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The air is already thick with heat and humidity in Delacroix, even though the sun has just barely begun to rise. As Dr. Stephen Strange opens a portal into the quaint little town, he almost laughs at how picturesque it is. Here, in this serene little corner of the world, one would never know that the entire multiverse was on the brink of complete destruction. As he approached a small boat ported at the dock, he began to hear the sound of two voices growing louder over the chirps of the birds that were just waking in their nests.
“If someone didn’t ripped the cover off, we wouldn’t be in this situation!” yelled a voice he recognized as the man he was coming to see, Sam Wilson. Sam had recently taken up the mantle of Captain America and Strange needed all the help he could get facing this crisis.
Then he heard another man sigh in frustration. “You were at that thing for like an hour already and it wasn’t coming off…I was trying to help.”
“Right. It had nothing to do with you showing off in front of my sister.” Sam grumbled.
“For the last time,” the other man, that Strange was now close enough to recognize as Bucky Barnes from the glean coming from his vibranium arm said, “I do not have a thing for your sister.”
“Why you always grinning at her like fool if you don’t—”
Sam was cut off by the sound of Strange clearing his throat. “Gentlemen. I’m here because—”
“You!” Bucky interrupted, “tell this idiot there is no such thing as wizards!”
If it weren’t for the absolutely resolute scowl that Bucky had, Strange would have thought this was some sort of joke. “I’m sorry…wizards?”
“He thinks that if you were wearing a hat, you’d be a wizard,” Bucky said, mindlessly twirling a wrench in his right arm and motioning toward Sam. “Tell him he is wrong. Just like he’s wrong that its my fault that we’re out here at the ass crack of dawn trying to fix this stupid control panel. Oh…and I don’t flirt with his sister.”
Strange took a deep breath, pinching the bridge of his nose. “I have absolutely no idea what the hell you are talking about.”
“Exactly,” Bucky said, “because wizards don’t exist.”
“I don’t know. But look…I’m here because—”
“Ahh see!” Sam interjected this time, “he doesn’t know!”
“Well if you’re theory was right he would know, since he’s a sorcerer. And you said that was just a wizard without a hat. And is it any hat?” Bucky asked, grabbing a baseball cap that one of the boys had left on the boat, “like if I put this on him, will he turn into a wizard?”
“That is so not what I said!” Sam said, grabbing the hat from Bucky and putting it on Bucky’s head.
They continued to bicker back and forth, pushing and shoving each other playfully as Strange looked on in disbelief. “You know what,” he said finally, “never mind…I’m going to go…find someone else. You two keep…doing whatever the hell this is…”
And with that, he opened another portal, hoping he’d have more luck with Wanda Maximoff, leaving Sam and Bucky to their boat.