Disclaimer: The MCU and the Characters of Doctor Strange and Captain America: Civil War are just as much not mine as Sherlock and the Hobbit. I do love to play with them, though.

Warning: Contains Spoilers for Doctor Strange and Civil War. If you haven't seen those movies yet, hit a theatre or get a DVD first and then come back to read.

A/N: Freeman and Cumberbatch may not have been in the same movie in the MCU yet, but they did at least appear in the same world, so I figured it's time for a sequel to Rebirth. :)

The Deputy Task Force commander of the JCTC had not been this excited about a meeting since the Avengers came to Vienna to sign the Sokovia Accords and all hell broke loose. Not only were there people with super-human powers in the world, now there was even an entire magical order of Avengers magnitude!

Everett Ross firmly disagreed with Terry Pratchett: He liked living in interesting times!

Since Captain America freed his co-conspirators from the Raft prison - a place that gave Everett the creeps, to be honest -, the entire group had been impossible to locate. One of his subordinates (Heh! He had subordinates! This never got old.) had proposed the theory that the Scarlet Witch was hiding them from their fairly all-encompassing digital and human search. Everett would prefer this theory over the one that named Tony Stark as the reason all data came back without a hint of the rogue Avengers; he could not shake his belief in the latter theory, but he had decided to follow up on the other one just in case. It would make his life so much easier.

Granted, easy could be boring, but after the It-Wasn't-Barnes reveal, Everett firmly believed that if they found the group around Captain America and got them into a court of justice, the details of the epic friendship between Rogers and Barnes and of the altercations between them and Stark, beyond what Zemo had been willing to tell them, would be utterly fascinating. The small glimpses they had been able to salvage from the internal memory of Stark's destroyed suit while the man himself lay knocked out in medical had been horrifying, but intriguing. The entire concept of the Winter Soldier gave Everett the creeps, and at the same time filled his heart with wonder. There were such curious people about nowadays, and he got to work with them!

But first, they had to be found. Which meant following up on the magic connection. Hence the impending meeting with the mysterious Doctor Strange, Sorcerer Surpreme and Head of the New York Sanctum Sanctorum. He quirked his lips. What a mouthful.

Once more, Everett flipped through the briefing file on Strange. Former neurosurgeon, nerve damage to both hands after car accident due to reckless driving, arrogant ass by all accounts; later leader of a spiritual order, noted magic wielder, and there were hints at him having saved the world while no-one was looking. The details were shady, but enough spiritualists the world over had confirmed the reality of the threat that its annihilation by Strange and his companions had to be taken seriously.

Everett wondered how many times their entire existence might already have been on the verge of destruction only to be saved by the heroic interference of an unknown champion without anyone actually taking note.

He looked at the man's photograph in the file. It was from his days as a surgeon: Face impeccably shaved, expensive suit, eyes bright and arrogant. He wondered what studying for years and years to become the best in his field, only to have it all taken away because of an injury might feel like. Nerve damage to the hands must be the closest equivalent to hell on earth for a surgeon. Or so he thought.

He suppressed the unaccountable shiver of discomfort at the pain he could nearly feel in his own body, most prominently his shoulder - why ever- , and once more focused on the picture. He cocked his head. The man looked almost familiar. It was too easy to imagine this man calling someone an imbecile, ranting about the incompetents he was forced to work with, and literally breathe fire at those that annoyed him.

Wait. That made no sense.

He checked his watch: One minute past the hour. He perked his ears, listening for foot-steps approaching the doors to the opulent meeting room. Instead, what he got was the bright hiss of a circle of fire appearing in mid-air at the other end of the room.

"Woah!" A man in a red cloak billowing behind him without the influence of any wind stepped through the circle from what seemed to be a snowy ledge somewhere in a tall mountain range. With a wave of the man's hand, the circle fizzed out behind him and the snowy mountain vanished.

"Not a bad entrance!" Everett enthused. "Doctor Strange, I presume?"

"Yes, amongst others," the tall man said with a strange smile - Everett winced internally at the unintentional pun - playing around his lips.

"Excuse me?"

"It is good to see you," Doctor Strange said, ignoring his question. "I wondered when we were going to meet again." Or maybe not ignoring it. Everett assumed magicians were especially given to vague insinuations. Although the Avengers sometimes made a good play at those, too. Infuriating people. But fun.

He rolled back his shoulders to feel his suit settle around him like armour. Focus on the task at hand. "Well, Doctor Strange, thank you for coming. I assume you are already informed about the reason for this meeting."

"Yes, yes," the man said, waving a negligent hand and settling into one of the chairs at the long table. His cloak floated off his shoulders and wrapped around the back of the next chair over. "The Scarlet Witch and her tricks. It is not her hiding them, though, so let us use the time we have more productively."

Everett tore his eyes off the cloak hugging the chair and shifting about a little before settling down. Uh. "That is... You seem very sure of this."

Strange huffed out an annoyed breath, but apparently resigned himself to giving the inevitable explanation. "Yes, of course. We try to keep tabs on magic users around the world, which is admittedly a little difficult in Europe and, more recently, in the USA; otherwise, they are more solitary and tend to stick out like sore thumbs."

Everett's gaze was involuntarily drawn to the man's hands which trembled lightly where they lay folded on top of his propped-up knee. Strange pretended not to notice. "Most of them have no dealings with the Dark and are open about their practice of magical arts, so they are easy to track. Miss Maximoff is among those, body count not-withstanding. As far as we know, she never intended harm, never had any dealings with Dormammu or used any kind of Dark magic."

Everett finally sat down across from Strange. "So you do know where she is?"

The man's mouth quirked at the corner. "I did not say that. But we do know she is harmless, and not presently cloaking anyone's presence, which is what you wanted to know. So, having discussed that, will you now allow me to do what I came to do?"

Everett frowned, but also felt giddiness bubbling up inside him. The man had ulterior motives. This could be dangerous. "I was under the impression that was the sole reason for this meeting."

"So was I," Strange said enigmatically, "until I saw you."

"Huh." Was this man hitting on him?

The amused smile never left the corners of the man's mouth, but his eyes now caught it too and softened his expression into something like fondness. Everett couldn't say why, but it looked both unfamiliar and yet very heart-warming on that face.

"After loosing my initial calling," he lifted one hand and wiggled the damaged fingers, "I went to Nepal looking for a cure. Instead, I found magic." He extended both hands to the sides and a burning line formed in the air between them. Everett watched, spell-bound already. The line became a circle, became a complex structure with geometrical shapes, interspersed with lines that might be Sanskrit characters or Marsian code for all Everett knew. It was breathtakingly beautiful, and the structure hummed with power.

"I never did get my hands healed," Strange continued, "but along the way, I found a new calling. I am now part of Earth's defences against spiritual attacks. Kind of like the Avengers are for physical threats."

"The Avengers are fractured," Everett ventured.

"True," Strange admitted, "but even so, I bet each one of them is still fighting the good fight in their own way."

"Do you have a particular reason why you want me to think that even if you knew exactly where the rogue Avengers were hiding, you would use the knowledge to aid them rather than deliver them to our authority, or are you just doing this to be contrary?" Everett asked mildly.

"I digress," Strange allowed with an easy smile. "My point is, while I found magic, I also found myself." That should have sounded like some corny pseudo-religious claptrap, but with the glowing magical design hanging in the air between them, it just sounded important.

"I discovered that rebirth truly happens, or at least it has happened to me. More than once." Now the man's eyes bored into Everett's. "It has also happened to you. May I show you?"

"Yes, please," he whispered with dry lips.

Strange waved his hand and the flaming spell flew towards Everett and hit him full-on.

"Uh." He blinked. Grabbed his throat as though afraid his head might fall off. Slowly, he sat up from where he had slid down in his chair. Looking around, he fully took in the conference room, and the man standing beside him with a concerned hand on his shoulder.

"You. I... I know I... " He struggled for words. Then his recovered memories hit him with the force of a sledge-hammer and his head hit the table with an audible Thunk.

"Seriously?!" he asked, disbelief written plain across his features. "If we had walked like the wizard wanted, we might have lived?!" His head hit the table again, before he plaintively looked up at his dragon.

Smaug winced and drew back his hand. "Oh good, it worked. Er, and yes. We probably would have. ….Also, let us take this conversation elsewhere." Another magic design sprung up into the air, and a moment later, reality bent sideways.

"What is this?" He looked around curiously, but not really alarmed. Despite having died twice beside this man, he'd still trust him with his life in a heart-beat.

"It is called the Mirror Dimension," Strange-Smaug explained. "It lies parallel to our reality, and no-one who does not have magic themselves can cross over unaided. It's handy for private conversations." He gave a pointed glance at the camera hung in one corner of the meeting room.

Everett's mouth twisted. The camera should currently be switched off, but Strange was right. You could never be too careful.

So. Mirror Dimension. Rebirth. Right. ...Mordor. Death. Ugh. "Was there any way of knowing?"

Smaug shrugged. "If I'd known there were Ringwraiths on flying Nazgûl guarding Sauron's land, I would have agreed to a stealth approach. But not even Gandalf seemed to have known that, despite having lived in Middle Earth much longer than either of us. So I don't think I'm to blame for this one as much as for the previous time."

London. Moriarty. Death. Double-ugh! "I don't blame you," John concluded. "Do you know, though, how often we've already blindly walked to our deaths together? Are we just fated to die in dumb ways?"

Strange-Sherlock frowned. "I have some magic now, but I am far from all-knowing. The previous two lives were easy to bring back, but beyond that, I couldn't tell. I don't know if I'm not meant to know or if there was nothing to know before. Prying into it feels like a dangerous manipulation of the threads of reality, though, so I did not dare." One of his hands came to rest on the eye-shaped medallion hung around his neck.

"You have learned caution?" John asked, disbelieving.

"Some." Sherlock looked down, abashed, and it was a strange thing for him to do. John blinked. No, a Strange thing. Obviously, his friend had made some new experiences while they were apart, and they'd have to re-learn each other for some time to come. Well. He had adapted to his friend being a five-storey, fire-breathing lizard. This shouldn't be so bad.

"So," he said. "What have you done with yourself since we accidentally doomed Middle Earth? I hear that you were a surgeon until nerve damage took that from you. I am very sorry."

His friend sat back down, this time in the chair next to him. His cloak floated over to hug him, and he looked grateful for it. "It was not easy. I do not think I need to explain to you, of all people, what it means to be a successful surgeon who is suddenly cast out of his job due to injury."

John snorted. "I do have some inkling, yes. I am amazed that you decided to become a surgeon in the first place, though. Isn't that my job?"

"What, like it is my job to hunt for terrorists, Mister Head of the Joint Counter Terrorist Center?"

They looked at each other for a moment, then both broke out into giggles.

"I suppose we both decided to honour lost friends the best we could," Sherlock said seriously, and it was such a profound thing for him to say that John couldn't help but accept that embracing emotions no longer was anathema to his friend.

"And what about you, Joh- Bil-... What do you call yourself nowadays, anyway?"

"My name is Everett."

"Huh. I am Stephen."

"Hi Stephen." They solemnly shook hands, then cracked up. Everett picked back up the conversation. "Huh, what?"

"Well, isn't it odd? John, Bilbo, Everett. You gain a syllable every time you are reborn. Whereas I am stuck with only one or two syllables, and my name always starts with an Ssss." He drew the sibilant out in a very dragon-ish fashion.

"You pay attention to the oddest things," Everett said, "and I do not mean deductive reasoning. That stuff actually comes in handy." He grinned happily. "Although that isn't what got me this job."

"What was it, then? Did you put down Master Burglar on your resume?"

"Jesus, no. Just like I can't quite see you getting into college with an application as either /emConsulting Detective or King under the Mountain."

They exchanged delighted smirks. Then Everett looked around at the surreality of the mirror world. "Say... are you back on the drugs, though?"

Stephen rolled his eyes. "No, I am not. I do admit to a fondness for hoarding treasure, though." He caressed the jewel hung from a cord around his neck. "And what about yourself? Are you enjoying the responsibility of your high-end job?"

Everett laughed out loud. "Me, commanding an operation of this magnitude, can you imagine? I still sometimes startle when I realize that I have underlings! I keep thinking of myself as the eternal sidekick and wondering who decided it was a great idea to give me authority!"

Stephen frowned. "You are not just a sidekick. Don't sell yourself short."

"Of the two of us, you were always the leader." He shrugged. "And when you were not there, I found other people to follow... But I am more surprised to see you taking on responsibility than myself. After all, I was always the more responsible one in our partnership."

"I have one word for you: cabby."

"That was one time!"

"Afghanistan."

"Okay, so maybe I -"

"Entering a dragon's lair."

Everett threw up his hands. "Alright, alright! You win. So tell me, Mister -"

"Doctor."

Keeping his hands in the air and giving them a shake for emphasis, still waiting for some higher power to grant him patience, he continued: "Oh, do forgive me. Doctor Responsible, how many times have you nearly gotten yourself killed already in this life?"

"That is one point to you, Deputy Task Force commander Ross, and well played," Stephen grumbled.

Everett lowered his hands and leaned forward, suddenly concerned. "I am sorry, that was insensitive of me. I heard about your car accident, I should not have..."

"No, it's alright." Stephen waved his concern away. "That one was entirely my own fault, much as I hate to admit it. But since I was shown magic, I've also been fighting against powers easily on par with - and possibly far greater than - Sauron himself, and I have nearly died a number of times." He frowned. "And I suppose a case could be made for me having actually died several thousand times as Stephen Strange, though I reversed those."

"You. What."

With a sigh, Stephen threw himself back in his chair, closed his eyes and suddenly looked years older. "There's this god-like being. Dormammu. Long story, but the short of it is: he was trying to tear our reality apart, nothing could have stopped him. He had his foot in the door and that was all it took. But I had this gem here" - he once again caressed his pendant - "allowing me to catch Dormammu in a time loop with me. He kept-" His voice suddenly dry, Stephen reached for a bottle of water and a glass from the table. The mild pop of the lid being screwed open for the first time was loud in the silence of the mirrored conference room.

Everett looked at his friend and started to get an idea of just how much his friend had been through without him. "What did he do?"

"He killed me," Stephen said. "Again and again and again. There was nothing else I could do to keep him from consuming Earth but to keep him occupied. I could not defeat him, I only had a flimsy magical shield that was no defence whatsoever against a being of his skill and power level, and I was entirely on my own. So I'd walk up to him, tell him I wanted to make a bargain with him, and then I would die. And walk up to him to bargain and die. And die. And die..."

His voice trailed off, eyes looking unseeingly into the middle distance.

"Uh," Everett said intelligently. "That... is extraordinarily awful." His mind gave him Sherlock falling from St. Barth's, his own death in London, the great dragon falling from the sky, and a blade descending upon his broken body outside Cirith Ungol. He furtively rubbed his throat again. He wondered if Stephen Strange's deaths had involved a lot of falling.

"It did the trick, though," Stephen said, voice still a bit hollow. "He eventually caved and promised never to set foot on Earth again, in exchange for freedom from the time loop."

"You." Everett closed his eyes. Took a deep breath. Opened them. "You are so very, very insane."

"I do try." A tiny smirk creeped onto Stephen's face. Everett loved it.

Suddenly, a thought came to him, wiping away the pain he felt for his friend and having him mirror Stephen's smirk with a larger one of his own. "Know who you remind me of?"

Stephen looked a bit suspicious, but he still bit. "Who?"

"Captain America." That startled Stephen out of the rest of his funk, just as he had hoped.

"I am a vain, arrogant dragon with more than one unhealthy habit who will always be British at heart. Why would you compare me to the all-American boy scout in the lurid pyjamas?"

"You don't seem so arrogant any more. And the two of you share a first name. But what's more, I have evidence. Will a video work in this mirror world or do we need to leave?"

"I can make it work," Stephen said, "but why would I want to?"

"Because I want you to see it."

Reason enough, apparently, because a moment later, his laptop once more became a tangible presence on the table and the screen flickered to life. Selecting one of the video fragments from Stark's broken suit, he hit play.

Captain America showed up on the screen, bloody, wavering on his feet, his shield lying useless at his feet. "I can do this all day," he slurred.

Everett stopped the video and cocked his head at Stephen. "Remind you of anyone?"

Stephen snorted out a laugh. "This is ridiculous."

"But true."

"If you insist."

"Imagine Mycroft's face if he heard me comparing you to that..."

That did it. Both of them cracked up and gave in to helpless gales of laughter.

Until a red light started flashing across the ceiling.

"Oh blasted…! That's a-"

"Code red. Obviously."

"Know-it-all."

"Of course I do."

They looked at each other and cracked up again.

"But seriously, I need to get out there," Everett said. Stephen obliged him and they exited the Mirror Dimension. Everett took out his phone and called his secretary. "Lilian, what's going on?"

"Gathering all the men to respond to a terrorist thread in Wakanda, sir."

"Wakanda?" he asked, startled. "Who's attacking them?"

"As far as we know, it's some kind of cultist group. They have been described as magic users, but beyond weird chants and a light show, so far the magic claim has not been proven."

Everett covered his phone with one hand and looked up at Stephen. "Want to join me on a little outing? Could be dangerous."

Stephen's eyes sparkled and the corners of his thin lips curled up with delight. "I can do one better. I can take you there."

"What, will we fly on your cloak?" The thing was hovering in mid-air, and he remembered something about Doctor Strange having the ability to fly. That might be fun.

"We could do that, I suppose," Stephen mused as the cloak settled around his shoulders. "But while you are still little more than Hobbit-sized, I no longer have the broad back of a dragon, nor does the cloak like anyone sitting on top of it. So I'd have to carry you bridal style."

Everett choked just a little. He'd love to fly again, but the price was… well.

"But no," Stephen let him off the hook for now, "I was thinking more along the lines of this."

A fiery portal opened up in mid-air. A rather familiar statue of a huge panther greeted his wide eyes.

Everett slowly raised his phone back up to his ear. "Lil? Send the men up ahead, I'll meet them there."

"Very good, sir. May I ask how you are getting to Wakanda without the jet?"

"Doctor Strange has graciously offered alternative transportation, which I believe will be faster. Oh, also: Please believe me when I say magic is very real indeed." He hung up on his startled secretary and turned back to Stephen. "Shall we?"

Side by side, they stepped through the portal and right into the middle of a magical battle. The two unlikely companions shared a delighted grin. "The Game is on."

~ The End ~

ETA 16.11.2016: Thank you to everone who's read and reviewed! :D This fic now has a slashy sequel which only goes up on AO3. Here's a link, in case you're interested (delete spaces, replace dot): archiveofourown dot org / works / 8575198