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Stephen Strange never bothered with social media. So no quizzes, no phishing attempts, could trap his personal data, apart from the biometrics that were readily available from other databases.
Was he ESTP? ENTJ? 5w6? A Slytherin or a Ravenclaw? Where did he lean on the political spectrum? No one really knew.
Hydra had to get more creative.
At first, they tried a plant: a patient with falsified records of an early-stage brain tumor. A smart, pretty young brunette, quick with her words but reserved with her smiles, who fit his dating history.
She chattered away at him during her consultation. Was he liberal? Conservative? Whom did he vote for as President in the last election? Wasn’t the world too crazy a place these days? What kind of fix did he think it would need?
They thought she could disarm him. But he adhered to a strict personal protocol when it came to patients.
“I just need you to say ‘ah,’ Ms. Ratchet,” he said with venomous politeness.
So, a fake patient didn’t work.
They tried again.
One of their fresh “legacy” recruits was a nursing graduate named Billy - the son of a lower-ranking HYDRA official who was eager to get his family in the organization’s better graces.
Bankrolled by the org, Billy moved to Midtown and applied for a surgical assistant job at Metro General. He specifically mentioned that he was an admirer of Doctor Stephen Strange, and was thrilled at the mere possibility of working with him even once.
What luck, the people in Metro General said - Strange actually needed a new assistant. People kept refusing to work under him because he was insufferable, especially in the operating room. He insisted on doing most of the heavy lifting himself, so there wasn’t much for assistants to do except get belittled by him on a regular basis.
But he needed an assistant anyway; he had high-profile clients demanding special attention, and an absurdly long waitlist of potential patients. Someone had to organize his tasks.
That was fine, Billy said. Any way to get close to Doctor Strange was a way to glean off his brilliance.
So he was hired. And a few weeks in, he reported to HYDRA for an update.
“How is he in person?” was one of the things he was asked.
“You know, he’s actually not bad,” Billy recounted. “I thought he was going to be tough, you know, like those bigshot specialists throwing their weight around...and he has the face, too, of the ‘you don’t wanna waste my time’ kind.” He scratched his head. “But he’s only tough on you when you’re moving slowly, or if your head’s not in the game. And he doesn’t like displays of emotion, makes him uncomfortable. Otherwise, he’s okay, you know? Throws in a compliment now and then, when he’s in a good mood. Usually after he talks to his boyfriend...”
Every member of the investigative panel sat upright and stared at Billy.
“Stephen Strange has a boyfriend?” This wasn’t in their files.
“Oh.” Billy blinked. “I think so. I dunno? He's real sweet on someone over the phone every day, and I swear, it's always a guy's voice on the other line...”
***
“Hey, Doc.”
“Hey yourself.” Only one person could call Stephen on this secure line: the only person whose voice could make him smile.
Since he got a Stark Industries phone (at the behest of the person who actually owned the company that made it), Stephen had come to appreciate how well it handled privacy.
He did not need his colleagues, the press, anyone else, to know who he was secretly seeing.
“Just calling to apologize again for not making it to your talk.”
“No need.” Stephen put the phone on speaker, set it down on the nearest surface so he could free his hands. “I can live without the additional attention I’d get for bringing the famous Tony Stark to a humble gathering of medical specialists.”
“Infamous Tony Stark.” Stephen could hear the smirk there. “But I bet you’d love the extra attention, wouldn’t you?”
Stephen grunted, adjusted the cuffs of his shirt.
All those months dating must have already given Tony a good view of his ego.
Tony Stark had a giant ego, himself. So it was a puzzle to Stephen, why he still stuck around.
“Well, we’re both busy men, Stark.” Started fixing his tie. “We don’t interfere with each other’s schedules. That was the arrangement.”
“Yeah, the arrangement,” Tony said slowly, thoughtfully. “I was thinking, maybe it’s time to update the terms of our arrangement. I mean, it’s been almost a year, after all...”
“I’m impressed, you’ve been keeping track,” Stephen remarked, grinning. “I hope you won’t spring an anniversary surprise on me, you know I hate surprises. And anniversaries.”
There was a long, soft “errrrr” at the other end of the line.
“...okay, in that case, I’m going to need time to figure out how not to surprise you,” sheepishly. “But I do want to talk. About us. I hope we can both be free for that soon.”
Stephen frowned.
Was Tony planning a breakup?
Not likely. Not when the sex was so good. With all the sneaking around making it even better.
Moreover - unlike Stephen, Tony was a transparent guy. If he wanted to say “it’s not working out,” he wasn’t going to make a big deal of it.
He would just come out and say it. In a grimmer tone of voice than he was using to talk to Stephen right now.
It was more likely that Tony was going to ask if they could take their relationship to the next level - a lifting of the moratorium on personalized gifts, perhaps. Maybe even a shared living situation.
Surely he wouldn’t do anything as stupid as propose.
“Sure,” Stephen blithely answered. “Let’s talk soon.”
“Great.” It came out almost as a sigh of relief. “Knock ‘em dead at your talk.”
“I always do.”
Tony was the one who ended the call.
Stephen put on the Jaeger-LeCoultre watch his ex Christine had given him, on impulse. It was his favorite watch. He had gotten used to pairing formal wear with it.
But for some reason - perhaps it was because he knew Christine had loved him, had thought she would be happy with him
- it had begun to feel wrong. To be wearing something that still bore traces of her hopes, while being happy with someone else.
So he took off the watch. Picked out another one from the display: a slightly cheaper one that he’d bought himself, but was no less stylish.
***
Doctor Stephen Strange was always a target of HYDRA - either for recruitment or for elimination.
His extraordinary brain was, to them, either a liability or an asset. Sooner or later, he was going to get the attention of the Avengers, or other forces that might pose a threat to their plans.
They let him establish a reputation in the medical world first, before they began to circle him. Prestige was always a plus for high-level agents, which they had hoped he would become.
But when they learned from their undercover agent that he was dating someone in secret, they knew they had to dig deeper.
And when they learned it was Tony Stark, they made their choice.
Stephen Strange had to die.
Before the Avengers could make use of his brain. Before he could figure out that HYDRA was scoping him.
Billy was genuinely sad when he was told this.
He liked Strange.
He knew he was lucky: he came into the man’s life at a good time. In the past, Strange was known for being arrogant, standoffish, selfish and sometimes downright cruel.
But by the time Billy arrived, he was...happy. He was at the top of his game. Relating slightly better to others. And apparently, dating someone who brought out the best in him.
Billy would soon put an end to all that.
But he knew from the beginning that HYDRA was going to demand difficult things.
He might have to kill. Or become party to killing.
And it didn’t matter if he liked the target or not.
He only had to pick up the phone. Someone else was waiting in a nondescript sedan to knock Strange’s car off a bend in the road.
“Sorry, Doc,” he muttered, before pressing the “call” button.
***
The next morning, the headlines only said one thing:
SI Cuts Ties with Lamborghini
It was all about stock figures, technology turnovers, and how shocked officials at Lamborghini were at this huge overnight development.
Stark Industries’ official statement was that it had serious concerns about Lamborghini’s use of SI’s proprietary safety technology for its luxury models - or, more accurately, how it wasn’t used.
(Lamborghini would later dispute this; they knew they were not at fault. It would lead to a long and ugly legal battle - one that, unfortunately for them, SI would eventually win.)
When SI reps were asked if the partnership was terminated because of Doctor Stephen Strange’s accident, they gave no comment.
Not a few writeups speculated that Strange’s near-fatal crash - a global headliner, to be certain, but no doubt an accident - was going to hit Lamborghini’s stock hard, so SI bailed before it got too bad. A smart business decision, some analysts noted.
But none of the writeups talked about how Tony Stark was personally involved in the cutting of corporate ties with Lamborghini.
As well as the investigation into the cause of the accident.
The Huracán’s phone was integrated with the SI smartphone Stephen carried around. Records showed that his last call was to his surgical assistant, Billy.
Who had called him while he was driving.
And who had promptly gone AWOL from Metro General, and was never heard from again.
There was also no trace of the sedan that had hit the side of Stephen’s Huracán, sending it spinning off the road.
Something seemed off, and Tony was determined to get to the bottom of it.
Even if it meant he wouldn’t always be at Stephen’s side while he recovered.
***
“Don’t follow me,” Stephen’s last text said.
Tony remembered the anguish on Stephen’s face when he finally came to visit at the hospital. How Stephen had yelled at him to get out, to leave him alone. How Stephen had refused all his calls.
How he missed Stephen terribly. How it felt like it had been such a long time since he last heard the sound of Stephen’s laugh.
They never got to talk, as Tony had hoped.
But none of it mattered now.
Stephen was gone. He had sold everything he had and moved overseas. Tony knew where. But Stephen had told him to stay away, and so he would.
At any rate, Tony’s reach was limited, where Stephen was going. He could not follow Stephen around there, or order people to follow him around, without arousing suspicion.
It was easier to hide, when they were only a virtual arm’s length away from each other.
In Stephen’s absence, Tony busied himself with his investigation. He learned a number of things.
He learned, for example, that an underground terrorist organization called HYDRA, which his father had gone up against, was still active in the States.
That Billy-the-surgical-assistant was a HYDRA operative.
And that HYDRA’s involvement in Stephen’s accident was undeniable.
When anger got the better of him, and when no one else was around, Tony stuck his hand in his pocket, sought the ring he kept in a small box there.
He took the ring out, ran his fingers over and through it.
If only they could have talked...if only Stephen had wanted to see him. He wouldn’t have cared if his hands shook and were scarred. If the ring didn’t fit. Or even if Stephen had said no.
Nothing would have had to be a secret anymore.
But that no longer mattered.
Stephen was gone, leaving Tony nothing but a raw, burning hatred for HYDRA.
He was going to hunt them down. Every single one.
And he wasn’t going to stop until all of HYDRA was dead or captured.