Okay, this is a lot of skipping forwards, but honestly, we all came to get ready for the next adventure. There's some fluff here between Lincoln and some new friends too.

And thank you all for the comments about the messy parts of mental illness. I did try to keep it accurate so as to not write it off as something you can just get over. It really isn't that easy and I see it a lot in other media being depicted that way.

Enjoy another chapter, my loyal readers.

IDon'tOwnMarvel

"Happy Birthday." Wanda offered out the box in the living room where Natasha had pulled together a few people to sit down with cupcakes. "I might have read your mind for this, but that is less important."

They had done this for everyone's birthday at the compound, short of Tony who had a party up in New York City. He got my present after he came back since there was no way I was attending something like that.

I smiled at the wrapped box and opened up the top to pull out three pieces of paper. Correction- they were tickets.

"Oh my god," I grinned, looking up at her fast. "Are you coming with me?"

"I thought we'd go together." She confirmed, "Plus, of course-"

"Ugh, not Vision!" I teased with a laugh, falling backwards against the edge of the couch.

"Not Vision." She laughed too, "Don't worry. I was going to suggest Natasha, but it's up to you really in case you wanted to invite someone else."

"Oh, good," I sighed in relief, passing Vision a joking look. "Thank goodness. Leave the dog at home, Wan."

"What are the tickets?" Pietro asked, peering over my shoulder. "And, I agree. Leave the dog at home."

"I'm a dog?" Vision looked to Steve for answers on that metaphor.

Steve shook his head helplessly at the questioning look. "I don't know."

Wanda let me take her and Natasha to one of the first AJR concerts ever. Honestly, I was just happy to know that my favorite band existed at all here. Getting to go to a concert of theirs with two avengers was even better, especially since this concert was one of the first ever ones. It was great too, but it did also make the first of July come quicker.

The significance of July first was that I'd set the date a long time ago with Kelly to go back to the sanctum. I had been working as IT and subbing for teachers at Midtown for the remainder of the school year after I came to the conclusion totally on my own that I needed to have something to occupy my time. Okay, maybe my therapist helped a little with that decision, but ultimately, I was the one who went back to work and made sure I kept going to finish the school year. Peter liked to tell me what he was up to as well which was sweet.

After his Aunt May found out, he thought he'd be able to tell her about what he was doing, but that quickly backfired into her banning him from Spider-Man business for a week. He started to take his conversations to me about what he was doing while also 'helping' me in Robotics. I could swear I was actually trying with these things, but no one would ever be able to tell from how bad I kept fucking things up in that lab. Peter and Ned did try to be helpful through the school year, but I really didn't make much progress. Not enough to even want to show Tony what I could do at least.

In regards to the sanctum, I was not super thrilled for the trip and ended up starting off in the library with Wong barely looking up from his desk to see me.

"Took you long enough." He accepted the books back with a huff. "You were two weeks from me knocking down your door and taking them."

"Sorry." I pursed my lips, rocking on my heels. "Uh, it's nice to see you again."

He grunted back at that. "Looking for your journal?"

"No," I shook my head, "I'm just here to make amends."

"Amend made." He waved me off. "I'm studying Spanish. Strange is in New York."

"Thank you." I pulled a flash drive out of my pocket and placed it on the table in front of him. "I got you some new music too. Have fun?"

He took the flash drive hesitantly and looked it over before nodding to himself and setting it aside to look back at his book. "Happy to see you're still alive, Lincoln. I wasn't sure after you left."

"Yeah, I'm not great at keeping people optimistic." I rubbed the back of my neck, looking behind me. "Enjoy the music, though, yeah?"

The New York Sanctum was one portal away and I caught myself itching my arm again as I stepped into the entrance where I first met with the Ancient One. It brought back a lot of weird nostalgia, even as I tried to keep my mind focused on Strange. Before I could make it to the stairs, I had to stop myself and take a deep breath.

"Okay." I spoke to myself. "It is sad. Don't bottle it up. Just be sad for a second."

I turned back around to look at the entryway and then down the hall towards the room where I had found out that my whole world was destroyed.

"Well that's sickeningly sane." Strange's voice made me cringe to the point where I had to take another deep breath and turn around to face him. "What twelve step plan are you completing?"

"I'm not." I looked up the stairs and decided against climbing them. Instead, I portalled myself to the top to stand beside Strange. "I'm just coming to talk."

"Hm," He looked me up and down before turning to walk away. "I don't blame you. The stairs get tedious. I do the same thing every morning."

I followed him in the direction of the study. "Hey, I just wanted to apologize for…"

He warped us to the study, making me pause my statement as I caught my stomach.

"Oh, gross." I sucked in a shaky breath from the nausea and shook my head, "Uh, what was I saying?"

Stephen moved to sit down like he didn't just appear into another room with me. "New trick. Do you like it?"

"Oh, very lovely." I sat down too, scrubbing my face. "Just the best."

"You wanted to apologize for something." Stephen reminded me then, picking up a cup of tea for himself. "Something I can't remember off the top of my head."

"I yelled at you." I nodded, sitting up again, "The last time I saw you. I got mad. I was upset that The Ancient One had promised me time with her before she died and then I didn't end up getting it. Instead, she spoke with you."

"That's right." He sipped his tea and waved me off with his brows knitted together briefly in dismissal. "I wouldn't worry about it. I don't lose sleep over upset feelings, trust me."

"You know you're a real asshole sometimes."

"I've been told that, yes." He nodded too, setting his tea aside again. "Why apologize to the asshole, then? We both know The Ancient One ran by her own books. She wouldn't push you away at the last minute just because she felt like it. She knew what she was doing."

"Do you know what she was doing?" I asked, crossing my ankles and folding my hands together eagerly. "Because you almost said something to me before I cut you off."

"With the yelling and cursing." He waved a hand in the air vaguely, "She did mention something to me about your future and how she had to do what she did- It was all very vague."

"Yeah, people who tell the future tend to be like that." I replied under my breath, "I figured that a bit ago, you know? I'm doing mental health stuff."

"Oh, good for you." Stephen painted on a fake smile. "That's wonderful."

"I hate you so much." I whispered, "I want to drive a stake through your face."

"That's not very 'pro mental health' of you."

I shot him a small annoyed glare before shaking my head. "I'm sorry anyways. I know it wasn't easy for you either and I sort of blew up at you at a bad time."

My ear queued in on a high pitched whine, distracting me a little as I looked over my shoulder to try and locate the sound.

"Hm," Strange nodded thoughtfully, "I didn't expect that."

"I mean it." I looked back at him then with the pitchy sound getting louder, "I have a bad habit of snapping at people when I'm upset or sad. At the time, I might've made things worse for you without thinking- I'm sorry, do you hear that?"

"No," He blinked, picking up his tea again and making me question his truthfulness here. "And that's very considerate of you to apologize. I'd like to apologize for pestering you for months."

"It's okay," I sighed, looking over my shoulder at the ringing again. "I was just stressed out then too- Seriously though, this ringing is going to kill me."

"Oh, that's right-" He smiled, raising a hand. "The Cards of Laro. Or…Laro Tarot. That's what I like to call them."

"The what?" I furrowed my brows together in confusion, looking back at Strange. "What Cards?"

"Your cards." He got up suddenly, making me materialize into another room where the ringing was a lot louder.

I covered my ears with nausea coming up again. It sounded like something was screaming and splitting my eardrums. "Ow!"

"I was waiting for you to apologize!" Stephen shouted over the high pitched wail, flipping open a violently shaking box and making everything come to a complete silent halt.

I removed my hands from my ears carefully, the ringing remaining a little in my ears. "What?"

"I was waiting for you to apologize." Dr. Strange held out a hand towards the wood box where a neat stack of cards sat tied off with a ribbon and two metal pins. "Uh, something about a sorcerer named Laro who specialized in these things. He literally had…"

Strange gestured to his forehead. "Another eye. Weird guy."

"What's…uh," I shook my head, not daring to touch what was in the box. "What do you mean you were waiting for me to apologize?"

"Well, 'waiting' is sort of misleading." He waved a hand in the air vaguely, "I just put them in a box because they kept trying to fly out the door. Then…January or February came around and I figured out what they were up to. They were looking for you."

"For me?" I looked down at them quickly. "Why me?"

The cape on Strange's back picked up a corner and waved, making the idea click in my head.

"Oh," My eyes widened at Strange. "Are you serious? I actually have a relic?"

"They think so." He materialized his tea cup back in his hand to take a sip. "Pick them up. Maybe they'll tell you."

I reached down into the box to scoop up the deck in their ribbon tie. Just as I touched it too, it shimmered over in gold and the pins morphed in shape, the flowing shape of a minimalist eye changing the middle. I watched as the middle of the eye burned with a small puff of smoke making a blue stone appear as the pupil.

"Oh, yeah," He pointed again. "I'd be careful with those. In all the drawings I've seen, those little things fit into the old man's ears."

As if on queue, the pins sparkled away from the front of the deck and I felt a hot pain burning beside my head. I dropped the deck to put my hands over the side of my head, but almost as fast as it had started, the pain was over and my ears held two industrial piercings like they had been there all this time. I felt my fingers over them both and looked back at Strange.

"What happened?"

He winced, shrugging helplessly. "I think they like you?"

"These were on someone before me?" I asked then, my voice bordering on a whimper as I stooped to pick up the deck again. "Gross."

"Yeah," Strange made a mildly grossed out face too, stepping back. "I don't think I envy you anymore."

"Me neither." I muttered, flipping over the deck and then suddenly wondering if maybe the deck had a personality and was listening. "Well, it's very pretty."

Strange turned to walk away again. "Great, you can leave again."

"Well, I was thinking…" I chased after him too, holding the card bundle in my hands. "I wanted to come back for the summer. If that's alright with you. I feel like I still have more to learn about the power stone and I need a place to do that."

"Ugh god," Strange rolled his eyes, making me smile from the clear joking tone. "You're so annoying."

"I learned it from you." I smiled back innocently, still feeling a bit weird with the earrings. "Please?"

"One condition." He raised a finger. "I'm going to know everything that you can do too. I need to understand your threat level in the same way that the Ancient One did."

"Fair." I agreed, watching him pull a leather pouch off the shelf and hold it out towards me.

"They have a home too." He plopped it in my hand and the cards filed in all on their own with the ribbon wrapping around the outside and tying it up all pretty with a bow. "Come back tomorrow. We can work here together. I've always wanted a little neophyte to follow me around."

"What, like you're a god?"

"Exactly like that." He smiled, waving a hand at me again. "Bye now. Take the dramatic deck with you."

I warped again, appearing outside and sucking in a sharp breath from the jump with my stomach turning again. I was never going to get used to that.

The summer learning alongside Strange wasn't all that terrible. He liked having a larger limit on how many books he could take out of the library at once now that I was pulling some out too for him. I didn't read as much as him, but I did pick up a lot of weird facts during that time, especially when he'd start ranting off about something he learned. Strange was…tolerable too. He mellowed out a little as soon as I started to spend more time there, but he still had his proud edges that I could work around similar to what I did with Tony.

I spent a good chunk of time there trying to make sense of what the cards were telling me. Turns out, I needed to be able to translate something new in a dead language every time I tried to communicate about the future. The cards changed too, so if I tried to look through them all face up, they'd be blank. When I shuffled them in my hand and asked a question, the appropriate cards would fall out and I could pick them up and read them then. Essentially, the deck had tons of fun working to confuse me all summer.

"Love life." I shuffled the deck in my hands, taking a deep breath. "Where do I meet my first significant other?"

A single card fell out and I flipped it over to see that it was just blank.

"Okay," I frowned at it, putting the card back in the deck. "That's just rude. Be serious please. I need to know if that's something I have to worry about."

I shuffled it again and got the same response- a blank card.

"Do I ever have to have a significant other?" I asked, shuffling the deck again with the new question. "You know, I just don't' really get the whole 'I'm in love with you' deal. I get friends and stuff, but this has always confused me."

Two cards fell out. The Hanged man and the Ten of Cups appeared with different writing on the top than I was used to.

I sighed, reaching for the notebook and setting the deck down. "Okay, hold on."

"What are you up to?" Strange asked, wandering past me while I started to translate the writing to english.

"I'm getting a reading on my love life." I explained, making him stop in his tracks and back up.

He squatted down to pick up the two cards. "What's the question?"

"Do I ever have a significant other?" I repeated for him. "I know- dumb. I'm just realizing that I'm twenty and I've never even kissed anyone before. It just seems like an important thing even though I don't really want to."

"Well," He set the cards back down. "The Deck seems to think you won't. He says you have a family already."

"I gathered that from the ten cups," I grumbled back. "I'm trying to figure out the hanged man."

"You don't get that." He shook his head, standing up again. "Sorry. That's a little upsetting to hear. I think he's saying you will continue to hate romantic attachments."

"I don't hate them." I finished the statement on my paper, sighing when it told me almost exactly what Strange just said. "I just don't understand how it's different from being friends?"

"Okay," Strange sat down again holding out his hands. "See, when a mommy and a daddy-"

"Stop talking." I raised a hand at him. "Forever stop that."

"Maybe you're traumatized." He suggested with a frown. "You've never slept with anyone?"

"I don't like this conversation."

"I could probably find you someone." He looked away thoughtfully.

"I don't want someone." I narrowed my eyes at him. "I said I don't get it."

"Well, maybe you need someone to get it." He looked back between my eyes. "You've never had a romantic attraction to anyone?"

I shook my head.

"Okay, that sounds like a lie, but…you're truthing."

I raised my eyebrows. "I'm truthing?"

"Hm," Strange got up again. "I don't know. The Deck seems to think you're getting a family but no significant other, so do with that what you will."

He disappeared then and I only barely caught the warp on the wall behind him when he did leave.

"Yeah," I slipped the cards back in the deck. "Thanks anyways."

It was always a little annoying when Stephen could read the deck better than me, but it checked out since he was the one with the photographic memory. I still needed my notebook and translation book with me to get it down right. It was not nearly as easy as just having a cape that could fly you places. Though, to be fair, the deck (appropriately named Kevin) might actually have a bit more usefulness if I could fully understand it without outside help. Then I'd still have some form of understanding of the future even after the last movie passes by.

You know, if I even make it there…

On my first day of school again, I went back to spending most of my time working with some weekends planned for Dr. Strange. I got a call that day in class about King T'Chaka passing away. That was one of the things I always deemed as family business. Not to mention, I was sure that Wakanda didn't need any random girl running around and telling them what to do. It was a whole different rodeo over there and Kevin did tell me that T'Challa would handle the threat on his own and survive the adventure with Shuri and Okoye. That was all I needed to know to not interfere or bother them.

I simply offered my condolences to T'Challa after he thanked me for the extra time with his father. He let me know that he cherished that time well, but I still felt a little bad about the loss and took Friday off from IT to hang out with Pietro and Sam's dumb cat. Kizzy was happy for the attention that day, especially since part of the team was out on a mission. It was Bucky's first government mission, so Friday was a fully stressful day that week.

School was good for filling my time and while I opted out of missions with the Avengers, I may have started to go back on the Garage website to bust more cocaine or weapons deals in October. That work was almost too easy with my new skills. Peter showed up to help me once or twice too though the year and always looked really proud of himself afterwards. He'd try to chit chat with me before I left again too. One weekend, I had Tony invite him back to the compound for a short stay so he could see more of what we got up to. Peter kept right up alongside Steve too, actually following him out to exercise or train around five thirty in the morning.

On top of his early mornings with Steve, Peter also put up with my annoying philosophical questions every time I brought them to him and the Decathlon team. They always seemed quite up for a little debate, even if I was deliberately trying to weight them in on topics that I'd pondered for many years since I got here. I liked getting new perspectives, no matter how late in this strange world. If the Ancient One taught me anything, it was that there was always something more to be learned.

"But couldn't you argue that just ignoring the events would never absolve you of a partial guilt?" Cindy said, standing her ground against Abraham. "If you knew people were going to get hurt from an event and then ignored it, you are still guilty for making that choice. It's like in the law- Whoever has the last possible chance to avoid an accident should."

This was one of their favorite debates since it always got so heated.

"Then that's a guilt I live with on my own." Abraham huffed, shaking his head. "I never said you wouldn't be guilty, I only said that with knowledge like that you have to chose wether to make the guilt a personal or public issue. I would chose personal guilt and avoid the whole altercation every time. It's just a way to stay innocent and out of jail."

"Morally, I think you're wrong." Ned chimed in, looking at Abraham, "But from a big picture perspective...maybe it's right to pretend you don't know?"

"And let people die?" Sally challenged with a shake of her head. "I could never live with the guilt and not say anything."

They went in circles, but on slow days, Mr. Harrington...er, Roger, always seemed to appreciate it. That way he could grade papers while they argued.

"Next week I have a totally new question for you." I teased the children lightly with a grin, "I'll give you time to prepare and think this time because I'll be joining in on the debate too."

They all perked up at that like ready puppies who heard the word 'treat', including MJ who, often, would give me her philosophical answers during my break in the day. She was a more one-on-one philosopher and I never minded the company at lunch.

"The ship of Theseus." I smiled, "It's one of my favorites. So, you'll have to consider if it's the same ship or not, and when, if ever, it stops being the same ship. Look it up. The internet exists."

These students of mine gave me purpose sometimes. They always made this world feel like it was worth living in, especially when they humored my off-topic concepts and didn't mind hearing about my work near Tony Stark.

Christmas time came around and Peter stopped by my office with a small bag like I'd gotten from a few other students that enjoyed it when I was the substitute for their class if their teacher was out.

"Oh, thank you." I smiled at the small bag, taking it from him gingerly with my tarot cards laid out on the table for my reading on Tony.

"Aunt May wanted you to come over for dinner sometime." He explained with an embarrassed smile. "I also got you a candle because you mentioned you liked them a while ago. It says it smells like New Hampshire, but I've never been there, so I don't actually know."

I slid the candle out to look at it with a small smile, reading the 'New Hampshire' label before popping it open to smell it. "Oh, it does smell like New Hampshire."

Peter smiled brighter then. "Oh, good."

"Hey, Tony's sending your Aunt another 'gift' next week," I lowered my voice a little. "Do me a favor and make sure she accepts it? Tell her it's compensation for raising a vigilante or something."

"Okay," He laughed a little, "I will make sure."

"Tony's a billionaire." I reminded him, "He has more money than he'll ever use, so making sure that you and your Aunt are taken care of is his way of saying that he cares about you. Last week he dropped off a box of about half a million dollars worth of random parts and told me to take it to Robotics with me."

"Gift giving."

"Exactly," I confirmed, "Plus, a new kitchen in that condo never hurt anyone."

Peter's junior year drew to an end by June of 2017 and I started to get nervous when I went back to spend my days with Stephen Strange in the Sanctum. My tarot reading had improved, but I started to worry about this being the last summer I was going to have before Thanos arrived. That was the summer when I really started to push myself with my studying and reflexes. I was 21. I couldn't be caught messing around these days when something much more serious was coming up.

Peter was invited back to the compound for a two week camp with Avengers, but I was in and out of there for the most part, spending my time with Stephen and learning all I could while he practiced his new tricks on me.

I also made a call in August, asking T'Challa for a favor and then portalling myself and Vision over there.

"You need to keep it here." I flipped over the stone in my hand before placing it in the metal orb container that Dr. Strange helped me enchant. "Somewhere safe, hopefully."

"We can do that." T'Challa took the metal ball from me after I sealed it up and the engravings flashed light to show that it was working. "We have a place to keep dangerous things."

"Good," I released a relieved sigh while Vision sat up on his bed-table. "Someone's going to come looking for it and I don't really want them to tear it out of Vision's head."

"Would they have?" Vision asked, touching his forehead thoughtfully and brushing his fingers over the small blue indent where he had been rewired a little.

I looked up at T'Challa briefly before turning to look at a table nearby. "Cool shit, Shuri."

T'Challa smiled a little, pocketing the orb. "We can keep this secure. No one will come looking for it here."

"Well." I laughed a little while picking up a boot to look at it, only for Shuri to take it out of my hands and put it back. "You'd be surprised. Lucky for you, they can't exactly land inside of Wakanda.

"Land?"

"Ah, aliens," I gestured vaguely back at T'Challa. "Sometime in spring, apparently. At least, that's what the cards said. Wait- this is the northern hemisphere, right?"

"It is." Shuri confirmed, going back to Vision to hold a reader up to his head. "The heads up is nice, but by any chance, could you just use a bit of that purple energy on this cube?"

"She wants to study it." T'Challa snitched on her, getting his sister to shoot him a glare.

I pointed at the metal cube and got a nod from Shuri before I paced over and put my hands on it. I could feel it tickling my palms and smiled long before I actually tried to focus energy into it. Shuri was pretty cool to be around and I brought the new and improved Vision back to the compound where Wanda fretted over him. She worried that he couldn't do the things he used to, but it turns out he could still fly and phase through things with the new thing in his head.

Unfortunately, he could no longer change his appearance though and was stuck looking like the red android he was.

I felt a little better knowing that the stone was protected in Wakanda now. The good feeling melted away a little when the New York sanctum had two odd guests one afternoon in late September though.

My first mistake was trusting that Strange knew what he was doing.