Archive of Our Own

The events that had transpired at the Statue of Liberty have left Strange with a number of issues to sort out, and as he picks his way through each and every one, he thinks about how things were a lot easier when he was a neurosurgeon. Go figure.

Whatever he had used the Runes of Kauf-Kaul for on Liberty Island is a mystery. If Strange has to guess, he assumes he had made himself forget the purpose as well, and he knows better than to jog his memory of it and risk breaking the spell. If the Strange that cast it wanted to make himself forget as well, then so be it.

But that doesn’t mean he can’t pry at a few of the things that have changed. Like why the Machina de Kadavus is suddenly gone.

Strange had asked Wong about it shortly after he learned it was missing, but Wong had no knowledge of where it had gone, nor if someone had used it. Strange really hopes no one has had to use it, because if someone used the Machina de Kadavus that means someone royally fucked up and had to bring out the big guns (and he dreads the possibility that that someone was him).

He starts with doing a bottom up search of the Sanctum (thankfully now clear of the leftovers of the Siberian blizzard), and by the time he’s reached the fourth floor, he’s rifling through boxes and containers like no tomorrow. He scares off an underling who was peeking into the room after he let out a loud shout of frustration.

The entire inside of the sanctum is cleared, and now Strange is tasked only with the storage unit on the rooftop. If he doesn’t find it here, then he’s going to turn the other Sanctums on their heads and shake them until that damn box reveals itself.

He ascends the steps up to the doors that give way to the Sanctum’s rooftop, muttering on his way up. The Cloak gives him a few reassuring taps on the chest, as if to say they’ll find it here. Strange throws open the doors to the roof and finds something else here.

Spider-man doesn’t startle at Strange’s flourishingly frustrated entrance, but he does turn his head to glance at the man as he emerges, eyes- Strange never really got used to the eyes on the guy’s suit- catching the sorcerer’s as he moves. Strange opens his mouth to say something but Spider-man beats him to the punch.

“Oh, hey man.” Not exactly what Strange expects as the first words out of his mouth, but okay.

“Spider-man.” Strange starts, nodding slowly. His hands rest at his sides and he glances around the rooftop- it’s empty, so what the hell is he doing here- and lands on the door to the storage unit. He turns back to the vigilante. “Hope you have been well since the battle.”

He does, truly. He remembers the ship, Titan. Leaving Tony Stark’s side for five whole years only to return and lose him in a matter of mere hours. Spider-man was close with the man, but considering he’s still standing before him now, Strange gives him credit for sticking to it.

Spider-man nods, humming his affirmation. He remains standing but has since turned back to the street, watching people on the sidewalk below. Strange doesn’t question him and just sighs, moving towards the unit.

Unlike the halls and rooms of the Sanctum, which are carefully organized and sorted into categories and pocket dimensional storage gaps, the rooftop unit looks like the attic of any suburban house outside of New York City. Cardboard boxes with sharpie labels and packing tape. Wonderful.

He sighs again, even more dramatic than last time, and manifests an Eldritch box cutter. He starts cutting his way through boxes, some full of plates and kitchen utensils and others full of chaos magic containment talismans. He’s on box number five when-

“Are you looking for something?”

Strange turns abruptly, not even noticing that Spider-man has gone from standing at the edge of the rooftop to watching him plunder his own belongings from the doorway. The guy clears his throat into his fist, looking like he might apologize for walking up on him. Strange contemplates telling him or not, but he is too fed up to care. Besides, Spider-man is… competent enough. A donut-shaped spaceship. Ebony maw. Yeah, he’s competent enough.

“Yes, actually.” He turns back to the box he was opening, this one full of daggers. They don’t even have curses or magic imbued, no wonder they’re sitting here collecting dust. He hears footsteps, and before he knows it Spider-man is peering into the box as well, from beside him.

“I could help you out- if you want, that is.” Strange turns to face him and nods.

“Much appreciated, Spider-man.” He whips up another knife and passes it to him. “You’re looking for a box. About ten inches tall, long and wide, hollow on the inside.”

Strange has moved to opening another box, his knife slicing through the tape like butter. He doesn’t see nor notice Spider-man going deathly still on the other side of the room, his hands hovering over one of the boxes.

The sorcerer groans and lets his hands fall to the side as this box is full of tennis rackets. Really, tennis rackets. He never pegged the Ancient One to be big on sports. He hears careful cutting on the other side of the room followed by the shifting of flaps.

“So uh… What’s this box do, anyways? Cool magic stuff, I assume?”

Strange hums. “It’s a container of sorts. And on top of that, The Machina de Kadavus, after the proper procedures, can reverse any and all effects of a spell that’s placed within it.”

“Oh. Sounds neat.” There’s something on the edge of Spider-man’s voice causing it to trill, but Strange doesn’t question it. He doesn’t meddle with emotions. “You wouldn’t happen to be looking for it because… you need to reverse a spell, would you?”

Strange turns to him at that, but Spider-man is still meticulously opening a box and sorting through its contents. He turns back to his own box.

“No, not this time. It’s just gone missing, and neither I nor Wong nor anyone in the whole Sanctum has a clue to where it’s ended up.” He explains. “I’d hope to find it, just to have the peace of mind knowing no one’s botched a spell and taken it for themselves.”

“Uh-huh.”

They fall back into silence, moving through boxes quickly and carefully. The unit doesn’t go very far back, but there’s mountains of these things that look like they haven’t been touched for ages. Strange gets the itch that this isn’t going to yield anything that will calm his worries, but he wants to anyway. If they don’t find it, well, he’ll just do some extra evaluations of the planet and make sure there aren’t any strange magical readings anywhere.

Hours pass, and, to Strange’s dread, they don’t find it.

“I’m sorry we couldn’t find uh… the…” Spider-man waves a hand weakly. He’s a bit subdued and Strange wants to huff. It’s not his fault it’s up and gone.

“Don’t fuss over it. It was probably misplaced at the London or Hong Kong Sanctums over the blip or something.” He sighs, resigned. “And if it wasn’t, well, I’ll just make sure it isn’t being used to cover up something worse.”

Spider-man looks at him through those lenses, waiting, until he nods and shifts.

“Yeah…” He gives the room a once-over. “Do you need help with these boxes? Wrapping them back up, I mean.”

Strange waves him off. “Don’t bother, I’ll have an underling do it later.”

Spider-man chuckles thinly, and steps towards the edge of the roof. “Right, well… I’ll see you around.”

As Strange watches him slip off the building’s edge and swing down Bleecker street, the setting sun illuminates his figure. Strange turns towards the unit and draws the door shut before sauntering back to the Sanctum’s doors. His fingers twitch.

The next time Strange encounters Spider-man, it’s because a number of anomalies have showed up in the Bronx, near the Alexander Hamilton Bridge. Strange and Wong show up because they remember this happening, not long after the final battle with Thanos and in the exact same place. At that time, Strange and Wong pinned the anomalies on the fact that Thanos and his army was one from 2014. Same universe, different times spells for mild disruption.

This time however, the anomalies are a lot more drastic. Strange and Wong arrive on the scene to find Spider-man already evacuating and protecting civilians from debris and hazards. The bridge in question is stable, especially following some damages that occurred a few months prior, however the rifts are distorting the matter, spewing out chunks of the bridge in sizes that range from dust to shards to chunks as large as a car engine.

Spider-man catches Strange’s eye once the two sorcerers arrive, and swings his way over to them.

“Hey, really- really glad you guys are here. Not sure what to do about these things. My webbing isn’t exactly built to tie together… Well, that.” He waves a hand in the direction of the rifts with little gusto. He doesn’t question the vigilante’s mild enthusiasm, and just raises an eyebrow at him while Wong sets to work on one of the anomalies, wrapping a series of Eldritch whips around it to contain the energy.

“Not an issue. If you would be so kind as to keep evacuating the civilians, we’ll have these fixed in a second.”

Spider-man nods, and leaps off again, his head twitching wildly as he scans each and every car for stragglers. Strange turns to one of the rifts and summons his magic in the shape of a crowbar. He hooks it into the anomaly like a skin hook in a surgery and pries it open. The action causes the rift to expand and contract a few times before widening, creating a series of strange, garbled noises as spires of matter appear out of it, shooting out of the rift like spines. He dodges one quickly and uses the hand not holding the makeshift hook to create a mandala barrier around the enlarged rift.

He needs to understand what’s causing this in the first place, because if someone has toyed with time without the Eye of Agamotto, and more importantly without the time stone itself, then he needs to get to the bottom of it.

Strange curls his fingers, and the barrier shoots a series of spikes back into the rift, pulsing and receiving information that flows into his fingers. The rift itself retaliates springing both matter from the bridge, and… glass, window-framing, iron-casting that resembles origins of a building, not a freeway overpass.

The information that passes into Strange from the barrier doesn’t appeal to him.

Unlike the rifts at the compound, these tell of not just time differentiations, but universal differentiations. They draw from decades ago, and from a world that Strange can’t even nail if he tries to recall where this energy originates from.

Had they sparked from something like the dark or mirror dimension, perhaps he would be a little less deterred. But no, these feel real. Not from any magical realms or mystic arts, but from tangible universes that exist parallel to their own. The rift shutters and shifts again, and Strange sees it as his cue to wrap it up.

He closes his fist and the barrier collapses onto the rift like a mouth, eating it whole and returning the space and matter to its original state.

He drifts up to the top of the bridge and walks across the asphalt to where Wong is containing another one of the anomalies. His expression must be pulled in a frown, or at least one deeper than the one he usually wears, as Wong’s own face grows serious. The ex-Sorcerer Supreme sighs as he approaches.

“Not good.”

“As if rifts are ever anything good.”

“Well, I have reason to believe these are not exactly what we dealt with at the compound.”

Wong looks at the rest of the bridge, thankfully still intact but showing signs of the damage that was done.

“They’re multiversal,” Strange continues, “Not just different times, but different universes as well. The question is-”

“Who the hell was stupid enough to cast a spell that fractured both time and space.” Wong finishes with a certain weight to his voice.

Strange draws in a breath through his nose and doesn’t let it out immediately. There’s something, at the back of his mind, that’s growing darker and darker in dread.

Something lands heavily beside him and both Strange and Wong turn, manifesting mandalas around their wrists. Spider-man holds his hands up.

“Sorry, sorry, didn’t mean to scare ya.”

Strange drops his mandala and it dissolves into flurries of magic before hitting the ground. Wong does the same, looking up exasperatedly at the bridge’s directional signs where Spider-man had dropped from.

The vigilante is silent as he looks between both Strange and Wong, as if expecting them to say something. He clears his throat.

“So, what was… up with all this? Did someone cause those things?”

Strange sighs, because he can’t exactly answer that. He wishes he could. Would cause him a lot less worry about what the hell is going on.

“Well, we can’t answer all of those questions but-” he waves a hand at the air, “those anomalies aren’t normal-”

Wong gives him a look that says no shit, Sherlock. Strange narrows his eyes in his direction.

“They’re caused by magical temperings with time or reality. A few occurred at the compound shortly after the battle with Thanos, whom we now know wasn’t from this time, but ten years ago.”

Spider-man nods along, and Strange wonders if he even understands any of what he’s saying. He doesn’t really care if he does or not.

“Anyways, we’ll need to figure out they’re origins, in the event that what caused this is going to cause something bigger.”

Another nod is tossed his way and Spider-man rolls his shoulders. “Well uh… sounds out of my field of expertise but, I’ll keep an eye out. And if I can help- just let me know.”

Strange exchanges an expression of gratitude and Spider-man waves goodbye to both him and Wong. He latches a web onto a sign further down the bridge and pulls himself up and into the air.

Wong turns to Strange, one brow raised.

“I thought you said he was annoyingly talkative after you came back from Titan.”

Strange pauses at the comment and holds his gaze at the onlookers observing the two on the bridge. He glances back at Wong, and then to where Spider-man disappeared between the buildings.

“Me too.”

The beginning of December is marked by more anomalies that Strange is tasked with keeping track of, finding, and sealing. The worst one is one that pings on his radar as being in the sewers of New York. Suffice to say, it was not a very pleasant clean-up job.

It is afternoon when he returns from sealing a few near a power grid outside of the city. Similar to the others, with the same readings and energy as the ones in the sewer and the ones at the bridge. However despite more evidence appearing, the clues to their origin remain a mystery.

Strange portals into the Sanctum’s foyer, sighing at the warmth that the inside provides after fumbling his way around the woods. He’s walking his way up the stairs when a thud on the Sanctum’s skylight followed by Oh- shit, no, no, no, hey, you’re okay- causes him to turn and stare at the window.

A ring of Eldritch magic encircles one of Strange’s wrists as he takes a detour towards the Sanctum’s roof. He keeps his eye on the skylight, the angle hindering his sight of who and what is lingering around it. He darts his gaze to the other windows, and only sees birds flutter by.

When he makes it to the door, he wraps his hand around the handle and releases a breath. Three… Two…

Strange throws the door open and holds up both hands, orange glow illuminating his grasp and-

“-Can’t just fly into windows like that, buddy- Oh- shit, Doctor- Doctor Strange-”

Strange stares for a moment, and then another. The flock of pigeons on the Sanctum’s roof had started when he flung open the door, every one taking up the air save for the one being ensconced by Spider-man’s hands. Said Spider-man had his upper-half twisted towards Strange, white-lenses wide with what Strange wants to call surprise.

Neither of them speak, and the pigeons seem to return back to the roof, pecking at seeds- Strange has never had a garden, much less seeds themselves- on top of the Sanctum. Strange schools his shock first, or maybe Spider-man does, and he just doesn’t wish to speak.

“What are you doing here?” He asks. It comes out neither blunt nor curious, but somewhere in between. Spider-man hesitates, his hands still cupped around one of the pigeons.

“I… uh, just… hanging out here, y’know. Sorry, do you guys not like visitors?”

Strange lowers his raised hands and meanders slowly over towards the superhero.

“It’s not everyday we have vigilantes camping out on the roof of the Sanctum.” He says. “One of these days someone here will probably mistake you for an enemy.”

Spider-man huffs out a laugh and twists himself back to facing frontwards.

“I think it’d be alright. Oh, sorry about the window. This guy-” He holds up the pigeon in his hands, the bird surprisingly pliant for being a city dwelling animal. “Flew into it. Bam.”

Strange looks over to the Sanctum’s skylight. There’s definitely an imprint of something colliding with the glass. An awkward cough comes from his side.

“How have things been going with those…” He waves his spandex gloved hand in the air, fishing for the word.

“Anomalies,” Strange provides, “I’ve managed to track down a few more, but little word on their origin. You haven’t encountered any yourself, have you?” He doesn’t see Spider-man as having a way of sealing them himself, unless he had missed the vigilante picking up some lessons from Harry Potter in the past month or two.

“Nah. Thankfully, I guess.” He mumbles out. “So long as no one’s getting hurt by ‘em.”

Strange agrees, but he dreads what this means in the long run. He’s in the dark on this, and there are a number of inklings in his head that point in a direction way too close to home for his comfort.

“Right.” His voice is tight with his thoughts. “And you?”

Spider-man turns to him and blinks, like he doesn’t understand the question. He’s still holding the goddamn pigeon. There’s a streak of realization in the way the lenses widen, probably in tandem with the eyes beneath the mask. Spider-man’s smart, Strange knows- why he knows, he can’t say, but he knows- but clearly not the best at reading the room.

“Oh, right, right. I’m…” His hands move like they’re about to emphasize his words, but they’re attached to the underside of the pigeon like it’s their holy duty to remain there, so the thing really just moves up and down a few times. “I’m doing good.”

Strange hums. He’s probably telling one truth with those three words, and one lie in the same fold.

The breeze blows by both of them, and Strange wonders if Spider-man is as cold as he is in that spandex suit. Hell, Strange has his robes and the Cloak, what does he have? Insulation, even? He doubts it.

The sorcerer watches him set the bird down onto the ledge of the roof, its legs slowly carrying it towards the rest of the flock as they continue pecking at the concrete. They both observe, in a silence that Strange doesn’t want to call comfortable, but isn’t inclined to label awkward.

He supposes responsibilities catch up to the both of them, because as he prepares to head back into the Sanctum, Spider-man stands abruptly and raises a hand to wave a parting to Strange. He returns the gesture, but something inside him wilts at the hesitance that graces the other’s actions.

He takes one last look at the pigeons and grumbles something incoherent out of annoyance. He should tell the vigilante not to hold his bird feeding parties on the roof of the Sanctum. It feels disrespectful to make an underling clean something like that up.

Strange doesn’t know who suggested the white elephant, nor does he know how the New York Sanctum occupants agreed to actually go ahead with it, but here he is, up near Bryant Park and stumbling his way through the winter village in search of something that doesn’t surpass the fifty dollar limit (as if he or anyone in the Sanctum for that matter could afford anything above fifty dollars for a secret santa. Being a sorcerer isn’t exactly a waged job).

He’s getting real sick and tired of waddling through the crowd, so he uses a minute form of Sling Ring portaling to move him to the empty terrace of a building. The Cloak isn’t here to accompany him on his public excursion, so he just crosses his arms over his puffer jacket while collecting himself.

A thump behind him has Strange wondering if he didn’t pick a completely empty terrace- but another part tells him that the thump of feet landing isn’t usually the sound of someone walking out onto their balcony.

He turns abruptly, prepared to manifest a mandala if he needs, but only comes face to face with Spider-man- clad in red and shiny blue that reflects the lights that come from the park below. Strange tilts his head at the choice of parka on top of the suit.

“Hey Dr. Strange.”

“Spider-man” He nods in acknowledgement.

“What’re you doin’ up here? Forty-fifth is pretty far from the Sanctum. Unless this is-” He points to the apartment behind him. “Your house?”

“No, it isn’t. Just-” He motions to the park and shakes his head as he does so, realizing this has suddenly descended into something extremely ridiculous. “Pollyanna.”

“Oh.” Spider-man stuffs his hands into the pockets of his parka. “Cool. Who with?”

“Sanctum residents.”

“Neat… Uh, Whatcha getting?”

Strange eyes him, but Spider-man’s just rolling back and forth on the balls of his feet, his demeanor spelling nothing but a bit curious.

“Haven’t decided. That place is a riot.”

Spider-man snorts. “It’s not so bad. Just festivities. People having fun.”

“Festivities are exhausting.”

“Isn’t the Sanctum literally in the Village? You guys must go nuts during Santacon.”

“Don’t remind me.” Strange wants to strangle him for even mentioning it, but one end of his mouth has quirked up. “I need to put extra protective seals on the Sanctum this weekend.”

Spider-man laughs heartily and sits on the edge of the terrace.

“You want help with picking out a gift?”

Strange turns to him and lifts one brow, surprised. He wonders where this sproutling of generosity from Spider-man has emerged in the past two months. Not that the hero has been anything but to his people in Queens, but to Strange-

It’s unexpected.

“It’s fine- Super fine, if not, just thought maybe-”

“Sure.” Strange says, interrupting him. “Sure, I’d appreciate help with… finding a gift.” Goodness, he sounds stupid. Spider-man chuckles.

“Cool- cool…” He takes his hands out of his pockets and stands there for a moment, looking between Strange and the street below. “Do you uh, wanna swing down there? If you wanna grab on-”

Strange brings a hand to his chin and holds it there a moment, Spider-man blinking owlishly at him as he does so.

“I’ve got a better idea.”

His hands move in an articulated motion, summoning, calling. Spider-man looks him up and down and watches for any change in the man. Nothing happens for a few seconds, and Strange just remains still, magic pulsing beneath his nerves. Then, from the sky, a twirl of red descends on the sorcerer’s shoulders, the ends of the fabric billowing in inanimate happiness. The vigilante watches, mumbling in awe.

“Had enough of walking around without it. I’m not one for crowds either.” Strange lets out, his voice relieved in an almost arrogant way.

“Wish I could summon a cool cloak to keep me warm on patrol.”

Strange snorts. “The parka is an interesting fashion choice.” He glances down at Spider-man’s legs, where shimmering blue reflects the lights of the city. “Went for a wardrobe change?”

Spider-man remains quiet, wavering on the ledge until he hums. “I guess so.”

Strange chooses not to pry. They both descend from the terrace, Spider-man with a bit more speed as he actually is affected by gravity.

Strange makes a motion once he catches up, something like lead the way, Spider-man.

“Right- ‘course. So, you know, it’s a lot funnier when you get something goofy for a pollyanna rather than practical-”

They hop and levitate their way across the tops of the vendors, people occasionally pointing at them in shock and awe when the lights brighten their silhouettes until they make their move further down the line. Spider-man points out one vendor selling kitchen supplies, an interesting pair of shark oven mitts hanging near the glass window. Another with dinosaur-shaped office supplies. One that’s selling soap bars that claim to be ‘magically enchanted.’

Somewhere along the way someone asks Spider-man for a picture, and he lowers himself down on a web to a tree while Strange watches the ordeal.

They stop at the top of the ice skating rink- Strange snickering when someone crashes into another because they were gaping at the two just standing there while Spider-man bats his arm and says shouldn’t laugh at people like that! Skating rinks are dangerous. Of course they are.

Strange goes with a tea kettle that has some knock off Harry Potter aesthetic to it. It should probably be a good laugh.

Before they part ways though, Spider-man and Strange both nurse a cup of something warm on top of a cafe stand.

“How’re things going at the Sanctum nowadays?”

Strange hums. He can do small-talk with Spider-man. “Quaint. Got the heating fixed a few weeks ago, thankfully.”

Spider-man chuckles. “You guys finally get all the snow out?”

He pauses. The Siberian blizzard. How does-

“How did you know about the snow?”

The question catches the other off guard and Strange doesn’t miss the stiffness that graces Spider-man’s figure. He watches him cough into his fist and recollect himself.

“I was patrolling in the Village a lot around that time. Wong said hi to me, told me about what happened.”

“Huh.” Strange doesn’t buy it. Not for a second.

“I uh- try to keep an eye around wherever I can, nowadays.” He sighs out. “I’ve met some people around that are helping out like I am, but y’know… It’s different now. They aren’t around anymore.”

There’s a blanket of sadness that falls atop both of them. Strange drums his fingers against the takeaway cup. In his honest opinion, he was never really a fan of the Avengers. He couldn’t count a time during his days as a surgeon where he had more operations than in 2012. A lot of people didn’t even make it.

But he can’t overlook the fact that they tried, in more ways than one, to keep the world from falling apart. And the universe does owe it to them for not being a glass half empty, doesn’t it?

“We will survive. We did a decent job of protecting the Earth before them.”

Spider-man hums, his mask pulled back down over his chin as he holds his empty cup in both hands.

“Yeah… Yeah, you’re right. We’ll survive.”

The wistfulness of Spider-man’s voice makes Strange almost wish he could share the feelings that the vigilante is practically radiating right now, but he simply can’t. They’re two different people, with two different perspectives, responsibilities, and fields of practice. But they share the same world, this world of heroes and villains and a whole lot of gray space in between.

Strange finishes his drink and gives a nod to Spider-man when the guy is looking in his direction.

“I do appreciate the help here. I don’t usually hand out favors-” so much as I do collect debts, “but if you’re around the Village and in need.”

Spider-man puffs a breath out, the air around his mask fogging before dissipating into the cold. “No problem, Dr. Strange.”

He’s the first to depart, swinging down from the stand and dropping his cup into a trash can with practiced aim before he goes catapulting into the air above and out of sight.

Back at the Sanctum, Strange immediately sets up the protective seals so that he doesn’t forget by the time the weekend rolls around. The week after, the pollyanna is held with the meager New York Sanctum sorcerers, and Strange ends up with a Spider-man mug when his number is called and it doesn’t get stolen by the ten other participants. The universe must be playing with him.

“Heyyy, Dr. Strange…”

The man in question is standing at the doors to the Sanctum’s rooftop at exactly two in the morning on Christmas day, wearing a pair of house slippers and warm pajamas with the Cloak situated on his shoulders, his black and white-streaked hair ruffled from laying on pillows. Before him stands Spider-man, one hand on his hip and the other propped against the wall, with a fourteen-inch long gash traveling from his waist to the top of his knee.

“Think I could cash in on that favor?”

Well, it’s not like Strange should have expected someone that makes sense to show up, like fucking Santa Claus.

Strange is pulling out a first-aid kit, one that’s kept around the Sanctum for mundane accidents, and popping it open, making sure there’s enough suture thread to stitch up a wound as long as a rolling pin. He considers it good enough and turns back to the vigilante, who’s sitting complacently on a chair that Strange deemed ruined enough to not mind a bit more blood.

Spider-man had shed his suit (kept on his ridiculous fur-trim parka and mask), moving his leg in whatever orientation Strange instructed so he could actually help. It’s silent as Strange begins working, his surgical practices not having fled his memory, though Spider-man clears his throat into his fist.

“Sorry to spring on you about this. On Christmas of all days.” He mumbles. Quiet, so as to not disturb the rest of the Sanctum’s halls. “My healing would have had this fixed in an hour, but I can’t swing the distance home with a leg this screwed up.”

Strange says nothing and just remains focused. His hands quiver, but there’s an eerie calm set about them that at least manages to properly align the stitches. Out of the corner of his eye, he can see the other’s head moving around to look around the room, taking in the shelves of artifacts and intricate architecture.

The sorcerer is about halfway through when he leans back to fix his posture, bumping into Spider-man’s head as he does so. He reels back with a quick ‘sorry, sorry’ shooting out of his masked mouth.

“Dr. Strange, you’re actually pretty good at this. Don’t tell me you’re an actual doctor, because I thought it was just kind of your made-up name-” Strange looks up to meet his eyes, or rather his lenses, and his expression must say everything.

Spider-man remains quiet the rest of Strange’s operation, stitching and sewing and assuring the skin is pulled together in the way it ought to heal. The skin is actually sewing itself together beneath the stitches rapidly- if Strange pulls the skin he can already feel it taut in some places. The guy doesn’t even flinch when Strange does that out of morbid fascination. Afterwards, he plucks the tools he used to wash out in the sink. As Strange does so, he opens his mouth to speak.

“I am, actually. An ‘actual doctor’ as you put it.”

Spider-man is watching him with wide-eyes from the other side of the room, having pulled his suit back up all the way and parka on. “Oh, really?”

“Neurosurgeon.”

There’s an awestruck ‘wow’ that escapes into the air behind him. “That’s crazy man. How’d you go from surgery to-” he imagines Spider-man waving his hands around in the moment of silence, “-magic?”

Strange feels like he should have seen the question coming, but it still makes him pause and hesitate.

“Shortsightedness.” He says, finally. “The kind that doesn’t play nice to people that ignore the consequences.”

Sometimes he feels like it was arrogance that sent his car careening down into the river and trapped his hands in steel cages. At the very least he knows that it was arrogance that made his time after the accident more humbling than anything.

Strange can’t speak on what it means to surpass pride, not when he’s not of the majority that typically manages to conquer it and find humility where it suits best. He was one of the top surgeons in New York City, but that was only a grain of what he had become at that time. There was something divine about being able to deduce the many ways to prolong a life in the event of death, and that affected him, perhaps a bit too much.

He glances down at his chest- not his usual blue attire, but still, even now, the Eye of Agamotto is gone. His hands still shake when he isn’t looking.

There are still times where he fails to flawlessly save a life.

Behind him, he almost forgets the vigilante is still there. He’s resigned himself to a quiet, simply looking off as he realizes there’s something lingering beneath Strange’s statement that doesn’t really need to be uncovered. Not now, at least.

A stifled cough. “I appreciate the help, Dr. Strange. Thank you.”

“Least I could do, considering I owe you.” He hums. “Let’s try not to make it a habit though.”

He doesn’t mean to come off harsh, though maybe he does. Part of him wants to tell the vigilante that he really ought to take better care of himself, but the words are lost in translation on their way from heart to mouth.

“Will do.” As Strange finishes reorganizing the first aid kit and returning it to its place, he faces his houseguest (patient? It’s been a while since he’s been able to say such a thing), hands examining the handiwork. “Do you mind if I linger until this is done patching itself up? Just for like an hour or so. Promise I won’t make any noise.”

Strange huffs out a closed-lipped chuckle and waves him off as he starts making his way to the foyer. “Stay the night if you want. Nothing much happens around here anyways.”

He gets a small form of acknowledgement from Spider-man in the other room and makes his way back to his own fitful resting.

When Strange wakes up in the morning and Sanctum underlings are moving around briskly, doing whatever it is Wong has told them to do (damn Sorcerer Supreme privileges. Strange wonders if they’ll listen to him now that he isn’t exactly head of the house anymore), he is greeted with a bacon and egg bagel as well as an assortment of styrofoam cup holders with coffees. Alongside it is a note that reads,

Thank u for the stitches Dr. Strange
Spider-man
P.S. Sorry idk how many of u there r!

Strange eats the bagel and drinks the coffee, and if any underlings give him a glance that lasts a second too long, he just meets their gaze and scares them into scurrying away.

New Years comes and goes, and Strange and Spider-man run into each other again. And again. And again.

“So is magic like, a hereditary thing?”

Strange uses a sword to cleave one of the slimes that tries to engulf him. Yes, slimes. He’s getting worried for the state of the universe if this is what he has to worry about attacking the Sanctum. Strange glances at Spider-man on the other side of the street, who has made a spider-web between an alleyway and caught about a dozen of the creatures like flies. He’s crouching in the middle of it with a hand holding his chin.

“No. It’s a practice. Takes years to master.”

A series of glowing orange spires emerge from the ground where Wong is casting a spell, impaling a few blobs and trapping them mid-air.

“So can anyone do it?”

Strange spares Spider-man a look that conveys his levels of exasperation. The spider just shrugs in response.

Strange and Wong manage to find the point of instability, locking it up and using some meager spells to repair the property damage caused. He recalls the time he whipped the whole block back into place when Maw arrived.

Spider-man jumps down from his web and stands next to Strange and Wong.

“Knew another guy who could open portals and stuff. With a-” He motions a gloved hand at the Sling Ring. “That. Thingy.”

Strange raises an eyebrow.

“Really.” Given how fascinated the vigilante is whenever Strange or Wong brandish magic, he never would have figured that Spider-man knew a sorcerer before them. “Another sorcerer?”

A shrug. “More like a… comrade… ally, person.”

Strange doesn’t bother further.

He is sword-fighting some man wrapped from head to toe in scarves and shawls in the middle of the Sanctum- how he even got into the building is beyond him right now- and Strange is seriously questioning why he even puts up with it anymore.

A swing at his neck forces him to duck and then shift backwards to avoid the downwards swing that follows. He meets it halfway with his own dirk that packs enough energy to send his enemy flying up about a foot into the air.

The man lands flat on his back with a humph and Strange just flings an Eldritch whip around his arm and one of the banisters. He sighs and puts one hand on his hip, exaggerating his weariness to no one but perhaps the Cloak and the intruder.

Suddenly, the doors of the Sanctum creak open. Strange lets out a strangled groan, waving both hands in the air and twirling the dirk dangerously close to both the man on the ground and the stairwell rail. “What now-”

“Oh-” Red and blue legs step out into the Sanctum and halt in place. One hand holds a phone and the other is cradling a paper bag with churros sticking out the top. “Is it a bad time? It looks like a bad time- I can go, I just thought-”

Strange waves the doors of the Sanctum shut and has his sword disintegrate into sparks. Spider-man twists his head between the doors and Strange, before maneuvering the bag into his hand. He extends it towards Strange.

“I hope they’re still warm, I might’ve sucked the heat out of them on the way here.”

The sorcerer takes one and just bites into it. The ‘high society’ part of his mind mocks his lack of manners, and he just shoves it away like he does with most things. Strange starts moving towards the stairs and climbing them. Behind him, he hears Spider-man follow and at one point, stop and say ‘you want one?’

Strange snorts under his breath, the edges of his mouth turning upwards ever so slightly.

“Back on Titan, when you saw all those possibilities- did you know he was going to do that?”

They’re on the roof of the Sanctum after cleaning up a rift down by the Holland Tunnel. Strange is growing wary of the amount of anomalies he’s noticing around New York, and he’s always about six steps behind figuring out whatever it is that’s causing them.

But his mind is momentarily torn away from that dilemma, and instead focused on what Spider-man has just asked him. He turns his head down towards the vigilante, where he’s perched on a ledge.

“Did I know he was going to snap?”

He wastes no time with subtleties, seeing as Spider-man isn’t that invested in doing so either.

“Yeah. Like, sacrifice himself and everything.”

“I did.” Strange breathes carefully. “I couldn’t tell him he would be the one to do it, or else he would have faltered.”

There’s a stretch of silence but Strange knows it only lasts a few seconds compared to what it feels like.

“Do you think there were more possibilities? Beyond the ones you saw?”

“There probably were. Fourteen million is hardly breaking the ice.”

“Yeah… Yeah I guess. There were a lot of people there that could have done what he did, right?”

“Hindsight is twenty-twenty.”

Spider-man snorts. “Yeah.”

Strange casts a concerned look his way. “Stark was determined. After what he saw, after knowing that it was fixed.”

“Five years though.” It’s a mumbled out phrase, something Strange almost doesn’t catch over the wind. “Five years with the universe like that.”

Spider-man’s voice doesn’t falter, but Strange can feel the implication practically booming as he frames it. Strange tries not to sigh.

“I doubt he would have even tried if he hadn’t lost you.”

He can see something shift in the demeanor of Spider-man. “That makes me feel like some sort of cog in this grand scheme of the universe being torn apart and stitched back together.”

Strange huffs, his patience waning. “Then you should try being the one to watch how it all falls apart before it even gets bad.”

It sounds childish coming out of his own mouth. Like he’s fighting for some sort of highground of who’s more useless. Or less useful? Actually, he should stop while he’s ahead.

“If I saw how it ended I would at least try and figure it out. As soon as I could.” There’s a caustic edge to his words and for a second Strange wants to label him a teenager talking back. Not that it matters very much to Strange, because he can and will still bite back.

“Do you think I only helped you all pin down Thanos because I thought it was funny? Knowledge of the future doesn’t always give you leverage.” He had tried really, he did. He went with their plan and followed through, perhaps pulling enough weight to account for more than half of them combined, but it still didn’t change the outcome.

Spider-man remains quiet, and if Strange wants to continue playing on the teenage angst that fills his mind he could imagine him pouting beneath the mask. He sighs loudly and abruptly, standing up.

“I didn’t mean to get-” He waves a hand around tiredly. “Weird about it. Emotional. I don’t know. I know you aren’t responsible for Tony and, and everything that happened, even though you knew it was going to happen.”

There’s something in his voice that radiates hurt and longing, like he wants to blame Strange for it. And partly, Strange wonders if he should feel responsible. Whether he should or not, isn’t related to whether he can feel responsible. The weight of what Strange does on a regular basis and the level of focus he must retain makes feelings like remorse all the more dangerous.

Being a neurosurgeon gave him pride for saving lives, and his success made it nearly impossible for him to know failure. Then, he didn’t have to dwell on failure, because he didn’t fail. All of that changed when he entered this life, and failure met him at every corner along the way.

Just a few years ago he was making a fool of himself in front of the Ancient One when he denounced the very thing he does today.

But now he’s… different. He’s taken life, whether on accident or on purpose. He’s had his ass handed to him on a silver platter so many times that waking up after the crash feels like a drop in the bucket of bullshit that is- This. All of this.

And perhaps on top of it all, he’s been met with failure in facets that he knows he will never be able to amend, never be able to sew back together or click back into place. Despite how vast and powerful he is now, he probably will never have the level of sheer control he had as a surgeon.

Strange takes a deep breath, his fingers struggling to uncurl as they’ve grown numb from the cold.

“Dwelling on the blame only makes it harder to move on.” He starts, though Spider-man raises a hand up for anything else he has to say.

“I know, I know. Really, I thought I- got over all of this back in Europe…” He can hear him sigh through the mask. “I guess just being around you a lot made me think about it.”

Oh great, so Strange is like the guy who can’t be looked at because everyone who sees him gets reminded of him. If Strange had any sort of guilt complex perhaps he would take offense but he’s really not for it. So instead, he plays coy.

“Europe. Where you and Mysterio wrecked the Tower Bridge?”

There’s a groan and Strange turns just in time to catch a full-on facepalm. “I did not wreck the Tower Bridge.”

“Really. Your buddy at the Bugle likes to babble otherwise.”

“I hate the Bugle more than I hate all of the bad guys I’ve fought. And that’s saying a lot considering a certain purple asshole we both knew.”

“Careful. I might go behind your back and suddenly you’ll hear ‘Spider-man hates the media’ everywhere you go.”

The vigilante looks up at him, perhaps incredulous under the mask.

“You wouldn’t.”

“Of course not. Any time I hear Jameson’s voice I feel like I’m about to have a brain aneurysm.”

Spider-man laughs at that, and it has a ring to it that feels like he’s just been reassured or comforted. Strange wants to call it strange that he’s picking up on these things and interpreting them in this way. But just like that, they’re back to something easy. Something not so dreary on both their minds.

After a shuffle, Spider-man is turning to Strange.

“I’m glad you’re still around. Even if I have met some new people, it’s good to see someone that…” hasn’t stepped down. That stuck it out, even after the fight. “Stayed.”

Strange nods, and the vigilante swings off back towards Queens.

“Are you an animal guy? You don’t really strike me as an animal guy.”

“No. I don’t want pets just like I don’t want children.”

“That’s weird dude. I knew before that you didn’t want kids, but a dog or a cat is not really like a kid.”

“They eat, sleep, disobey, and ask you for money all the same.”

“A dog has asked you for money?”

Strange takes one second to look up from the newspaper and give him his best really before returning his eyes to it.

“Okay, but no animals? Even if you didn’t have to keep it as a pet, do you have a favorite?”

“The penguin.”

“The penguin? Why? Oh my gosh- is it because of your hair? It has to be.”

“I change my mind. The bullet shrimp.”

“What? That thing can literally make you go deaf in like two seconds.”

“Fascinating, isn’t it?”

A huff sounds as red and blue arms cross over Spider-man’s chest. A moment passes.

“Wait, did you say penwing when you said penguin?”

The newspaper is rolled up and swatted at him until he falls from the web he’s suspended on and is forced to surrender from the ground.

Wong slides the container of shrimp pad thai over to his plate to give himself a serving as Spider-man continues speaking.

“So, if you’re saying you turned Thor’s tea into beer, wouldn’t that be like- illegal? Or something? Tea doesn’t cost as much as alcohol and like, what if you just turned a lot of tea into beer and sold it?”

“We will not be doing that, because that would be printing money and despite the many laws we completely disregard by being here, we do not print money.” Strange sets a glass of water down on his side of the table and sits down comfortably, grabbing whatever it is that he prefers from what they’ve all ordered.

“Additionally, the Masters of the Mystic Arts do not believe in transmutation magic being used for profit.” Wong intervenes. Spider-man nods, chewing on a piece of carrot. Wong had stared at Spider-man with his mask half-up for about a minute when they all sat down initially.

“That’s good. Morals ‘n stuff. Also not good to print money illegally.”

Strange wants to laugh at that because the guy who stops bank robbers on a semi-regular basis is telling them not to print money right after suggesting the idea himself.

“Speaking of illegal.” Strange rubs his fingers together while scanning the table for the spring rolls. He finds them and plucks one for his plate. “We’re being charged for disturbing the peace again.”

Wong grumbles from his spot. “The cleanup in Bowery?”

“Lower East Side, actually.” Strange corrects, and Wong mumbles close enough.

“Like charged charged? Do you guys need help?” Spider-man looks between Wong and Strange.

“We usually have to beg the Kamar-Taj to help pay for the charges because, surprise surprise, we lose about half of the cases.” Strange sighs.

“Part of the reason why we’re always broke.” Wong says, more to Spider-man than to Strange.

“We are not broke.” He retorts. Wong just rolls his eyes and acts like he didn’t hear Strange. Spider-man waves his chopsticks around before swallowing.

“I know a good lawyer guy. Like a really good lawyer guy.”

“A really good lawyer guy.” Strange starts, bringing some fried rice to his mouth. “Why do you know a really good lawyer guy?”

Spider-man shrugs.

“He helped me out. Still does. He saved me from getting charged with property damage.” He coughs into his hand. “And uh, terrorism.”

Strange scoffs out a laugh at that and Wong looks up with a bit of curiosity in his eyes. “The Tower Bridge?”

That makes Strange laugh aloud and causes Spider-man to throw his hands up in the air. “Why does everyone think I destroyed the Tower Bridge!? I did not destroy the Tower Bridge!”

“Wong likes to watch Jameson spew crap at a mile a minute.”

Spider-man turns to Wong with what could only be described as a look of pure, utter betrayal. Wong holds a hand up in defense.

“His stupidity is entertaining.”

Spider-man still puffs out a breath and mumbles something about traitors, much to Strange’s amusement.

“Okay but still, really good lawyer guy. I think I actually-”

He pats around at his waist for something, and then his hand re-emerges with a business card. Wong stares at him the same way he did when he saw him roll up his mask.

“Where do you even keep that?”

Spider-man looks at him like it should be obvious. “What, I made pockets for this.”

Wong narrows his eyes. “And you keep business cards in them?”

“Well, I mean-” He waves his hands around a little, as if that would come up with a justification for carrying around business cards in his suit.

Strange plucks the card out of his moving hands and reads it. “Matt Murdock.”

And then proceeds to give Spider-man a side-eye glance. “Are you sure about this lawyer friend?”

Spider-man doesn’t take offense to the question and instead just hums, sticking a shrimp into his mouth. “Mhm. Believe me, he makes a really good first impression.”

“Is that supposed to make him trustworthy?” Wong inquires.

“I mean, sorta.” Spider-man pushes around some noodles until he finds another carrot. “He caught a brick that flew into my house.”

“And that’s supposed to make him credible as a lawyer?”

“Well, duh.”

In February, or more notably on Valentine’s day, Strange opens the Sanctum’s mailbox to a few of the weekly magazines that various underlings have subscribed to, a few letters from overly suspicious geeks asking about the Sanctum Santorum being built on the intersecting pathways of magical circuits, a few legal documents regarding the Lower East Side case (which Matt Murdock has very graciously accepted to assist in), and a package wrapped in paper with red hearts and spiders drawn all over it, addressed to the New York Sanctum residents and sent from Spider-man.

“Spider-man,” Strange steps out of a portal onto the top of a building on 32nd. “Just who I was looking for.”

The vigilante in question looks up, his hands stuffed into the pockets of his parka. Strange can’t even jab at it today, because he’s freezing to his ribs today. “Oh, what’s up, Dr. Strange.”

Strange wastes no time in pulling out a few gifts from his coat pocket. He holds them out for Spider-man to take. “We are very grateful for the chocolates.”

He watches Spider-man chuckle and accept the boxes, securing them in one of the pockets of the jacket. “Aww thanks, that’s real kind of you all.”

“White Day treating you well?” Strange asks.

“Yeah. DD got me some fancy ass candy from some place near Rockefeller. Deadpool gave me a broken toaster.”

Strange raises an eyebrow at that, but doesn’t question it. He read one story in the paper about someone named Deadpool and decidedly blocked the existence of that human(?) being out of his memory bank.

“The New Yorkers are always the best though.” Spider-man pulls one flank of the jacket open to reveal a number of different cards and candies tucked in various compartments.

“A good city.” Strange says, a bit of a smile on his face. “They’ll keep an eye out for you.”

Things had been going extremely well the past couple of months. Aside from some mystic arts-related enemies and random cultists aspiring to take over New York City with their innovative forms of magic, things had been very, very calm.

Until at the end of March, when Strange is ambushed on the outskirts of Manhattan and ends up getting pulled into Macau with a number of civilians, and Spider-man.

They’re a ways away from the Hong Kong Sanctum, and upon falling out of a portal that is definitely not Sling Ring-generated, judging by the green haze and distortion that floats around it, they see they’re not alone.

Magic users, or something of the sort, claiming to be followers of the Time Stone who blame its disappearance on Strange. The sorcerers themselves aren’t particularly strong, their magic is something of Eldritch descent, if the green but fiery and spark-like energy is anything to go off of. But that isn’t what makes the fight even- it’s the illusionist tricks.

Spider-man helps with keeping innocents away from the fight, which works because the sorcerers are primarily focused on Strange himself than they are Spider-man, who must have been sucked into the portal by mere accident.

Strange wards off the sorcerers just fine, using his own understanding of illusionary magic to deduce which attackers are fakes being used to distract him and which are real threats.

At some point Spider-man begins helping web up the magic users, but once they’ve realized Strange has an accomplice, they pull out their trap card.

A massive curtain falls over both Spider-man and Strange, sending them into a pitch-black darkness. Everything goes still around them, but the quiet seems to echo endlessly. Every tangible object disappears, and the building that Spider-man was perched on vanishes into thin air, sending him straight to the ground.

Strange winces at the fifteen-ish foot drop and walks his way over to help ease the vigilante back up. The Cloak billows behind him in a bit of concern.

“You alright?”

“F-Fine-” the other grounds out, trying not to tighten his grip on Strange’s arm since it would probably break it. “God, I hate this.”

“What, falling? Don’t you do that just about every day?”

Spider-man looks up at Strange and for once there’s something quite intense in the way he moves. He’s taken aback a bit, but Spider-man’s shoulders slump until they’re just moving up and down with his stuttered breaths. “No, not that- I meant, this, this-”

He motions his hands to the darkness, the air around them.

“The… illusion… shit…”

He lets go of Strange’s arm and drops to the ground, Strange following him for a brief moment out of concern that he’s going to collapse, but slows after seeing the tension in his form.

“It’s a curtain spell. We’re still in Macau, right where we were, but it’s safer to have someone let us out from the outside.”

That doesn’t seem to quell Spider-man’s worry, as he still draws in deep, gasping breaths and lets out short, curt ones. Strange eyes him with more worry than he has in months.

“The Hong Kong Sanctum is only about forty miles from here. They’ll know something’s happened here.”

There’s a stretch of quiet, at least of them speaking. Spider-man’s breathing is still filling the space with sound. Strange doesn’t move from where he’s standing, just watching the deep dark and trying to avoid counting seconds.

The sudden sound of hands fumbling and fabric shifting draws the sorcerer out of his stupor and he looks down in time to see Spider-man full-on pulling his mask off. His breaths almost come faster and louder now that there isn’t the cloth to muffle them.

Strange stills, a bit shocked. Spider-man’s identity has never really been something of particular interest to him. He feels he knows, at some point or another, that a bit of personal information was told to him, but among the rest of the turmoil in his life he can’t recall the bits that are vital. And even then, he hasn’t cared enough to investigate.

Now though, as he stares at the vigilante’s face as it's drawn in a grimace, he feels something odd strike him, somewhere in his mind. He can’t pin the feeling.

Spider-man’s gaped gulps of breath take him out of the surprise enough for him to kneel down in front of the hero and place a hand on his shoulder.

“Hey.” He starts, stern but not unkind. Strange taps at his own chest. “With me, okay?”

One in.

One out.

Repeated again, and again.

In a series of measured breaths, he has both him and Spider-man breathing in tandem until he knows the other is not at risk of suffocating himself. He draws away slightly and sits, cross-legged in front of him.

“I know this isn’t exactly the status quo for vigilantism, but believe me,” Strange wonders when he got this good at reassuring people. He isn’t even this good at reassuring himself. “Things are going to be fine.”

Spider-man meets his eyes, and it is so, so strange to actually look at irises, and hair, and ears, and a face that Strange feels like he knows.

He’s quiet, the movements of his face from breathing and frowning speaking more than his mouth. He opens his mouth and wets his lips carefully. “Yeah… Yeah.”

Strange doesn’t say anything as Spider-man recollects himself, or at least patches his composure up until it’s something moderately put-together. They both remain on the ground, Strange not moving because he knows that under a curtain, everywhere leads nowhere, and Spider-man not moving because he’s probably too mentally weathered to move.

He notices the vigilante’s brown eyes staring holes into his boots and clothes, occasionally drifting over his face and meeting his eyes before they shoot back down and a quick sorry escapes his mouth. His mask becomes a kneading cloth between his hands.

Minutes pass, and Strange continues to avoid counting seconds, knowing it’ll just make it feel longer. Across from him, Spider-man is fidgeting. Every time his gaze lingers too long on the darkness his hands start growing more and more finicky with his mask, occasionally coming down to grasp a hand around his ankles nervously.

Strange does what he deems to be the best option to help him, and that is speak to him.

“You’ve never taken your mask off before.”

Spider-man looks up at that, and hums. “Mm… Yeah, I… I don’t know. I got…”

A hand comes up to wave around his head, his lips in a thin line. Strange takes baby steps.

“You can talk about it, if you’d like.”

It becomes so easy to read the vigilante now that the mask is off. It’s almost like emotions just spiral in and out of his face, his eyes especially. He takes a deep breath before opening his mouth.

“When Beck… Mysterio fought with me, he used these.” He pauses, rubbing the mask between his fingers. “Not magic, but tech. Tony’s- or, I guess his own, it doesn’t matter- it made images and holograms. They were projections, sort of, but with the drones they could hurt you.”

Strange doesn’t say anything, and lets the look on his face reflect his attention. Spider-man continues.

“He trapped me in the dark a lot. Had me swinging at things I couldn’t see.” He sighs and glares at the void beneath them. “I figured it out, y’know. On the Tower Bridge.”

Strange only nods slowly, watching as the arc of the vigilante’s shoulders still rise and fall slowly, but now with a decent amount of calm to them.

“I’m sorry,” He says, voice low. “This must be a terrible way to reignite that flame.”

Spider-man huffs something of a laugh, but it comes out way too tired to match the word. “It’s alright… I’ll get over it eventually. Can’t really be scared of the dark, y’know.”

A mixture of pity and hesitance bleeds into Strange’s gaze as he watches him. “I still get scared of it, sometimes.”

The other looks up suddenly and tilts his head. He can imagine it with the mask on, the way Spider-man always does it before he’s about to quip. “You get scared of the dark?”

Strange wants to facepalm, but instead he just rolls his eyes so hard he swears he feels them tugging at his brain.

“No, I don’t get scared of the dark.”

He spares Spider-man the trouble of reeling and holds out his hand. Without him even trying to feel it, his hand shakes. The scars still run up and down the tendons.

“I let myself be shortsighted. I let myself be arrogant.” He stares at his hands as he speaks. They don’t stop shaking, even when he moves to rest his wrists on his knees. “And I paid for it with a car crash into a river and the end of my medical career.”

Spider-man’s face falls and it immediately strikes Strange that he is young. He doesn’t expect the tragedy to come out of Strange’s mouth and he is punished for it with devastation.

“But I found this. It occupies me, draws me away from what I did and what happened to me. It doesn’t change the fact that I can hardly draw a straight line anymore, but it shows that it’s not the end.”

Strange pauses, and for a moment he is awfully surprised to see the range of feeling in the boy’s face. Something of worry and sorrow but comfort and perhaps aspiration. Hope. It twirls awkwardly in Strange’s gut that there weren’t many who gave him sympathy for throwing his life away and spitting in the face of those who tried to save it.

“I would have loved to still be a doctor. Operate, and save lives- but, this. This is something different.” He sighs, looking downwards and around. “And I believe I can still do some good with it.”

Across from him, Spider-man watches with a heartfelt look on his face. His lips are parted, and for a second Strange notices that he’s stopped fidgeting with his mask.

“Sir, that’s amazing, really. That- that you still want to do something, and, and this of all things.”

“Thank you, but,” Strange chuckles. “Sir is awfully formal, kid. Stephen.”

The other swallows harshly and his mouth quirks upwards, but his eyes are glossy, suddenly. Overtaken with something a lot deeper and darker, and Strange knows that there’s something clawing at his insides. “Right, Stephen…”

Strange clears his throat awkwardly, and blinks at him. “I don’t suppose that I'm to keep calling you Spider-man, am I?”

The vigilante laughs, wet but heavy with something earnest. “Peter. Peter Parker.”

“Peter Parker.” Strange grins at him.

“You do great with what you do as a hero. The things that come along the way don’t hold a candle to the good you’ve done.”

Parker’s eyes grow even wetter at his words and he ducks his head to avoid the man’s gaze. When he looks up he’s a bit calmer, his mouth genuinely turned upwards.

“T-Thank you, Stephen…”

A rumble suddenly sounds and the entire darkness shudders. It doesn’t scare either of them, as before it hits Strange sees recognition flash in Parker’s eyes and he looks around just in time for the abyss to flutter with color. Strange turns to him and nods towards the mask.

“The curtain will collapse soon. You might want to-”

“Ah, right, right.” He slips the mask on, and the face disappears beneath it.

The black totality begins to ebb away and reveal Macau, like Strange said, exactly how they left it, only with a number of Hong Kong Sanctum sorcerers surrounding it. Tina Minoru is among them.

“Dr. Strange.” She greets in English.

“Minoru.” He nods. Behind him, Parker moves to assess their surroundings, taking in that it is indeed the same. “Thank you for the assistance.”

“I didn’t know about this band of sorcerers. They haven’t shown up on our radar at all.”

Strange waves her worry off. “They were after me because of the Time Stone. Did you manage to track them?”

Minoru turns to one of the sorcerers who has a series of mandalas on his arm. He’s speaking in Cantonese to no one, but Strange recognizes a communication spell when he sees one. He nods at Minoru and she turns back to Strange.

“They’re being apprehended as we speak. We’ll figure out what to do with them once we figure out their origins. The displaced civilians are also already being portaled back.”

Strange nods, trusting Minoru to carry out. “Then in that case-”

He turns around, the Cloak swirling around his legs. “Spider-man, ever been to Hong Kong?”

The Hong Kong Sanctum is kind enough to lend them some spare clothes to not look out of place in the city but Strange has to do some begging to get any cash. Him and Parker snoop around for some place to eat, and settle on a street food vendor near a plaza.

Both of them struggle their way through translating the menu and seem to just resign to being content with whatever they are served with. At a table in the plaza, Parker picks through his food with varying levels of survival given the hotness of the spices.

“I don’t think I’ve had anything this hot like,” he swallows thickly, “ever.”

“Of course you haven’t, you look like you’re hardly half my age.” Granted, Strange is not faring much better. The vigilante looks at him with his eyes narrowed.

“How old are you?”

Strange meets him with a stern look. “Let’s not answer that.”

“Right- sorry, sorry.”

Parker starts chewing on his third skewer when Strange raises an eyebrow.

“Do you always eat this much?”

Surprisingly, or maybe unsurprisingly, he isn’t phased by the question. “Yeah. Can eat like a lion on a normal day. Can eat like ten on a bad day.”

“Bad day?” Strange inquires.

“Like uh, super-healing. Metabolism. Science.”

“Yes, biology, I am still a doctor, you know.”

Parker snickers at that.

“Speaking of, do you get, like, paid? To do wizard stuff?”

“Anything we get from Shield usually gets sucked right back into the state due to lawsuits.”

“Wow, you guys get paid by Shield?”

“More like they bribe us to do a little bit more than just keep the Earth from becoming the dark dimension’s prey.”

That gets a rise out of him. Strange thinks it’s good to see him laughing like how Spider-man usually does, and not lurching like he was under the curtain.

“Does Spider-manning rake in as much as you’d hoped?”

“Nah. I deliver pizza and fix computers for money.” Parker shrugs. “It's not about the money for me. Help people, y’know?”

Strange nods with his mouth full. However afterwards he asks, simply out of curiosity-

“Nothing at Stark Industries?”

Parker pulls his face tight, but not terribly so. There’s something perhaps bittersweet about his expression. “I’m not the next Iron Man.”

“Good. I think we can only handle one per century.”

His mouth quirks up and he’s smiling all the same again. Strange mirrors him.

“Now I know I’ve already siphoned out your face and your name, but I don’t suppose you’d tell me your age now would you?”

Parker seems surprised that he even asked. “You want to know my age?”

“If it’s confidential then by all means-”

He chuckles. “Don’t worry ‘bout it. I’m uh, seventeen.”

Strange processes it, and then processes it again, and it still doesn’t make sense. “Should I be concerned?”

A shrug. “Nah.”

“Is there any reason why you’re particularly open about your identity today?” Strange prods further, now a bit intrigued to know what the limits are.

“Well, not really like you’ve asked before.” Strange raises an eyebrow.

“So you’re saying I could have just asked Spider-man for his identity and he would have given it to me?”

He gets a scoff in reply. “I wouldn’t have given it out to just anyone. I trust you, y’know.”

“Hmph, I’m honored.” Parker blows a raspberry at his sarcasm.

“Okay, but to answer your question seriously, I guess I don’t really mind someone like you knowing.” He continues, his eyes pointedly looking at the food. “I do trust you, but also like- you’re… really strong. I guess.”

Strange contemplates it. He is strong, technically. Powerful, absolutely. “Do you mean capable?”

Parker screws up his face, like he’s thinking. “I don’t think that’s the right word, but it makes sense for this.”

“Well, you’re someone I like being around, and I’m not all that scared of you getting hurt, because something tells me you’d… make it, figure it out, I don’t know.”

He distracts himself with the bowl of Chinese broccoli. Strange can hear something overlap Parker’s last sentence in his head. Something tells me you won’t die.

“Well thank you for the faith in me, I suppose.” He says, still twirling his voice high with wit. “Otherwise I wouldn’t be ex-Sorcerer Supreme.”

“Ouch. Even I take offense on your behalf.”

“My ego is forever indebted to you.”

Parker laughs and tells him to not be an ass.

“I’ve never been to Asia before. Never thought about it, but this place is actually pretty cool.”

“It’s a nice continent. Nepal is where you study the mystic arts. This is actually my second time in Hong Kong, only the first time it was getting ripped apart by an evil god.”

“I’m sorry it was what?”

“Magic. Dark dimension stuff.” Strange says and waves his hand like it’s the simplest thing in the world. In the universe.

“Huh. Do you think magic is like… the next best thing when it comes to baddies?”

“I’m sorry, did you just say baddies?” Strange probably looks incredulous, narrowing his expression towards Parker.

“I meant like, bad guys, you know. Evil dudes.”

“I genuinely wonder how you’ve not gotten humiliated for your word choice. You really think we just categorize threats to the universe as bad guys?”

Parker huffs. “It’s kind of funny. And also you didn’t answer my question.”

Strange rolls his eyes.

“It may very well be. With the infinity stones gone, I’m not really sure what else could crawl out from the universe’s underside to put up a fight.”

“Hmm. Doesn’t that seem kinda scary?”

“What, that there could be something bigger and badder than Thanos?”

Parker shrugs. “Honestly doubt that, but maybe. I really hope you didn’t just jinx it right there.”

“If I did, I’m quitting. All of this. Tapping into my emergency fund and buying a house somewhere in the Alps where no one will find me or bother me.”

A gasp and the feigning of offense. “You’d abandon us like that?”

“I’m not someone whose patience is to be tested.” Strange knows that, Parker knows that, but the way his words come out wobbly and without seriousness has him breaking off halfway to laugh and Parker trapped in a spiral of chuckles.

They finish the rest of the food and leave not even scraps behind, disposing of the containers and walking around aimlessly for a short time now that the sun has gone down. Parker uses puppy eyes on Strange to buy him a souvenir and Strange caves like he’s being held up by twigs and mud.

“By the way.” Strange asks, carding through some free postcards he had received. “Does anyone else know?”

“Know h’what?” Parker has his mouth halfway full of a steam bun- Christ, the boy can eat- when he asks the question, completely innocent. Strange does not give him credit for common sense and motions to the entirety of him. It tastes Parker a second.

“Oh, nah. No one else.”

“Hm.” Strange looks back at the cards. “Lucky me.”

When they return to the Hong Kong Sanctum, Parker returns the clothes with gratitude and suits back up so he and Strange can portal back to New York City. Strange curiously asks about jetlag, to which Parker just replies eh, can’t really get jetlagged being Spider-man.

Sometimes around the Sanctum, Parker doesn’t wear his mask, just the suit (and the parka, on colder days). Wong walks in one day and does a double take, before resuming his path to his destination.

Parker pouts to Strange about it.

“I thought he was gonna have a cooler reaction!”

“He looked, he looked again, and walked away.”

“Yeah, that’s the problem-”

“Do you want people to freak out because they learn your identity?”

“Well, no, I don't want anyone to learn my identity, but it’s Wong-”

“Yes, Wong, who I told you watches Jameson for fun.”

Parker draws his face back, looking at Strange like he isn’t serious. “He wouldn’t rat me out.”

“Hmmm.”

Parker scoffs.

“B’sides, he can’t rat me out. Like, actually can’t.”

“And why is that?”

“Well, I can’t tell you all my secrets, alright man?”

“Please don’t call me man ever again.”

In April, Strange is stumbling through an alley until he can find the main street, and when he does, half of Manhattan is floating in the sky.

There’s hubbub about what screwed up the city so badly, so Strange and the New York Sanctum residents have sought to stay low, figuring out what’s going on before they say even a single word to anyone. S.H.I.E.L.D. is getting suspicious, circling them from the shadows.

Strange has an inkling, and he’s already reaching out to a certain someone for help.

Among the chaos, Spider-man swings by the Sanctum, and Strange feels a bit of guilt twist in his gut. He can’t pin why.

“Hey, ma- I mean Stephen. You guys hanging in here?”

Strange sighs, not at Parker, but… At something. The universe, how about.

“Yes. We’re working with what we know, and I’m about to go visit someone who might… be vital in all of this.”

Parker studies Strange’s face from beneath the mask, but he’s nodding shortly after. “Alright, I guess that means you’ll be away then?”

“Not for long. Can’t leave the Sanctum alone, afterall.” He glances at Parker, who’s now pulled off the mask. “Don’t worry, what happened last week isn’t going to happen again, I’m making sure of it.”

The boy turns to him and nods, confidence in his gaze and that alone seems to give Strange a bit of faith in himself.

“Good. I trust you. I’m tired of- magical assholes attacking New York, honestly. So I hope you don’t mind me handing this one off to you guys.”

“Right. It is our job after all.” Strange grins, and Parker grins back, but swallows it down to school his face with something serious.

“Hey uh…” He can hear him swallow, but again, the vigilante’s expression and movements tell more than anything else could. “Stay safe out there, alright? You remember what I said about you, right? What I think?”

Strange stares at him for a long moment, his gaze hard. “I’m not going to walk into death, not like this.”

A stretch of silence, and a nod.

“I’ll hold you to that, Stephen.”

Spider-man pulls his mask back on, and swings out of the Village towards upper Manhattan, Strange watching from the roof of the Sanctum until the hero disappears into the concrete jungle. He turns and heads back into the building.