lost very badly to Peter. Real life superheroing didn't translate well to gaming. But both of them were content losing to their favorite arachnid.

The good thing was Tony thought that at least Stephen was back to "normal", well as normal as he could be after returning from the Snap. He didn't know the guy before then and appearing in the middle of Central Park via portal was so far from normal so that was not the best frame of reference.

In the next day, as Tony walked in to bring lunch to Stephen, the doctor was just sitting there in the full lotus position. It was the first time he saw the doctor without his books since the last few days.

He put the tray down and sat in front of the doctor. "Are you meditating, Doc? I'm not an expert but I thought you need to close your eyes in order to be in tune to your inner self or some mumbo jumbo like that."

Stephen smiled. "That's a misconception. The essence of meditation is to be aware. You can be eating and meditating as long as you're aware that you're eating."

"Huh. I didn't know that. I always assumed meditation was related to navel gazing."

"I can teach you if you'd like to."

Tony scoffed. "Me and meditating? The world must have come to an end." He remembered. "Ah, shit, forget that analogy, it already has happened."

"But you reversed it back so we're back to live or so I'm told. So you're a hero." Stephen scrunched his forehead. "I wish I remembered that."

"Are you trying to enlarge my ego? Don't let Pepper know that. As much as I like to discuss about myself, I think it's enough talk about me.. You're not so bad yourself. If only I have a video camera set up in Titan to show how badass you could be. My favorites are when you turned a blackhole into butterflies, even Thanos was surprised by that, and when you duplicated yourself like amoebas."

"So am I like an amoeba? Is that because I'm only a simpleton that only have one brain cell?"

"No, the amoeba part was a compliment. Even without your memory, you're not stupid. You're one of the smartest people I've met and I don't say it lightly. Of course, nobody can exceed the IQ of Tony Stark but you're not bad yourself."

Stephen smiled. "You've been saying that I'm not bad. I guess that's your way of compliment."

"It's true, Doctor Strange," confirmed Friday.

"Thank you, Friday."

"You're welcome."

"Friday, you traitor!"

"Sir, Doctor Strange is not familiar with your behaviour even with his memory. I was just trying to help him because you'll never admit that you compliment someone. You might say something you regret later to counteract your compliment. For someone else, they could infer that was your way of backpedalling but I'm afraid that it might confuse the good doctor more in his current state."

Tony whistled. "Harsh but fair, Friday. I guess I should be proud of you as you're my own creation.I guess I need to give myself a pat on the back."

There was a hint of amusement as Friday replied, "Anytime, Sir."

"Do you always talk with your AI like this?"

"No, when noone is around it's worse."

"I can confirm it's true, Doctor Strange. I don't know if Sir could function without me helping him reminding him that he needs to eat or rest."

"Shut up, Friday. I invent you to remind me so I remind myself in sort of a roundabout way."

"Harsh but fair, Sir. I'll shut up now. Enjoy your lunch!"

"Well, you heard the AI. Let's eat and mediate."

"Only if you are aware what you are doing then you can call it meditation."

"Shut up, Deepak Chopra.. Let me have my moment."

"Actually I don't learn my meditation from Mr Chopra, I learned it from…"

"Just zip it and let's eat."

They ate in companionable silence. Tony guessed because Stephen really tried to meditate while he was eating. Tony just wanted to have some quiet moments so he could organize his thoughts. Perhaps it was also a type of meditation if he was aware that he was organizing his thoughts. He needed to ask Stephen later after lunch.

Stephen offered to bring their dirty dishes to the kitchen and washed them. Tony was worried that something else might trigger him so he said he would do it because he needed to try walking meditation.

"Do you know how to do walking meditation? That's wonderful."

"Whaaaaaat? There is a walking meditation. I just made it up on the spot for fun."

"There indeed is walking meditation. It's a well known technique to make us aware of our own body not only when we are sitting. It has been known for years that…"

"Lalalala, I'm going to do ignoring-talk-about-meditation meditation. I'll be back soon." He quickly ran with the tray before Stephen really taught him meditation. He knew meditation was supposed to be good for him or for that matter anyone else on the planet (perhaps Thanos wouldn't do that snap if he were a meditator?) but Tony was never known to do things that were good for himself.

Stephen was waiting for him again in the lotus position as he came back. "Thank you. You don't have to do this anymore. I can take my own meals."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes. Thank you for delivering my meals for the last few days. I'm sorry that I've been a nuisance to you. You should get back to your workshop to work."

"You're not nuisance at all. Far from it."

"You love inventing something. So don't deny yourself that because of me. You understand my hesitation to walk back into your workshop but that doesn't mean you should stop on my account. I'll be fine reading or meditating on my own here."

"Do you want to talk about it?"

"About meditation. More than anything. What do you want to know?"

"No, no. Not about that. No, about that day in my workshop. You really don't need to do that though. It was just a stupid thought. Forget about it."

"I think I'm ready to talk about that. I've been meditating about my fears."

"You're meditating about your fears?! Isn't that counter productive?"

"Actually no, to be aware about some emotions actually means we are free from that emotions. If you can see the river, you're not inside the river."

"Fine, fine, Yoda. Before we know it, the next thing we do will be sitting in a circle, holding hands, and singing Kumbaya."

"There're only two of us so we can't exactly make a circle. I don't even know the lyrics to Kumbaya. I'm ready to talk about what triggered me in the workshop."

"Are you sure?"

Stephen closed his eyes and drew some deep breaths. He steeled himself and he opened his eyes. "I'm ready."

"If anything is too much, you're welcome to stop. OK. We can just stop and drink cocoa or tea or whatever people do to calm themselves."

Stephen nodded. "OK. I didn't remember anything before I was ki-…taken by Mordo but I started to remember what happened afterward. Not all of it, but some of them. The ones that are related to what happened in the workshop."

Tony noticed that he looked much paler and his hands started to shake more prominently. "You don't have to do this right now. You could do it anytime like one hour or even one day or one week from now. I'll be here."

Stephen drew a deep breath one more time. "No, I can do it now. I need to face my demons or I'll never be free from them. I've worked as a doctor for more than a decade, I'll just speak with my professional detachment that I've trained myself to do."

Tony had heard something about professional detachment in healthcare professionals. They needed to do that so that they wouldn't burn out. If they were too emotionally attached to the patients, they wouldn't be able to help patients professionally which was what the patients needed. There were some controversies about that because some argued that in order to heal patients needed tender loving care as much as they needed the actual medical service. He just knew about this fact and he was thankful that he was not a medical professional. But Stephen had always been a doctor in the majority of his adult life so he definitely needed to develop some kind of professional detachment. But he hadn't heard of people who do it to themselves. He guessed it could happen but psychology and medicine were not really his expertise. "Just do what you feel like and I won't judge you if you stop at any time."

"One night, I think around ten days after I was being their unwelcomed guest, a guy came to drag me away from my slumber. He said he was having a terrible day as his wife left him this morning and she brought their kids with her. He said it was my fault because he spent so much time on me that he neglected his family."

Tony silently fumed because there was no way it was Stephen's fault. He chose to torture Stephen instead of being a responsible father and husband but he bit his lips so he wouldn't interrupt the doctor.

"He dragged me into what they called their interrogation room. He locked the door so he wouldn't get interrupted by his colleagues. He started to tie my hands and legs to the posts they had prepared and started to open my shirt so he could attach some electrodes to my chest and torso. I realized what he planned to do. Previously all they did was just to beat me. I knew that electrocution was very painful as I needed to treat some patients when I was in pre-med. I guess I didn't totally lose my memory if I knew that bit. I begged him to stop and I'd do whatever he wanted. He said it was too late. His colleagues were screaming outside asking him to stop. He just ignored them and flipped on the switch. I was never in so much pain before so I trashed around, convulsed, and screamed. The pins on my hands were good conductors for electricity .That guy just laughed and laughed. I didn't remember much afterward. I guess I passed out. Apparently, electrocuting me made the guy feel better about himself and he told his colleagues to try. So whenever, they have a bad day or they were bored, they would drag me there to have their fun. There was one guy who told them that they had gone too far but they ignored him and shut him out of the room. He'd take care of me after they had their fun. He told me that he just hated witchcraft because he was convinced that his kid had been hexed by his colleague at work because he was jealous of him. Mordo came around to started to recruit him. I guess Mordo could talk really well so he was convinced that all magic was bad. He then saw what they did to me and started to question Mordo's motive and magic in general. He started to realize that magic was not necessarily bad as it was just a tool like a knife. It depended on who wielded it. He wanted to quit but he was worried what Mordo and others would do to him and his family. He also wanted to make sure somebody would take care of me. What happened to him by the way? Do you lock him up like the rest? His name is Jordan."

"I'll tell whoever in charge of this investigation what you told me. I would make sure Jordan got minimum sentence. Who was the piece of shit that started to electrocute you?"

Stephen looked alarmed. "Violence won't solve anything."

Tony laughed bitterly. "Are you trying to defend the guy who had their fun by torturing you?"

"No. I just don't want anymore violence as it won't solve anything."

"I just want him to get maximum penalty. Perhaps going to jail for life is too good for a guy like him but yeah, no capital punishment. I promise we won't incite more violence, just want to give those guys their just dessert."

"You promise me no more violence."

Tony exhaled loudly and closed his eyes. Perhaps he needed that meditation. He opened his eyes. "OK, I promise."

"His name is Keller."

"OK, got it. I'm going to have some calls. Are you sure you're OK?"

Stephen hugged Tony. He could feel that the doctor's whole body was shaking. "Thank you for listening to me. You're a good friend. Although it didn't help me from the painful memory I still had, I felt a bit better than I was before."

"So from the scale 1 to 10, 1 is feeling OK and 10 is feeling the worst. How do you feel now?"

Stephen released the hug and thought about it. "Well, I was feeling about 20 and now I felt about 15 so 25% discount is better than nothing, right?"

"That sounds about right. I know we don't just get better instantly. That's why we need therapy. Otherwise, therapists would be out of job. Let me ask you something, was Mordo around when they tortured you?"

"He was around sometime but he never participated in any of the physical tortures." Tony made a mental note that Stephen specifically phrased it that way. "He just reminded them no permanent injury, no losing of any bodily function as the result of their session. He also reminded them not to hurt my hands because he said I needed them in the future to help him. I guess at least there is some mercy. Silver lining and all. Huh. I don't know what would happen if they destroy my hands." Stephen's eyes were wet this time around.

It was Tony's turn to hug him. "We both know I'll be lying if I said everything is going to OK from now on because life doesn't work like that. But I promise you in my best capability, I'll make sure no one, not even Mordo, is going to hurt you. Yes, I know he can kick my ass using magic but I might find a way to replicate your anti magic necklace using science. In fact, I need to start working on that now. After we finish this hugging session of course. It started to become weird."

Stephen laughed despite his tears and pushed Tony away using his still shaking hands. "I agree. Thank you, Tony. You're a good friend. I'll learn to protect myself and others better from now on."

"Yes, let's kick Mordo's ass."

Notes:

-I'm by no means an expert in treating PTSD so whatever described here just takes it with a grain of salt. Anybody with PTSD needs professional help. Stephen was able to live through endless loop of dying while he was with Dormammu and he could look through 14000605 possibilities without going mad so I guess he was a special case but even he needs therapy.
-There are some researches about being aware of emotions. One of them is here: psychologytoday dot com/us/blog/between-cultures/201801/the-benefits-emotional-awareness
-This one was about professional detachment nurse dot com/blog/2013/12/09/healthy-detachment-tips-for-rising-above-the-healthcare-noise-2/
-I'm going to watch Captain Marvel in 45 minutes so I quickly published it. Please kindly point out any mistakes.
-I'm aware we're going to have Endgame soon so I'll try to finish this story before Endgame *crosses fingers and toes"