A long table stood in the middle of a large, sleek boardroom. It was dark, illuminated by a projector casting footage onto the back wall. Around the table sat a group of officials in suits and name-badges. Everyone from SWORD and ex-shield members to CIA and government leaders watched as a woman with grey hair clicked through slides on the screen, each one showing images of Juno and the devastation she had left behind on the New York street.
"The unknown subject is now believed to be from earth," said the woman. "Either a mutant or biologically enhanced individual."
"Do we have any idea who she is?" asked one of the men at the table.
"Negative. The images are too blurry for facial recognition, but we have a team working on it." She clicked to another slide showing grainy CCTV footage. "She was sighted a few days ago at New York Hospital."
"Who is that with her?"
"Doctor Stephen Strange. Ex-neurosurgeon - stopped practicing in 2016 after suffering injuries to his hands."
"What do we know about him?"
"He's believed to have an association with the Avengers. He disappeared in the Snap, came back in the Blip and fought in the battle against Thanos."
"Do we know what he can... do?"
"No." She brought up a picture of Stephen in his sorcerers robes and long red cloak. "He's been sighted wearing some kind of uniform but we've failed to identify where it's from. We believe he has enhanced abilities; what they are, we don't know."
"Alright," said a man at the top of the table. He ran his fingers over his eyebrow as he spoke. "Let's locate this Dr Strange and talk to him, find out his connection to the girl. I also want eyes all over New York - in the sky, on the streets."
"Yes sir," the others murmured as they nodded and began rising from their seats.
The man turned to the woman giving the presentation. "Any word from the Avengers?"
"They're still not talking," she replied.
*
"This is... Not working," said Bruce with a sigh as he lifted a pair of protective goggles onto his large head.
"What do you need?" asked Rhodey as he stood with his arms folded nearby.
"Resources, expertise..."
"So, you pretty much need Tony Stark."
"Pretty much."
Rhodey walked over to a screen, tapping his finger against the slate of clear glass and watching as it came to life with intricate blueprints.
"What about T'Challa's little sister?" asked Sam as he stepped into the room. "When we needed to get the stone out of Vision's head, we took him straight to Wakanda."
"Shuri? Mm, I guess I could ask her," Bruce pondered.
He looked down at the machine he was trying to build, sighing at the tangle of wires and metal.
*
In the sanctum, Juno and Wong sat facing one another, each of them holding a set of playing cards fanned out in their hands. Juno placed her cards on the table between them, looking up at Wong with a smirk. He rolled his eyes and threw his cards down.
"I thought you said you'd never played before," he said.
"I haven't."
"Are you using your powers to beat me? Because we agreed no magic."
"No, I swear!" she laughed. "Shall we go again?"
He nodded and gathered the cards before dealing them out.
"Oh, I have another one: what about The Mentalist," said Juno.
"Isn't that a TV show?"
"Is it? Ugh."
"Just because you have powers doesn't mean you need a special name. I don't have one."
"I know but I just think it'd be cool... Y'know, The Hulk, Spiderman, Thor."
"I'm pretty sure Thor is just his name..."
They picked up their cards and began playing again.
Stephen walked through the room with his head buried in a book. He glanced up at the two of them.
"What are you betting with? Neither of you have any money," he said.
"No bets, it's just a friendly game," Juno shrugged.
"Friendly?" said Wong. "She's beat me every time."
Stephen looked down at her with a raised eyebrow.
"What can I say? It came naturally. I must've been a good poker player in my previous life. Want us to deal you in?"
"Mm, can't. Some of us are busy trying to get to the bottom of why you're here."
She rolled her eyes. "Look, if you're scared you'll lose, we could always play something a little easier? Or maybe we could just stack them up and build a house."
Stephen gave a sarcastic laugh. "We need to find out how you got here and get that stone out of you."
"So everyone keeps saying..."
"It's important."
"Yes, I know. But they're not gonna magically remove it tonight, so... Poker?"
He closed the book in his hands and sighed. "This isn't a vacation, Juno. Do you not understand the danger we're all in?"
"No, I understand that perfectly."
"Really? Because it doesn't seem like you do."
Wong sat back uncomfortably in his chair, his eyes darting between the two of them.
"What I don't understand," Juno continued, her tone becoming more irritated. "Is that for some reason, we're attached to each other in a way that transcends all laws of space and time. I don't know anything about myself beyond the fact that I either married you and had your babies, or I died. And you can't even afford me a game of cards?"
"This isn't some kind of Inter-Dimensional reunion. I don't know you and you don't know me. We never fell in love, those kids don't exist, we've never met. You're here because of a blip, and I'm helping you because it's in my nature."
"Oh. Oh, well thank you," she said sarcastically.
He rolled his eyes and turned to walk away. "Don't start with that-"
"I just want to get to know the person that my life seemingly revolves around, that's all."
He turned back. "Your life doesn't revolve around me."
"Really? If I walked out of here right now, do you know where I'd go? Because I don't. I don't know who I was or what kind of personality I had. I don't know what my goals were, my likes, dislikes, memories, experiences. I could have family out there right now looking for me - grieving for me. Everything about me is gone, and all you care about is this thing on my neck and how it's affecting you and what you need to do to put everything right."
She stood up and walked towards him.
"I knew your name before I remembered my own," she said. "This me, the me that I am right here, right now... All this person knows is you. And it's exhausting."
He stared down at her.
"I'm a problem that you need to fix, a fly you need to swat, a riddle you need to solve. I'm a blip in your life." She pointed her finger into his chest. "But you are everything in mine."
He remained quiet.
Her hand began to glow, burning up the cards in her hand. She threw the ashes to the ground and stormed out of the room. "Next time, just play the freaking poker," she said.
Stephen stood in silence for a moment, his eyes slowly falling on Wong as he sat awkwardly in his chair.
"That was my only set of cards..." said Wong.
Stephen sighed and walked over to the table, throwing himself down in Juno's chair. "I'll get you a new set."
"Stephen, she just wants to feel like she exists outside of you. Right now you're treating her like an inconvenience."
"This is an inconvenience. This whole thing is an inconvenience."
"But she isn't."
"So what? You think I should go and apologise?"
"I think you need think beyond this situation. You find out why she's here, you get your answers, you get the stone out of her... then what? You might eliminate the problem, but at the end of it, she will still be here." He leaned forward. "She needs to feel like she belongs in this world. The place she belongs may be here..."
"With me? Will you listen to yourself?"
"I meant here - in this reality. You know you're being kind of defensive."
Stephen stared at him, almost scoffing.
"What is it you're afraid of?"
"I've..." he paused for a moment, before sighing and letting his head drop into his hand. "I've seen what it's like to fall in love with her. That's not the life I was dealt."
"You are assuming that she wants that life. Has she ever said she does?"
"No..."
Wong gave a subtle smile. "When you arrived at Kamar-Taj, you had to learn to let go of your ego-"
"You think I'm being egotistical?"
He shrugged. "What's the saying? If the shoe fits?"
"You know 'if the shoe fits', but you've never heard of Adele?"
*
He walked up the stairs and turned to the large, round window. Juno sat beside it with her knees to her chest, short hair tucked behind her ears, a slight golden glow surrounding her. Stephen stood quietly, watching as her brows came together in concentration. Suddenly, another Juno appeared opposite her, followed by another, then another. She was attempting to multiply herself, but none of the other forms would stick - each one appearing before flickering like a candle and disappearing moments later.
He walked towards her. She glanced up at the sound of his boots on the wooden floor, the glow around her fading until it was gone.
"That a new trick?" he asked.
"I'm working on it."
"You know, I can do that one too."
"Maybe we can have a competition," she said, her voice soft yet cynical.
He sat down beside her. The moonlight shone across her face, casting light on her fading bruises.
"Your face is looking better," he said.
"Hm? You think so?" she turned her head from side to side.
He shuffled forward and reached out, running his thumb gently over the one on her jaw. She sat still as his face got closer to hers, examining her like the doctor he was. He glanced up, their eyes meeting for a quiet, tense moment, before he dropped his hand and moved back.
"Your, um, your eyes are getting..."
"Oh, yeah," she said, dropping her gaze to her lap. "The green's almost completely gone."
He nodded, staring at her for a moment as he forced himself to speak.
"Juno... You're here because of me, so I have an obligation to you."
"An obligation, huh."
"What I mean is... I'm a protector. It's what I do. It's what I did when I was a surgeon, it's what I do here at the sanctum. Finding out how you got here is the only way I can do that. I can't get caught up in something I don't understand."
"I'm not asking you to get caught up in anything," she replied. "I want your help, I appreciate what you and the others are doing for me. But right now, I can't do anything besides sit around and wait for people a lot smarter than me to figure this out. I just want to feel human in the meantime."
"I understand that."
"I know everybody's keeping me at arms-length - I know they don't trust me, I know they're scared of me." She paused, her eyes becoming glossy. "I'm scared of me too."
"I'm not scared of you."
She turned to look at him, her inhuman eyes locking with his. "I feel like you should be."
"Not until you give me a reason."
"And if I did give you a reason?"
He furrowed his brow. "Is that a threat?"
She thought for a moment. "No."
"Well, alright then. So... poker?"
She shook her head.
He sighed. "You're not still mad, are you?"
"No. But the cards'll have to wait."
"Why?"
"There's someone downstairs."
...
They walked down the stairs together, their eyes falling on the elderly man standing near the front door. Despite his frail appearance, Stephen still found himself stepping in front of Juno to shield her from him.
"Captain?" he said, staring at him in confusion.
Steve raised his hands. "I'm not with anyone, I haven't told anyone she's here. I just wanted to see the threat for myself."
"The threat," said Juno from behind Stephen. "Maybe that could be my superhero name."
Stephen turned his head to the side. "Sshh."
"You think yourself a superhero?" said Steve. "'Cause I gotta say, that display of yours in the middle of the street the other day didn't seem very heroic."
She stepped out. "I'm sorry, who are you?"
"Steve Rogers."
"Oh, so you're the 'cap' everyone keeps talking about. I didn't expect you to be so..."
"Old?"
"Yeah."
He let out a soft laugh.
Stephen shook his head. "Steve, why have you come here?"
"I wasn't entirely honest with you..."
"What?"
...
They sat together in one of the sanctum's many living rooms.
"When you came to see me, I told you I put the stones back in New York," Steve began as he sat on the couch, his hands resting in his lap. "That was true. I did. But I lied when I said nothing strange happened while I was there." He took a breath. "I started by giving the time stone back to the lady on the roof. I watched from around a corner as Bruce left with the stone, then I went up and gave it right back."
Juno's eyes were fixed on Steve as he spoke, while Stephen paced back and forth nearby, listening carefully.
"Then I went to put the other two back. But as I'm going over there, I almost run into my past self, Tony and Scott arguing down a side street because we'd lost the tesseract. I knew that in a couple of minutes they'd decide to go back to the 70's, so I just had to hide and wait it out and I could go and put the stones back after they left." He stared off for a moment, his blue eyes glittering as he thought back. "My past self was holding Loki's sceptre... When a car came screeching around the corner and crashed. A woman was thrown through her windshield - she flew right into Tony, Scott and me, and knocked the sceptre out of my hand. Next thing, both her and the sceptre are gone." He looked at Juno. "I think that was you." He paused "I knew the laws of time travel. I knew that we'd already beat Thanos. That wasn't gonna change. It didn't matter that my past self lost the sceptre."
Stephen stopped pacing and stared down at him in shock. His face etched with utter confusion. "You didn't think it was concerning that she disappeared with the sceptre? Seemingly into thin air?"
"I thought the sceptre had killed her, disintegrated her or something. It was weird, but nothing in that time mattered anymore - it was the past and it wasn't gonna change the fact that we won here. I had the mind stone with me so I could still put all six stones back where they belonged. And I did. I wasn't lying about that part."
"Why didn't you tell me when I came to see you?"
"Look at me. I'm an old man. I made the decision to leave the Avengers behind, I didn't want to get dragged into this mess."
"So why now?" asked Juno. "What changed your mind?"
"I said I left the Avengers behind. But I guess I've always been one at heart. I couldn't live with myself if my lie caused something bad to happen."
"It makes no sense," said Stephen, almost speaking to himself. "If the crash didn't happen the first time you went back, then why did it happen the second time?"
"Something must've changed."
"Or someone must've changed it."