Strange's Heartache

Chapter 29

You awoke still in the inky darkness of the vicar's chambers and grimaced as you sat up and every joint in your body cracked from where you'd laid in that same position for far too long. As soon as you could manage, you stood up and began feeling around for a light switch or a flashlight in order to see your surroundings. After about thirty minutes you finally managed to stumble over to the desk and open it and found a small flashlight that you quickly turned on. The room was small but that didn't surprise you. As you slowly looked around you saw that there was a small day bed that you could have slept on and felt instantly silly that you hadn't but there was no point in dwelling over it. There was also the massive desk you were sat at that looked as though it were hundreds of years old. You decided that you may as well look around the massive place to find some sort of room that could be easily fortified and very slowly made your way to the door still wincing and grimacing in pain from your sore muscles.

You cracked the door open and poked your head out and looked down the hallway to the right and listened for any sounds of humans breathing or moving from that direction but you didn't hear anything so you looked down the other way and did the same. For some reason, your brain told you that you needed to try the right side of the building first and so you very carefully stepped out of the small office and began to walk down the long hallway shining your light in every room. You wish you had a notebook so that you might take notes of the rooms and also make a map of the place but you were quite sure that given enough time you'd be able to figure the layout of the place out. You'd just rounded the corner when a sudden flapping of wings startled you causing you to quickly throw your arms up over your face but it turned out it was just a rather large flock of pigeons that you'd spooked taking flight, not a group of Avengers hell bent that you and their prissy magic doctor mend fences and snu in front of everyone.

Finally after searching for hours you found a larger room than the vicar's that you assumed was used by the head nun when the place was still active. It had access to a rather large and luxurious looking bathroom with a shower and toilet, and straight down the hall was the kitchen. You smiled and looked around to see if there was anything you could pin to the door or mark it with in order to show that this was your room when you were tackled from behind and let out a terrified shriek. "LET ME GO ASSHOLE!" You scream as you try and fight off your attacker. Suddenly something hard connects with your temple and you pass out only to awaken several hours later very confused. You were in the same room and as far as you could tell nothing was hurt. It then occurred to you what Wong had said weeks ago when he, Shuri, and Banner had run tests on you. Hallucinations were the beginning of the end. It would all start to snowball from here and you quickly looked around the room and almost laughed hysterically as you found an in date bottle of suppressants. You quickly unscrewed the lid and shook two out into your hand and then froze. This place had been abandoned for decades, how in the hell were their new bottles of suppressants just lying around the place in your reach.

That's when you felt the old familiar tug at your heart. Someone you knew had been here and left you the suppressants while you were out. There was only one idiot that was stubborn enough to follow you after you'd asked to be left alone and you felt the rage boil your blood once again as you shook another two out and took all four just for good measure with no water at all. You spun and marched out into the hallway and took a right turn down a connecting hallway and soon found yourself in the part of the cathedral that was damaged beyond repair. You'd spent most of the day searching for your room and passed out it seems so now the sky was a beautiful midnight violet streaked with vivid orange near the horizon that met in a sort of misty grey where they touched. The beauty of the scene didn't strike you though because soon after the sun finally set, it began to rain hard. "WHERE ARE YOU?!" You scream at the top of your lungs causing the nearby animals to startle and run, scurry, or fly away in fear. "I KNOW YOU'RE HERE DON'T FUCKING HIDE NOW COWARDS!" You turn circles as you look for the ones that won't let you go. "(Y/N)." Stephen says as he finally steps forward and you narrow your eyes at him.

"Why the FUCK won't you just accept that I don't want this? Why the FUCK won't you let me go? Do you not understand that I was bombarded with images of you and her at every single fucking Stark Expo you went to with her? Do you not realize that I've gotten over this stupid infatuation? Or maybe you just want the both of us. Is that it? You want her as your omega and me as some stupid side slut that will whimper and whine until you give me your attention again because I won't. I'd rather lay down and die before I do!" You yell over the sound of the pouring rain that's now drenched you both. "May I show you something, please?" He asks as he raises his hands up but doesn't take a step. "What could you possibly have to show me that will change my mind?" You scoff as you cross your arms over your chest. What you didn't realize was that the Avengers were all here as well as a few of your X-Men friends as well and every single one of them held their breath hoping that this would work. Otherwise, Fury had ordered that Manhattan be cleared for the next decade because of the fall out that would inevitably happen due to the mental breakdowns you and Stephen would both inflict upon each other.

"Fine. But don't get your hopes up that it'll change anything." You say as you walk up to him and grimace at the smell of him and the feelings that scent twists up inside of you. He very quickly pulls out his phone and goes to his video gallery and you were about to get very pissed very quickly when you saw what video he was about to click on where the still image was extremely smutty looking in nature but he held up his hand and said, "There's a reason that I'm showing you this. Just please watch." You glare daggers at him but nod once and he quickly taps on the video. To your surprise it wasn't what you thought it was. Rather it was a very badly put together collage of pictures and horribly edited sound clips of both Stephen and Minoru. "What in the fuck was that supposed to be?" You ask slightly horrified by the awfulness of it all. "I found that in Ti- her phone. I didn't understand it at the time but then once Tony told me that you'd been going to the Tower in order to use the library again I finally understood. This was a rough draft. She wasn't done editing this. But when she was, she was going to send it to you via AirDrop in order to completely break you mentally so she could have me all to herself." He explains gently.

"Ok, but she's already got you." You reiterate for what seems like the millionth time. "No, she doesn't. Those images of us at the Expo? Those were edited too. Look." He says as he backs out of that folder and goes to his images. Almost every single image that you looked at was burned into your brain as those that you saw on the television but these were just as badly edited. "Wait a minute...you said that she was going to AirDrop me that video once she'd had it edited." You say slowly and Stephen's heart skips a beat but he forces himself to remain calm on the outside for your sake. "Yes. Do you have an idea?" He asks as he furrows his brows convincingly. "She hacked my fucking internet! That's why the signal was so fucked! I didn't have a virus at all!" You gasp as you realize just how hard you'd been played and you take a step back from him. "Hey, come here! This isn't your fault!" He says as he locks his screen and puts his phone back in his pocket. And as the rain fell all around you and the Avengers and X-Men looked on from their hiding spots your heart finally broke and you took two steps forward and wrapped your arms around him and sobbed against his chest as he very gently rubbed your back. "It's ok, dear." He whispers.