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"It's not too late to go back, you know." Anya mumbles as she stands before the entrance of the building, staring at the address engraved to the side of it. "Look at Mobius, he's barely healed."
"I'm doing good, Anya. Getting stabbed isn't actually the worst thing to happen to me." Mobius doesn't hide how his eyes go to Loki.
"No, getting stabbed by an evil variant of the person who scripted the entire multiverse is the worst thing to ever happen to you." Loki comments.
"Point taken." Mobius looks down at his clothes, feeling odd to be in a casual shirt and pants. "Is it really that hard to find clothes similar to my TVA uniform? That's what I wear everyday, you know."
"Are you seriously complaining about the very stylish clothes my wife got you?" Tony grumbles.
"Are we seriously having this conversation?" Anya hisses towards them.
"Just ring the doorbell already, Lava girl." Tony glares at Anya.
"You're the one who wanted to be here, why don't you ring it?"
Loki rolls his eyes. "Oh, for Odin's sake." He pushes Anya and Tony to the side and begins knocking loudly on the door. On his third knock, however, his fist meets with no wood. Instead, all four of them are now elsewhere, assuming the inside of the building. Anya almost loses her balance if it weren't for Loki grabbing her arm to steady her back on her feet. She immediately pulls her arm back and mumbles a thanks.
Mobius taps on Loki's shoulder to get his attention, and they all turn to see another man at the end of the room, standing with his arms crossed over his chest.
"Another late night visit, Stark? This better be impor..." Strange trails off as he takes in the other guests, and his eyes widen at the sight of Anya more so than a breathing Loki next to her.
She straightens her back and keeps her head up high. "Doctor."
Stephen blinks. "Miss Romanoff." His eyes dart from between her and Loki before closing his eyes. "Okay... what am I seeing right now?"
Tony steps in. "We need your help."
Stephen sighs heavily before turning around. All of a sudden, the room changes again and Anya is now sitting next to Loki, with Tony and Mobius in another sofa. Stephen sits from across them.
Anya confusedly looks down at her hand when she feels herself holding an grape-flavored juicebox, something she has been craving since she got back here. Loki does the same, and sees that he is holding a cup of tea. Tony has a glass of champagne while Mobius has a soda. Stephen stares back at them patiently with an intense pair of eyes.
Mobius is the first to speak, and he laughs. "Wow, that was fun." He drinks his soda while Stephen raises his brows at him. When Mobius finishes his drink, it fills right up again, and he is easily impressed. "I think I met a variant of you before. I learned a few retro songs from you. You're really fun to have around."
"A what of me?" Stephen frowns.
"We got a lot of explain to you, buddy." Tony sighs and downs his champagne, relieved to see the glass fill itself back up again.
Mobius tells Stephen the entire situation, from Loki's arrest to the death of He Who Remains. Stephen sat and listened patiently while occasionally glancing at Anya, who looked like she wished to be anywhere else except here.
Once Mobius is finished, Stephen stays quiet for a moment.
"Huh..." he is a bit dumbfounded now, since nowhere in the whole Kamar Taj library was the existence of the TVA mentioned. All of this is quite new to him.
"So, can you help us, doc?" Tony asks with hope in his voice.
"Well, in all honesty, there is no knowledge about the TVA that I've learned here, but a supreme being such as Kang isn't impossible to be defeated." Stephen speaks thoughtfully. "I'm wondering if we can reassemble everyone we had during the final battle with Thanos, not only in this reality, but in every single one. We can all unite and face Kang to defeat him if we are all in full force. Now that his connection to the Sacred Timeline has been severed by this Sylvie person, he cannot control us anymore unless we give him power to."
Anya is annoyed, since what Stephen said is actually insightful. She hates that he is being very helpful right now, which means they will all need him more.
Tony grins and clasps his palms together. "See what I told you all? Doc has an idea on how to help us."
Stephen chuckles reluctantly. "It was just a suggestion, Tony. I'm not sure how to reach the other realities without those TemPad devices you all speak of. From what you've told me, we only possess two of those."
"Can't you use one of your portals?" Tony whines.
"If I understand correctly, the portals only work within the reality I belong to, despite having different dimensions in it." Stephen looks to Mobius, who nods.
"He's right. Only the TemPads can take us to different realities."
"We can make more, right?" Tony asks Mobius, who tilts his head.
"The TemPads are forged in the TVA with tools unavailable to any reality in the Sacred Timeline, so I don't think we can just make new ones." Mobius shrugs. "The TVA is gone now too, so there's no way we can get more."
Tony curses under his breath, but Stephen narrows his eyes. "What if we had someone who can create objects from scratch?"
"Someone like who?" Tony asks curiously.
"Wanda Maximoff."
Anya feels her heart climb to her throat but keeps herself calm. Tony frowns while shrugging. "No one knows where she is. She completely disappeared after the whole New Jersey fiasco."
Stephen briefly looks at Anya before looking to the ground. "I do think that Wanda has the power to replicate an object, since she is the Scarlet Witch."
"The Scarlet Witch?" Tony smiles in confusion. "Cool superhero name. Not too much like Captain America and not to weird like Iron Man. I like it."
"It's not a superhero name, you idiot human. It is the title of a powerful ancient sorceress capable of chaos magic," Loki defensively says with a glare. "It would do you well to know who you speak of."
Anya almost crushed Loki's foot with her boot to shut him up, but she remained quiet and tried to look confused as well as she can.
Tony raises his brows at Loki, who pulls himself together while his cheeks tint pink. "The Scarlet Witch is a figure I deeply admired while growing up."
Stephen blinks. "The Scarlet Witch is destined to destroy the world."
Loki raises a finger. "Ah-ah-ah. Correction; realms. And what of it? She is allowed to destroy realms as she pleases." He grins darkly.
The other humans just stare back at him with displeasure while Mobius tries his best not to snort in amusement.
Loki clears his throat. "But yes, the doctor is correct with assuming that the Scarlet Witch can will objects to existence."
"I thought Wanda just rewrote everything from Westview. Pre-existing objects were just altered. That's what Fury told me." Tony shrugs.
"With enough training and knowledge, Wanda would be able to make things from scratch. If taught right, she could make thousands of TemPads with a snap of her fingers. She could be more powerful than the Infinity Stones." Stephen stands, and a round orange circle forms before his hands, with runes in the middle of it. Then, a book floats and opens towards him. "When Agatha Harkness broke into Kamar Taj's library to steal the original Darkhold, I have reason to believe that Wanda possesses the book now, and is currently practicing it." Stephen sighs before shaking his head as he goes through his Darkhold notes. "Which is not exactly a good sign."
"Can you find her?" Tony asks.
Anya couldn't help but clench her fists, and both Stephen and Loki notices this.
Stephen shakes his head. "I can try, but I doubt it."
Tony sighs in defeat while Anya swallows back her relief. "What do we do then?"
"I can perform a location spell to find Wanda. You can all return to your compound and I'll send for you if I find her." Stephen forms a portal in front of them and they all see the familiar interiors of the Avengers Compound.
Tony motions for the rest of them to follow before thanking Stephen. Anya stands, but remains in the sanctum. "I think I'm staying behind for a moment."
Loki glances at her with worry, and Tony raises a concerned brow. "You sure?"
"Yeah. I'll be fine. You all go ahead." Anya meets Stephen's eyes, and the sorcerer says nothing.
The others go through the portal and it closes behind them. Loki frowns to himself and looks at Stark. "Should we have left her behind? I heard that she and this Dr. Strange are on a rocky boat."
Tony sighs. "Anya knows what she's doing, Reindeer Games. We got to let her do her thing. She's got some unfinished business with Strange." He pats Loki's back before walking off.
Mobius stands next to Loki and they both share an unsure look.
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