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It was supposed to be a lazy day. Well, lazier than fighting hell demons from the 5th dimensional plane at least.
Stephen was reading (for fun, not work) in his favorite leather armchair in the sanctum one calm Saturday morning. He sat next to a large window which highlighted the snowy Bleeker Street below. Yes, Stephen thought while taking a sip of his recently acquired Starbucks Peppermint Mocha, this is the best kind of day to have.
It was why he was utterly unsurprised when Peter Parker burst into the building in a whirlwind of chaos.
“At least I got five hours.” Stephen grumbled good naturedly as he closed his book. He could hear the teen shouting for him from downstairs and sent the Cloak to greet him. He wasn’t leaving his comfy blanket spot unless the world was ending.
“Doctor Strange! I need your help or the world is going to end!” Peter cried out as he ran into the study. Damn.
“What is it today? The alligators in the sewers finally gain enough sentience to stage an uprising?” Stephen asked with a snort.
“No, Mr Stark and I dealt with that last month.” Huh. That was vaguely concerning, Stephen thought, but Peter continued. “The Academic Decathlon has a snack booth at Midtown Craft fair tomorrow and I got too busy and didn’t make anything! It’s to fundraise for our next field trip and MJ is going to slaughter me then the rest of New York if I don’t bring something homemade in!”
“Why can’t you bring in something store-bought?”
“She stated, and I quote: ‘We as a society are already slaves to capitalism and the unethical practices in production. It won’t kill you to make something and bring it in.’ Unquote.” Peter stated, sitting down in the seat across from Stephen. The sorcerer smiled wryly in response.
“What about the fact that you have to get the ingredients from the same place you would have to get the pre-made cookies from?”
“I already told you that I wanted to live, sir.” Fair point. “I already tracked down a recipe for gingerbread since that seemed festive. I just can’t make it at Mr Stark’s place since he’s out of town till tomorrow and I can’t make it at home or May will want to be involved.”
“Why don’t you want your Aunt involved?”
Peter gave him a dirty look. “I already told you I don’t want to slaughter the rest of New York. She believes that recipes are only suggestions, even when baking.”
Oh god. He had tried some of her baking before and that made absolute sense now. No wonder the Spider-kid had given him two dozen of the things that May called cookies and refused to take them back. Somehow they survived incineration with nary a mark on them. It was terrifying.
“I see your point. Alright, I can attempt to help.” He got up slowly from his cocoon of warmth and chugged the rest of his drink.
“Thank you Doctor Strange!”
“Don’t thank me yet, I may be better than May but that isn’t much of a compliment.”
30 minutes later found Stephen and Peter in the sanctum kitchen. Mixing the batter together was relatively easy and nothing had gone wrong so far. Famous last words.
“So I have a couple cookie cutters that are very old and I haven’t seen them used before but they seem perfect for the occasion.” Stephen drawled as he held up a cutter for a gingerbread man and some to make a house as well.
“This is going to be the greatest last minute project yet! We’ll do the little guys first and then the house.” Peter exclaimed and immediately set to work on filling a baking tray full of gingerbread men.
The real trouble didn’t occur until after the cookies had baked.
“Oh god.” Stephen groaned as the two watched in fascinated horror as the gingerbread men seemed to peel themselves off the hot tray and towards the icing.
“They’re aliiiiiive!” Peter yelled with a cackle. Clearly he was having fun with this. Stephen merely groaned as he watched the cookies give themselves faces and clothes made out of icing and candies.
“At least I know why no one used those cookie cutters now.” He grumbled as he went to grab the offending baking tool only to sputter back in alarm when something hit him in the eyes. “What the fuck?”
“I don’t think they want you to stop them, Doctor Strange…” Peter said, watching as the cookies continued to throw sugar and whatever they could find at the sorcerer to keep him away.
“Fine, I don’t care. Make more magic cookies. I’m going up to read. Don’t burn down the place.” Stephen growled as he tried to get the granular sugar out of his eyes and stomped off back to his chair leaving the cloak to supervise.
He leaves them alone for forty five minutes.
Occasionally he hears screaming and what sounds suspiciously like cannons going off but the cloak does not appear and the sanctum has not informed him of any permanent destruction so he stays cozied up. This proves to be a mistake. Not even five minutes later, an ear piercing collection of shrieks fill the building. It’s like tinnitus has been weaponized. He comes to find Peter Parker hogtied with the cloak using an extension cord while at least a hundred gingerbread people are gathered around and inside a rather large gingerbread house.
“What the hell is going on?!” Stephen shouts over the racket but it doesn’t slow the cookies down whatsoever.
“Gingerbread men sit inside a gingerbread house. Is the house made out of flesh, or are they made out of house? They scream for they do not know.” Peter replied loudly and Stephen let his head fall into hands.
“You gave cookies an existential crisis?!”
“How was I to know that their psyche was as fragile as a human’s?!”
“Alright, that’s enough!” Stephen declares and uses his sling ring to portal the army and their flesh house to a remote active volcano. “First off, clean up the remnants of the gingerbread war. Then you’re going to take this twenty dollars-“ he pulls a twenty from his wallet and throws it on the counter, “to go to a bodega and buy their homemade cookies and use that. Your girlfriend will appreciate the trickery later on if she finds out because they are still homemade by a local business.” With that, Stephen pulls out his phone to start a mobile order for another Peppermint Mocha from Starbucks and marches out the door.
He deserves it.