[That she might have wanted to ask for help, more than come here with accusation in her heart, does not so much as occur to him — later, it will, and he will regret not being able to see what a more empathic heart could pry from this darkness, clear as a bell. But for now, he raises his eyes to the splay of memories playing in vivid light before them; the skylight twists and turns slowly, projecting them in a disjointed slideshow of old experiences that she has no right to access.

His desperation at Kamar-Taj, waiting hours to be let in at the door. His failing magic, sparks where there should be gaping portals instead. The Time Stone’s green-hued energy, encircled around his wrist. The dread form of something looming above him, a face hewn out of a Dark Dimension.]

Oh, and you just know me so well, don’t you?

[He bites back. He can feel her magic coiling around his mind, pulling out these images and putting them on display. They become all the more erratic, emblematic of his state.]

You made up your mind the moment you saw me in this world. I could extend all the care I wanted, and I’d be given a handful of distrust for my efforts, wouldn’t I?

[His memories play sharply. An operating table, with a woman in yellow laying atop it, unconscious. The lines of New York City skyscrapers, folding into themselves. The vast landscape of a dead alien planet, and Stephen plucking a green star from the sky, revealing it as a stone, offering it away. The glinting water of a pool in the wretched summer heat.

He brings his hands up, tries again. Tries to dispel whatever she’s doing to him, and his magic is summoned in an uncontrollable burst of amber light, bright and illuminating the darkness, if only temporarily.]

Don’t dismiss my want to help people just because you’ve failed more than you’ve succeeded.