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There were moments, during his meditations, where he allowed the memories to live. And, though he often tried to create a context of distant observer surrounding it, he also had the awareness that his efforts were exactly that – a distancing measure. The alien, Squidward (thank you, Stark), making use of medical instruments to torture a former doctor; awake he could, sometimes, manage a smirk over the irony. Far more often, though, he skimmed past the memory completely – leaving it in the mental pocket dimension that contained his car accident, the decades of repeating slaughter at Dormammu's hands, and the sensation of his body dying as it shredded to nothing along with a trillion other souls.
Returning to life, this time, had been... complicated. Frustrating – if he were to pin it down to a more concise word. He'd intended to pick everything back up from where he'd left it; guarding the Sanctum, continuing his education with Wong, even attempting to build a new friendship with Christine that had actual friendship at its core and not the shameful give and take that was her giving and him taking. He'd refused to think of any of that as deflection or distraction. These were the things that mattered most to him – they were the cornerstones of his life – of course he'd want to resume them!
But...
As a resident, he'd become accustomed to mornings that began before the sunrise. As a surgeon, specialized in his field, he'd allowed for a few extra hours abed. After all, his work, while certainly saving lives, wasn't the grind and frantic pace of residency. He'd accepted patients because they were interesting, not because they'd simply tumbled through the hospital doors. He'd had the luxury of scheduling. However, that bit of privilege, along with all of his privilege, had been shed after the accident – after Kamar Taj – after the death of the Ancient One...
Earlier than ever, most of his mornings now started at around 4am. Mediation, breakfast, monitor, study, spar, break for lunch, study, study, monitor... The routine had been an easy enough pattern to grow accustomed to – little different from his university days save the field of study.
After Thanos, though...
He woke up before 3, most days. Most days arriving to the rooftop before even Wong had awakened – spending not enough hours meditating and far too many looking out for threats – watching – tensed to the point he'd started to develop severe migraines.
It was a month before Stephen left the Sanctum, after the Snap had been, more or less, resolved. Willingly left, well, not so much. Wong had opened a portal and basically shoved him through with orders to “Unburden your mind. You are creating tension amongst the younger initiates.” Translation, “Chill out; you're scaring the normies.”
The abrupt expulsion, however, had an array of shortcomings. While the cloak had attached itself to his shoulders before the portal had faded and he was equipped with his sling ring (he'd only needed to learn that lesson twice, thank you) he was embarrassingly short on both cash and shoes. Also, while his new community of sorcerers and sorcerers-in-training wouldn't bat an eye at his traditional sleepwear – he was already drawing looks and raised eyebrows from the pedestrians forced to walk around his stilled form. Dammit, Wong! His eyebrows lowered and he squinted at the buildings around him. Still New York. Actually, he was in... Queens?
Huh...
Well, first things first. He may not have so much as 4 pennies but he could at least update his wardrobe. One thing Queens had, in ample supply, was vacant alleys. Casting an illusion spell to transform his thin robes into casual street wear – his cloak forming itself into a modern sports jacket – he was about to head back out onto the sidewalk when he stopped – glaring down at his long toes. Dammit, Wong...
“Wow! Hey, Doctor Strange! What are you doing here? Wait, are we about to be invaded? Is this a red alert? Should we call Mr. Stark?”
Rapid-fire, high-pitched interrogation directly above him. Well, he was in Queens, after all.
“Mr. Parker.” He addressed – not bothering to look up as he started to dig out his sling ring. Tension or not, he wasn't about to wander the city barefoot. Besides, there had to be a better spot for mental unburdening than a filthy alley. “Shouldn't you be in school?”
“I'm home sick.”
Stephen tilted back his chin, finally, to regard the kid clinging to the wall above him – mask shoved back from his face.
“You realize I am, actually, a doctor...?”
Without missing a beat, Peter raised his fist to his mouth and coughed. Unconvincingly.
Stephen lifted an eyebrow.
A tiny eye roll and Peter dropped to the ground in front of him. “Please don't tell Mr. Stark – I promised I'd keep an eye on Mr. Strabowski's storage facility cause someone's been breaking in to the different units and he can't afford a security guard and I had some free time and he's really a nice guy – his wife makes the best matzah...”
“Okay, back up. First, you don't have free time when you're supposed to be in class. Second; there isn't an invasion,” the full body shudder and heavy exhale from the young man was enough to soften Stephen's tone. He did, after all, completely understand that emotion. “Third...” he wiggled his toes, “you wouldn't happen to have a pair of shoes I could borrow?”
**
Three minutes with the portal open and Stephen was gifted with an old pair of sneakers from Peter's closet. While he may be growing like a weed, his footwear was still far from adult sized. Of course, the benefits of being a sorcerer extended beyond the ability to enter other dimensions, travel outside one's body, and fly. It also had practical applications such as resizing and reshaping footwear. Outfitted with a pair of dark loafers, Stephen was considering a destination somewhere a bit more interesting than 30 minutes from the Sanctum. Shifting feet on concrete brought his attention back to the teenager standing at his side – guileless brown eyes with a touch too much innocent intensity staring at him from beneath a clump of loose curls. A moment later, a soft pressure shoved at his shoulders. Two against one was an unfair advantage.
Able to, barely, suppress the groan-laden sigh, Stephen raised one hand with a proverbial white flag. “Okay, kid, where's this storage lot?”
**
Rather than open another portal into parts unknown, Stephen chose to travel alongside Peter – an odd mismatch with Peter's spider suit adjacent to Stephen's streetwear. However, he'd compromised by allowing his cloak to whip free from its illusion and float around his shoulders.
While maybe not the speediest way to their destination it did allow for a bit of conversation. Well, more like random and exuberant stream-of-conscious while Parker covered every subject from drama club to club sandwiches. Stephen mostly strolled alongside the kid – nodding while keeping his senses in constant alert – mental eye studying every person they passed – every building – every sewer drain...
And it wasn't as though there was nothing present. There were countless entities that existed slightly out of phase from the rest of the world. Benign creatures were plentiful – even more so in New York where that large human population was a natural draw to entities that thrived in harmony with the mental cast off of human thought. While they might appear either grotesque or wrenchingly beautiful by turns – most of the creatures he encountered were no more dangerous than earth worms. Actually, there were a number of them which were beneficial and even essential to human life – feeding on dark energy that would otherwise be crippling.
Their journey would take the better part of an hour – traveling that way. In part because Peter couldn't help but draw attention – so much so that Stephen, even with his cloak, barely drew a glance.
“Hey, Spiderman! Can we get a selfie?”
“Spiderman! It's my kid's birthday – can you sign her card?”
“Yo, Spiderman! Can you really pick up a car?”
“Can I have a hug?”
“You wanna go on a date?”
“Can you really stick to anything?”
“What color are your eyes?”
“Can I have a kiss?”
Stephen finally intervened as the requests began to grow too personal for the uncomfortable young man – pulling Peter along with him to the waves, and disappointment, of the gathered crowd.
“Thanks.” Peter scrubbed a hand across the back of his neck. “Usually it isn't so bad. I mean... well, cause usually I'm... you know, up there.” He pointed towards the rooftops.
Stephen smirked as he pulled free his sling ring. “Well, how about we cut this short, then?”
“Sounds good to me!”
Slipping behind a Goodwill, Stephen swirled his hand to open a portal – gold sparks showering in a vertical pool as they stepped through.
An hour, on foot, was completed in a single step. And, yet, it was as though they'd entered a completely different world. Where it had been overcast in Forest Hills, it had already begun to rain in Jamaica – the drops mostly a fine mist but the faint thunder threatened downpour within the next twenty minutes or so.
The lot was empty, save for one grey and white cat lurking near a set of dumpsters. It paid them little attention as they walked across the pavement other than to shake itself and resume its morning grooming.
Leaving Peter to scout the rooftops, Stephen closed his eyes and expanded his senses outward – feeling out the shape of the spaces – looking for weaknesses between dimensional walls. After roughly five minutes he let his hands drop to his sides. There was nothing. Well... at least nothing of a spiritual threat. A short distance away, Peter dropped back to earth a few feet from the cat. Kneeling, he crooked his fingers and chucked at the small animal. With a liquid stretch, the cat padded his way and indulged in having its eats scratched. Someone's pet, then. Likely someone from one of the nearby homes.
He'd promised Peter an hour. He considered ducking back to Kamar Taj for a book but quickly dismissed the notion in favor of pulling free his little used phone. Stark had nearly gone into a fit when he'd seen the model Stephen was using. Apparently, 5 years old meant the device was an antique. He'd insisted on an upgrade; but Stephen had declined. Old him would have replaced his phone a minimum of once a year. New phones, new cars, new girlfriends... He wanted nothing to do with old him even if that meant using his phone until the thing fell apart.
A short text to Wong was answered only seconds later; the reply to the point and reenforcing the insistence that he either stay away or find himself trapped in the Dimension of the Perpetual High for a minimum of 15 hours (formerly The Dimension of Light but Stephen had felt a renaming was in order after his one experience with that haven of hippy delights). Green unicorns and technicolor humming flowers aside, he had no desire to press his luck and sent back a single pouting emoji in reply.
Phone slipping back into his pocket he glanced around for Peter. Somehow, during his brief exchange with Wong, the kid had vanished. Great. Well, it was unlikely he'd been abducted by aliens; not that the thought prevented Stephen from glancing skyward and feeling abashed for his humming nerves.
“Mr. Parker?” Not quite a shout but his voice carried all the same. Not that he got a reply. No wonder Stark had started to show a few grey hairs. Of course, he shouldn't really be surprised; given the teenager he was dealing with. Well, no use standing in the middle of the lot. Peter was likely checking the individual storage units for tampering.
Content to stay on the ground, Stephen headed for the nearest row. He was halfway there when he heard something clatter; like a glass bottle tipping over. He rolled his eyes as he rounded the corner. “Hey, Pete; you mind letting me know when you're planning to-” Hot white blasted across his eyes and his body was colliding with the pavement before he even felt the blinding sear of pain in his temple. “Shhhhiit...” He couldn't see past the crowing black but he could feel the cloak as it suddenly detached from his shoulders. There was shouting, now, and Stephen tried to raise up on his knees only to collapse forward; gagging. Perfect – that likely spelled concussion.
“Mister Strange! Oh my God, I am so sorry! I heard someone messing around with the units at the far end of row J and went to check it out but I didn't realize there were two groups and I should have told you where I was going but you looked busy and I really didn't want to bother you and, oh shit, you're really bleeding!”
Stephen caught roughly thirty percent of that; raising a hand to his temple and flinching when he found the aforementioned copiously bleeding wound. His vision was still toying between black and mostly black so creating a portal was out.
“Did-ou... catch...?” Slurring and struggling to get the question out but apparently it was enough for a kid who mostly spoke in sentence fragments.
“Yeah, they're all webbed up. I left a note for the police and we can call them once I get you out of here.”
Stephen tried to wave off the rising pitch of anxiety in Peter's voice. He could, absolutely, say that he'd had worse. This was nowhere near as bad as, say, being impaled through the stomach by spears of stone and left to bleed to death while loops of intestine spilled from the catastrophic wound. Of course, that memory was enough to tear away any control he'd had over his nausea and he vomited between his spread hands.
At some point the cloak was back on his shoulders – just in time to take his weight when his legs became highly unreliable. The wiry grip of Peter latched on to his left side and Stephen squinted through hazy tunnel vision as the pain in his head went from agonizing to dangerous. “GOD...!” He slammed his eyes shut once more and desperately tried to stay conscious.
He almost...
**
There was no way in hell he was going to live this down.
Grade 4 concussion, nearly two pints of blood lost, and he'd been carried into the ER, bridal style, by a 16 year old kid after being laid out by a damn tire iron. Excellent.
“Do me a favor, son. Don't tell Mr. Stark about this.”
Peter had only just unhinged his jaw for what was bound to be an extended and pop culture ridden monologue when a level tone of sarcasm breezed through the room.
“Oh, it's way too late for that, Sunshine.”
Stephen winced an eye open in time to see Tony Stark claim the room by mere presence alone. On the other side of the bed, Peter shrank down a little in his chair. “Uh, hey, Mr. Stark.”
Tony pinned the kid with a stare unnerving enough that Stephen felt the chill it created. Peter fiddled with the hem of his hoodie. “So, I caught the bad guys...”
Ams crossed; though Tony's eyes narrowed with the movement. Obviously still battling the pain from his damaged nerves. Well, Stephen could relate.
“What happened to passing Trigonometry? Didn't you have a quiz today?”
Peter hunched his shoulders. “That got moved to Thursday. Ms. Pell gave us an extra study day...”
“So you blew it off to go super heroing? Peter, we've talked about this. I made a deal with May; school before Spiderman. You made me look like an asshole which, by the way, I realize probably isn't difficult... but, damn it kid; you made a promise.”
Stephen pressed the heel of one hand against his right eye; which felt as though it were trying to explode from his skull. “I'm sorry, do I need to be here for this? Maybe you could take this to a nearby rooftop.”
Tony grabbed a chair and dropped down with a solid thud. “No can do, Doc; you're just as culpable.”
“I'm sorry, I'm what?” Blinking was a challenge as the movement of his eyelids ratcheted his pain into torture levels.
Arms no longer crossed, Tony gripped the arms of his chair instead. “A tire iron? I seem to recall you giving steroidal Grimace a run for his money and, yet, you get leveled by one of the Gangreen Gang?” He held the glare for another 4 seconds before waving a hand. “Nevermind. Pep wanted me to let you know we're having you over for dinner on Saturday. Happy is cooking, if you can believe it. I think he got a new George Foreman or something. Anyway; three pm. Bring Sangria.”
Stephen let his head drop back on the pillow. “Tony...”
“Ah, ah... Too late. Already talked to Wong and he told me you could come over. Said something about delivering you bound and gagged if you tried making excuses. You two having relationship issues? I know a great couple's therapist.”
Wasn't he due for meds? Both hands covered Stephen's face as he tried to suffocate himself. Thank God Tony remembered his... Spiderkid; their resumed scolding session had the benefit of taking the heat away from Stephen.
The banter laden conflict carried on while Stephen drifted – his awareness of the other two fading out as he floated somewhere between dozing and full sleep. What pulled him back towards a state of barely awake was the soft pressure of a hand on his arm.
“Hey.”
Stephen's left eye opened a crack – taking in a slightly off focus Tony; his prosthetic glinting a little too brightly as it reflected late afternoon sun coming in through the window. Of Peter there was no sign; the teen clearly having left at some point.
“Look I... I'm, ah, really glad you were there... with the kid. I mean, I know he can handle himself... better than me, actually. But I still...” Tony's flustered babble was a more endearing aspect to the man than Stephen typically encountered. When he did, it was nearly always due to Peter.
Stephen smiled. “It's hard to watch your kid grow up.”
Tony crooked a smile back. If he had anything to say to that, however, he kept it to himself. He tapped two fingers against the edge of Stephen's bed. “Get better.” Turning to head to the door, he stopped just as he was pulling it open; glancing back towards the sleepy sorcerer. “See you Saturday; yeah?”
Sighing, Stephen managed a nod. “Yeah. I'll be there. And thank you. Tony.”
Finally alone, he groaned; stretching out and yawning.
Not the type of peace and quiet he'd been seeking; but whatever irritation he felt was overshadowed by the memory of soft laughter in the face of his petulance. This, too, he would accept for the lesson that it contained.
Something else had shifted, during his tiny adventure that day. He'd had fun. So accustomed to the anxiety of recent weeks he's forgotten how it felt to shed that stress and just... be free. And maybe Wong really did have a point – questionable though his methods may be. Stephen had needed this. Needed to know that, whether he was holed up in the Sanctum or walking through this world, life would still move forward. It was really just a question of whether he wanted to move forward as well.
But, by God, the next time Wong shoved him through a portal, barefoot and penniless, he was sending the man's iPod into a volcano.