Chapter Text
a·ce·tyl·cho·line
əˌsētlˈkōˌlēn,ˌasitl-/
Noun: acetylcholine
- Involved in thought, learning, and memory. Activates muscle action in the body. Also associated with attention and awakening
When Stephen Strange agreed to go to college, he thought of the whole ordeal as something akin to a life changing experience. He wasn’t going to lie, anxiety reared its head multiple times throughout the decision making process. Nonetheless, barely two weeks into the first semester of the school year, he already wants to call it quits.
The young sorcerer finds himself bored. He finds his classes tedious and time consuming as opposed to challenging. The people were kind and accommodating but most of them were lackluster and dull. There was no stimulation in their company. It doesn’t help that Stephen has memorized most of the works needed for their course outline. Sure he hasn’t gone through all of them yet, but if there was a hundred percent, he’s already done with over twenty percent of the material.
What’s worse is he can’t get into the courses he wants. Even if his grades were more than spectacular, his hands keep him from getting into science or medical related courses. He wanted to fight for his right but Wong and Wanda found it unnecessary to do so. Instead, he’s being asked to take all the general electives deemed important by the university to pass up. For this year and the next, he’ll be busy going into different 101s before settling into a degree that suits him and his condition the best.
He’s already had his heart set on biology or maybe chemistry. But no one was going to let him in a laboratory with the kind of broken useless hands he’s got. The angry lines showing the broken nerves along his fingers.
He hasn’t touched on the fact that noises still bother him sometimes. Even though he said people were nice to him, he still couldn’t get over his feelings of needing to watch his back. He’s better at controlling his moments but he sometimes finds himself cutting classes just to go to the deepest parts of the library. He could try and sneak home but Wong hasn’t been receptive to him skipping.
Why did he all of a sudden have this epiphany? Wanda Maximoff, of course.
“So, how’s college?” Wanda asked during their sparring session. They were both dressed in their deep red robes, the one their Sanctum has for training session. She and Stephen were keeping firm eyes on each other, they’d been circling each other for a few minutes.
“It’s boring” Stephen stopped his pacing and took a step back. He clapped his hands twice, crossed his arms with his fingers in position and pulled back. In one swift motion, he created rings of gold that circled his wrists. As they spun slowly around his hands, they made metallic fizzing sounds.
“Let me guess, you already think you’re better than everyone?”
Wanda sent out an attack, shockwaves of invisible red run the distance between them and towards Stephen’s. He managed to dodge the first wave by lifting his arm but he had to spin out of the way, stepping aside to evade the second attack.
The Scarlet Witch, even at a young age, was someone who never misses a beat. So when Stephen was busy protecting his middle and head, she went straight for his legs.
“Oof!” the young sorcerer in training was thrown off his rhythm and he fell face first into the ground. He forced himself up by his elbows and quickly rolled aside, no time to fully recover because Wanda’s flow of attack was continuous. If he didn’t move away, a Stephen shaped dent would’ve made a nice addition to their training room floor.
“Come on, Stephen!” Wanda called loudly, her usually calm blue eyes ignited in fire “Concentrate!”
“I am! I am!” the sorcerer managed, his hands shook angrily but he forced them steady the best that he can whilst trying to run away from Wanda. After a series of rapid hand movements one long golden whip materialized out of thin air. The dark haired young man threw one end of the whip, it managed to snatch one of her ankles.
Wanda let out a roaring shout as Stephen returned the favor by pulling her down. This resulted in her tripping backwards however she managed to summon a shield behind her back. The redhead bounced forward but her partner made it his mission to make sure she didn’t have the time to create any spells as he continued to throw one honey coloured ring in her direction after the other.
The witch found her arms flailing in the air, she couldn’t find time to stand her ground as she awkwardly danced to Stephen’s onslaught.
Through pure adrenaline and will, her right arm pitched a surge of red. It sailed across the room and attached itself to the young sorcerer’s left shoulder. It pushed him back and back, taking him away from the fight and pinning him to the nearest wall.
“ Damn, Stephen” Wanda fell to the ground. She spread her limbs, as if about to make snow angels with the dust, “You’re… you’re getting good at this. A little too good.”
Stephen groaned out loud before scrapping Wanda’s magic from his upper arm.
“That hurts” he rolled his offended shoulder, his arm following the exercise.
“Yeah, well, you deserve it” Wanda couldn’t help but chuckle as she collected herself and sat up. Her hair was a mess now, strands sticking out of place and her tie loosening from their magical sparring.
They were both covered in a thin sheet of sweat and slight bruises from the scuffle. Nothing too damaging.
Stephen picked the spot on her right to settle himself in. If there was anyone in the world he has deep respect for, it has to be the girl sitting and catching her breath beside him. Wanda has been at the Sanctum longer than him by a few months but her magic is way different than what he has. He may never really understand the full extent of what she can do but whatever it is, it packs a powerful punch.
“Hey” Wanda turns to him, after inspecting her nails. Thankfully all ten fingernails have survived, “So, college ?”
“Oh… yeah, it’s boring.”
“What do you mean boring?” Wanda asked incredulously, “Isn’t it supposed to be the best time of your life?”
“Yeah sure, if I get to pick the program.”
“Come on, Stevie, you know why you can’t do that.”
“It’s just… I just feel so worthless going on,” Stephen confessed, “Like I’m not doing the best that I can.”
“It’s two weeks by the next month, you’ll be begging for help.” Wanda teased, hitting him on the arm lightly.
“My dad said I would make a good doctor...”
Wanda didn’t know what to say to that, whatever joke she had was gone now. This was one of those rare moments where Stephen talks about his family. In the three years that he’s been living at the Sanctum, he rarely opens up about his past life. If it wasn’t for the files in Wong’s room, she wouldn’t have even known that Stephen was from Nebraska!
The small things he was willing to share were such intimate details- Donna’s favourite colour was the perfect shade of sky blue because it gave her a feeling of warmth. Victor didn’t like winter because of a nasty accident where he fell in between the cracks of a frozen lake. His father was an authoritative figure who continuously egged him to become the best or nothing. His mother loved chrysanthemum flowers and she would make pancakes on Sunday mornings for the children.
Those were the kind of things that you only knew if you spend enough time with a person.
“I would make a good surgeon.” he confessed, this was the first time he’s told anyone.
Wanda listened, when Stephen starts she rarely interrupts him. He rarely talks about his loved ones outside the context of his accident. It seems like no matter how much time has passed, a net of sorrow casts itself on every single memory of his childhood.
“Is that why you wanted to try out for the medical program?”
Stephen doesn’t answer, why was he even doing this? It was such a stupid thing to blurt out loud and he knows it.
“I have to go” the sorcerer in training stands up and turns to leave. Refusing to answer or look back at his friend who was calling out to him.
==
The looks people give him are the worst, especially when they see the long angry lines on his hands. The young sorcerer sighs as he hands over the books he was returning to the librarian. If it was the volunteer student working the counter, she would try to coax him subtly into telling his story. But each time, Stephen smirks at her and carries his book to the farthest corner he could find. He was thanking his lucky stars that all he had to deal with was writing his signature. He still feels embarrassed about how long it takes for him to just write his initials.
Currently, he has managed to consume over forty percent of the books outlined for his course.
He drags his feet and slumped into his favourite spot in the library. It was late in the afternoon and honey coloured streaks of sunlight cascaded through tall windows, leaving elongated shapes on the empty tables in front of him. The dark haired boy leans back while he goes through his backpack, looking for the book he’ll need to read today.
It was for his literature 101 class, a collection of poetry from the late Pablo Neruda. It was a thin black book with silhouettes of red leaves crawling across the cover. In the middle of it was the title of the book enclosed in a white box.
Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair
Stephen flipped through the pages, he stops at a random page where a small piece of paper was wedged in. He held it up with a somewhat shaky hand and found that it was his new cell phone number. Underneath it were two thick lines and a quick message of “Stephen’s new #”.
He wasn’t really keen on getting a phone but both Wong and Wanda agreed, just like a lot of things in his life, that they should have more than one way of communicating with him.
Stephen was sure he left his phone at the Sanctum but when he dipped his hand in his bag, he felt its smooth surface. He brought it out to check the time before dropping it in again.
He looks at the thin book in his hands, this was nothing to him. It barely reached a hundred pages, let alone fifty. He knows that before the sun dips into the horizon he would’ve memorized every single word, line and punctuation in this extremely short piece of literature.
He flips through it one more time and ends on the last poem of the book.
Tonight I Can Write
“ Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
Write, for example, 'The night is starry
and the stars are blue and shiver in the distance .'”
“Hm” he hummed a bit, taking the first lines into mind. That sounds awfully poignant.
Stephen continues to read, devouring each line of the poem with curiosity he wasn’t sure the source of. This poem was not written for someone like him, a lonely and weird boy from the farm who has never had his first kiss.
“ What does it matter that my love could not keep her.
The night is starry and she is not with me. This is all.
In the distance someone is singing. In the distance.
My soul is not satisfied that it has lost her. ”
This was for someone who has fallen in a love so fierce and intense it burns them up from the inside. The fire consumes so much that when the object of their desire leaves them for another, they become a hollow shell of what they once were. Alongside the feeling of a lost love is that feeling of despair that haunts each stanza.
It wasn’t enough to make Stephen Strange clench his heart in grief but he’s not going to lie: it touched him. The idea of trying to forget after persevering through a tragedy, how different the individual circumstances may be, is something he can relate to.
“Her voice, her bright body. Her infinite eyes.” Stephen read out loud, knowing no one will hear him monologue,”I no longer love her, that’s certain,but maybe I love her. Love is so short, forgetting is so long-”
“Because through nights like this one I held her in my arms my soul is not satisfied that it has lost her.”
Stephen’s head shot up as a voice joined him. There was a slightly older man, one table away from his, reciting the last lines of the poem. Their eyes met for a flicker of a second- brown eyes against his own blue. He had a goatee and a demeanor about him that triggered Stephen’s fight or flight senses.
“Though this be the last pain that she makes me suffer and these the last verses that I write for her.”
The young sorcerer released a breath he didn’t know he was holding. The person before him bowed slightly while spreading his arms. What is the protocol for something like this? Stephen couldn’t help but think he found himself stuck in a situation that screamed danger.
“You look like you’ve seen a ghost” the man walked up to his little corner. Whatever pretense he has for this being his private little bubble burst into the ether as the other man pulled up a chair in front of him and took a seat.
“Excuse me but… who are you” Stephen frowned.
“I’m someone ” the person in front of him looked up with a playful smile spread across his face. He didn’t look like he was struggling for his word but he did make a show about how he wasn’t finding the right ones at that very moment, “Who thinks you look like you need company”
Stephen couldn’t help but roll his eyes at this sentiment. Who does this guy think he’s talking to? He grabs his bag and pushes his chair back, study time was cut short but he was definitely not going to waste his time with this person.
“I don’t know who you are but-”
“I’m Tony Stark”
“ What ?”
“You said you don’t know who I am, well now you do”
Stephen had to clench his jaw tight for it not to fall. He tried to say something but he knows the moment he opens his mouth only an indignant sound would pop out. This was the kind of thing you hear people say in terrible romantic comedies, the ones Wanda loves to watch at the Sanctum. Those silly movies from the nineties that confused being a total creep as a good facade for being romantic.
“I don’t think this is how it works” the young sorcerer crossed his arms over his chest, making sure that he was looking down on the man, “And for the record, this is creepy ”
He doesn’t excuse himself and rushes out of the library.
==
“Hey, Stephen” Wong knocks on the frame of ward’s room.The man has been making sure that the sorcerer in training stop skipping classes, apparently the doctor said it was to help with him feeling a little more normal.
This is a sentiment Wong wholeheartedly agree, Stephen staying in the Sanctum and looking out windows wasn’t healthy. Brooding is a wonderful aesthetic but doing it all the time wasn’t really helping Stephen’s state of mind. Sure he's in training to become a sorcerer, but there's only so much studying he can do before he falls into his pit of depression.
They should’ve done something about it a long time ago but the Strange boy can be a handful.
Considering what he’s gone through, Wong let’s it slide. Always.
“What’s up?” Stephen is by his window again, one leg pressed close to his chest while he watches cars pass by the street.
“I just wanted to check up on you and see if you’re doing okay” his mentor crosses the boundaries and sits on his bed. Stephen’s room was… pretty bare for a teenager’s room. It does have the furniture and rug all courtesy of the Sanctum, there were small mystical items lying about on his desk. But it was empty of anything declared a fledgeling boy was staying in this room. His closet was filled with five shirts in various degrees of black and grey and one pair of pants- he was wearing his other pair.
He doesn’t have posters or memorabilia he picked up from hanging out with friends. He has a laptop he sometimes play Youtube videos on but other than his backpack and his one pair of good shoes? Stephen doesn’t seem to hold on to a lot of things.
“I’m totally fine” Stephen turned to him, swinging his leg so he was sitting and facing his mentor and friend.
“So, how is school? Do you like it so far?” Wong rested his hand on his knees. Doctor Banner told him he should engage with Stephen and try to coax him into talking about everyday activities.
“It’s okay”
“That’s good to know” Wong nodded his head. He and Stephen fell into an awkward silence- he was starting to think he might need work on his parenting skills when Beyonce’s Love on Top started playing. The man saw his ward jump from his place and fall on the ground. He wasn’t going to lie, he cracked a smile that was dangerously tethering towards a laugh.
Being the person who set up Stephen’s phone, he jokingly used a Beyonce song for his ring tone.
“Did you… did you do that?” the sorcerer asked incredulously, the song not stopping at all until one of them gets to his cell, “I can’t believe you did that”
Wong walked over to Stephen’s desk where his phone was vibrating and belting out the chorus to Love on Top. He unlocked it and checked up on Stephen’s message.
“Stephen....” Wong asked confusion knitting his brows together. He takes a quick glance at his ward’s phone, “Why are you getting photos of a… man ? Holding a book ? Is there something I need to know?”
“ What ?” the ward stood up straight and went to grab his phone, “Jesus fucking Christ, that asshole”