Dr. Strange, found himself waking up to an unfamiliar place at first, he was worried that he was caught in some magical illusion then was hit with the memories of yesterday, " Oh, fuck !" Dr. Strange said slowly getting out of bed to go to the bathroom to get ready for the rest of the day.
After Stephen was done, he asked Friday if Tony was awake " Sir is currently awake and in his personal kitchen" Friday's mechanical reply sounded from the concealed speakers in the room.
Coming out to the kitchen, Stephen found Tony standing by the island drinking a cup of coffee. "Morning, Gandalf. " "Morning, Stark. So has your genius brain come up with any ideas about yesterday's discussion or do you need an extra cup of coffee." Stephen quipped as he was handed a cup of coffee. " I will have you know Merlin, that I can never say no to an extra cup of coffee but about yesterdays discussion I have had Friday compile a list of differences and similarities in the time lines you saw, then we can get to winning this war. So we can move breakfast to the living room while we look over Friday's data collection. Oh I have had the SI kitchen send us an English breakfast, so yeah." With that verbal spill Tony rushed out of the kitchen to the living room.
Okay, Tony had started to panic but to be fair he had only been up for fifteen minutes, before Stephen had shown up he thought he had extra time, to finish his current cup of coffee , call peter and wear his signature stark persona before he had to face reality. Tony could feel himself losing his grip on his words, he had to get out of Stephen's line of sight before he said something weird. So Tony ran to the living room, cross that walked quickly to the living room and sat down to calm down.
Moments later Dr. Strange , came and joined Tony when the elevator dinged with there breakfast , they ate in silence.
After the most awkward Breakfast, ranked only second to dinner with estranged in-laws Tony and Stephen began to look at the differences and similarities found in the alternate and future time lines.
One thing was clear, for every different alternate reality where they had seemingly won that universe never survived more than twenty years it went like;
Tony: " so how about we borrow from time line 3,049,657 Thor and you do a well aimed attack on Thanos but this time we aim for his head. "
Stephen: " remember that could result in the death of Thor and later destruction of the Universe by an unknown force less than 8 years later, we need to ensure that Thor survives the war plus, Thor may also not be able to arrive in time or be strong enough to cooperate with me for an attack big enough to kill Thanos ."
Tony: " ok how about time line 5,443,364 ....."
Stephen " no tony, first the illuminati does not exist, in this time line and some of the people involved are already dealing with other crisis's that could spell doom for them"
Stephen: " How about the ....."
Tony: " No Blair, we don't have the time to make that type of technology."
This situation continued for two hours where Tony suggests a time line and Stephen shuts it down or Stephen brings up a time line and Tony shuts it down.
"So this means we can't copy from alternate realities to see how they fixed there Thanos problem as everything is slightly shifted over here." Tony said getting up and getting a bottle of whisky from the bar area. " I figure since we had Scotch yesterday, we could do a Whisky today and then a Gin or Vodka tomorrow unless you have any preferences Merlin" Tony spoke absent mindedly while getting the glasses. " why do you call me every other fictional magic character name, rather than my own. About tomorrow's poison of choice I would prefer a Bourbon, over a Gin or Vodka and get some water with the alcohol " Stephen responded, paying most of his attention to the data holograph trying to find may be one time line they one and things don't end in either the exploding, shattering or fading of the universes but he could see nothing.
Only the feel of the sofa sinking in next to him had Stephen paying attention to Tony's words " hey ah... mm... Dr. Strange, sorry, but I tend to nickname the people I intend to make friends with, some times it's a way to avoid letting serious conversations be serious you know and it's also a quack what i am saying is that if it arcs you I will stop it."
Stephen had no choice but to look at Tony before blinking and realizing that Tony had misunderstood his question, so he clarified" No, listen Tony, I don't mind being nicknamed by you. I was just wondering why and please don't call me Dr. Strange after you been calling me Stephen and every other magic name unless am in trouble." At Stephen's reply tony raised an eyebrow in question at the last part. "It raises my hackles and gives me goose bumps" Stephen's response had Tony grinning. In the end he knew the asshole had just gotten new information that he could use to try and mess with him.
"Okay, serious question. You said that in all the time lines we won, those universes were still destroyed by some event relating back to this fight with Thanos but you never said how they were destroyed, just when. So Dumbledore, am goner need you to spill may be we can try and fix it. Then we would be able to use the possible future time lines as a solution since the alternate is a burst." Tony said looking into Stephen's eyes hoping for an answer.