Chapter Text
It is a dreary, drizzly Thursday afternoon—the kind of day where the combination of wind and water leave one in want of nothing more than a warm drink and dry clothing. Stephen does not particularly want to be outside himself, but as the only sorcerer within a two-hundred mile radius he instead finds himself soggy, shivering, and peering grumpily through the eighth-floor window of a particular apartment building in Queens in search of a real-world poltergeist.
He is fully prepared to witness all sorts of waking horrors, expects chaos and unimaginable destruction. This phage has not been subtle as it has carved out its path of terror throughout the greater New York metropolitan area. So, on this grey day in some nameless neighborhood in an oft-forgotten corner of Queens, Stephen wholly expects to find himself in the midst of a waking nightmare. That would be on par for a normal day for him.
What is is not expecting, and what catapults this Thursday afternoon straight into dangerously uncharted territory, is to catch sight of Spiderman flipping from the roof of one of the nearby apartments to dangle from a thin filament of webbing a mere hundred yards from Stephen’s hiding place.
Spiderman: the one and only, the vigilante of Queens who remains one of the most-at-large superheroes to date. To Stephen’s best knowledge, Spiderman has remained relatively incognito since the Mysterio disaster some months back. That had been a catastrophe, but one linked fully to the physical world and so when the story had broken Stephen had simply raised his eyebrows, shaken his head with an empathetic wince, and moved on about his daily business.
Now that Stephen has seen the other hero, he is hard to ignore. Spiderman zigzags between the buildings, soaring close enough to where Stephen hovers cloaked in invisibility that his hair rustles in the puff of air generated by his passing. He finally alights on the ledge of a fire escape some thirty feet away, landing with uncanny grace and a muffled curse.
He then proceeds to slip his mask from his head and bury his face in his hands, and Stephen cannot help the sharp gasp that slips from his lips. If he had not expected to see Spiderman in the first place, he most certainly had not expected the other hero to be a teenager. The kid could not be more than eighteen—nineteen at best—and he had been fighting Avengers and intergalactic villains alike over the course of the last few years. “Well, shit,” Stephen says. His concentration wavers slightly and he can feel his invisibility spell flicker. He scrambles to recast his spell before he can be noticed, struggling against the surge of dismay that smacks into him like a sucker-punch to the gut.
Despite every protestation to the contrary, Doctor Stephen Strange has found himself softening in the years since taking up sorcery. The sharp wit and sarcasm are still there, nestled within a vast intellect and minimal patience for the inane, but—
Once a doctor always a doctor, and that drive to care, once clouded by Stephen’s ego, has blossomed through the course of his studies. In delving deep within himself in pursing the mystic arts, Stephen has unearthed a vein of protective instincts that now almost continuously bleeds over into his waking thoughts. He would call it annoying if it weren’t so persistently validated.
Saving lives has always been tantamount; saving young lives, even more so.
The youth—because there is absolutely no denying that Spiderman is barely legal at best—flops down on the hard iron platform and kick his feet over the edge, resting his arms on the railing and his chin on his crossed arms. Even from a distance Stephen can hear his sigh. “Stupid stupid stupid,” the kid mutters to himself, the words only just audible over the metallic patter of the drizzle that is rapidly transitioning into a steady rain.
The sorcerer’s eyebrows shoot skyward. He had not expected to come across Spiderman, but now that he has…
He hovers on the far end of the alley maintaining his invisibility and running through his options. He has spent the better part of the day tracking his demon. There have been weeks of accumulating complaints—horrific nightmares, poltergeist-grade disturbances, and unpleasant accidents—and today is the day Stephen has allocated to finally addressing the series of increasingly-escalating incidents.
He penciled it in on the calendar and everything.
Thus, at this particular moment, Spiderman should in fact the last person on Stephen’s mind. And yet—
—seeing him here, now, he finds he cannot banish the teen from his thoughts, or indeed, his line of sight.
Young, his brain screams at him, he is so young. He wonders how the child even made it into the Avenger’s retinue, for that first battle between factions had been some considerable years prior and shit fuck, the kid would have had to have been just starting high school. Every iota of common sense Stephen possess tells him to mind his own business, get rid of the fear-feeder, and totter back to Bleeker Street to enjoy the remnants of his evening by the Sanctum’s warm, dry fireplace.
Spiderman is an adult, however young; he has stayed alive this long, so he certainly has his superhero routine down pat. Do not interfere, leave him to his day, focus on the phage and the danger at hand. Stephen repeats the mantra to himself as he sniffs delicately at the chill autumn air, searching for remnants of the phage’s magic. Squinting, he picks through the gloom to trace the contours of the shadowy aura the phage has left behind—a trail, of sorts, if one could consider multi-dimensional slime any sort of useful breadcrumb.
Unthinkingly, his eyes flit back to the boy and his conscience gives a sharp twinge. At his back, the cloak mirrors the pang in his heart with a sharp rustle and a tangible tug of fabric around his neck. Stephen heaves a long-suffering sigh. “Fine, fine, yes—I know,” he mutters, and whether it is to himself or to the cloak he cannot truly say.
Eyes closing in concentration, he casts the spell that will track the oozing mass of excretion back to its originator and incinerate it upon contact, thus blasting it back to whatever realm of nightmares it dared to crawl from in the first place. “So inelegant,” he murmurs distastefully, blue-green eyes following the line of fiery sparks that cartwheel off into the encroaching evening gloom. It is a miracle the boy does not seem to notice, for Stephen is well aware of his uncanny ability to sense danger an imminent threats; perhaps since the threat is being dealt with his so-called “spidey senses” remain at rest.
Stephen has enhanced his own senses with a modest spell, and he detects a barely-discernible, otherworldly shriek that is accompanied by a sharp ‘pop’ and a sizzle of flame. The oppressive atmosphere of the alleyway lightens infinitesimally and Stephen cannot help the surge of personal satisfaction that follows.
“Right.” Refocusing his gaze, Stephen swivels back to the fire escape. “The kid.” It is a simple matter of shifting concentration to make himself visible, and he drifts down until he hovers level with the landing where Spiderman currently sits like any other disheartened college-age student, legs kicking idly as he dangles them over the railing’s ledge.
“Hey kid.”
Spiderman yelps, jumps upright in what has to be less than a split second—and the scientist in Stephen is intrigued, though the lingering traces of his ego are just a minute bit jealous—
“Wha—Doctor Strange?” the teen exclaims, eyes wide and face pulled into an expression of shock. It is such a dramatic expression that were it not so obviously genuine it would be quite comical.
Stephen blinks, caught off guard by the easy familiarity with which the youth addresses him. “Have we…met?” he asks, nose scrunching in thought as he casts the net of his memory back as far it it will stretch in search of a more personal interaction with the spandex-clad figure.
Spiderman’s eyes widen even further, which Stephen honestly would not have thought possible. “N—no, no sir! Nope, not once. Never! Just your friendly neighborhood Spiderman, sir, nothing to see here—“
“Hush.” Stephen throws up one scarred hand and halts the teen’s rambling in its tracks. “No, we have definitely met before,” he asserts, eyes narrowed in thought. “But why do I not remember…” Flashes of memory spells past—both performed on him and by him—assail him, and he hums thoughtfully. “Well now, that is an interesting concept. Right, you stay put, and I will be right…back…”
He breathes deeply, and then hurls himself into the annals of his memory, diving deep into his subconscious self. Typically he takes a much more organized approach when he employs this method of thought compartmentalization, moving slowly through the internal archives he has crafted within the walls of his mind—a massive library set within the heart of his memory that houses towering stacks of texts that document events and conversations and experiences.
Today, however, time is off the essence—the kid is ready to bolt at any given moment, and loathe as Stephen is to admit it even to himself, that is one race he certainly will not win. So, instead, he winces and mutters a quiet apology to the organized tranquility of his personal sanctum, then barrels through aisle after aisle like a bull in a china shop. He skids to a graceless halt as he reaches the well-marked (with a flashing neon sign, no less, after it took him over four fucking hours to find it the last time) corridor denoted as ‘Spell-Induced Memory Loss’.
This single hallway spans at least a tenth of a mile, shelves stacked from chipped cobble floor to cavernous wood-beamed ceiling. Stephen throws his hands into the air. “No wonder I barely remember what I had for breakfast,” he deadpans, grimacing at the assembled collection of electively-forgotten memories.
“I wonder…” His keen eyes narrow in thought and he cocks his head, sending a series of ten or twelve volumes sliding from their stations on the shelves to hover in midair, suspended at eye-level along various points of the corridor. “Still more than I would prefer in a time crunch, but I suppose beggars can’t be choosers.”
Stephen seizes the nearest tome and flings it open, eyes scanning the text. “Leviathan in Lake Erie, memory redacted to preserve the integrity of the remnants of Atlantean society,” he reads, eyebrows creeping higher on his forehead as the memories trickle in with each subsequent sentence. “Not what I was looking for at all, but—“ He reads one page further and then stows that memory, shoving the book back into place between what appears to be “Leapfrogging through space-time” and “Lil Wayne concert, 1473 AD”. He almost lets his fingers snag that one, but no—
Snorting, he grabs for the floating tome that is next in line, scans the first page, and all but hurls it back into place on the shelf. “Some memories are unquestionably best forgotten,” he grimaces. “I remember why that got locked away.” He winces and feels the cloak shudder in sympathy at his back.
The third volume he snatches is thicker and warms in his grasp like a long-lost friend welcoming him home. The instant Stephen cracks the cover open he is assailed by a blur of red and blue, flashes of memories of alien spaceships and a barely-post-pubescent voice pleading for help about admission to MIT, of all the ridiculous things—
“Oh, shit.” Stephen stares at the volume in his hands. This is most definitely it, and he needs these memories now—reading will take far too long. “Sloppy,” he hums critically, even as he prepares the spell he must use. He pinches thumb and forefinger together, holding the tome in the other hand, and compresses the book between his fingers until it is cradled in his palm, the approximate size of a vitamin. “So very sloppy.” He pops the book into his mouth and swallows.
It takes a moment to digest the text, and then he is staggering backward with a gasp, memories of what he had deemed the “Peter Parker Incursion” assailing him. “Oh shit,” he repeats, this time much more vehemently. “Fuck.”
Suddenly the lonely young superhero in the alley makes much more sense—memory loss spell, variants, fracturing multiverse, dead aunt, the youth essentially sacrificing himself and volunteering himself to be forgotten by everyone to go at it alone. The memories overwhelm him and he falls to his knees against the hard stone floor, sagging forward until his trembling hands rest on his thighs. The strain of holding the encroaching multiverse at bay, the gut-wrenching selflessness of the little shit who had wormed his way into Stephen’s heart despite his every effort toward the contrary—
Shuddering, Stephen picks himself up, chest heaving. “Peter Parker,” he rasps, his eyes glittering jewels in the muted lamplight. “Oh kid.” He allows himself one final, heavy sigh, and then banishes the regret with the straightening of his spine. He pinches the bridge of his nose as his mind launches itself into a full-tilt sprint of thought, dashing headlong toward a finish line he had already begun to envision from the first surge of reclaimed memory. “Peter Parker,” he murmurs, resolve settling into a firmly-settled course of action, “all alone in the universe without anyone who knows your name…or, at least you were.”
Snapping his fingers, Stephen dissolves the library and steps back into his conscious self just in time to see the youth in front of him slide a shifty glance toward his still-prone form and begin to slink away inch-by-inch toward the fire escape’s worn and rusty staircase. “Not so fast, hotshot,” he declares, barely even upset that he cannot keep the affection from his voice.
Peter freezes in place, one foot still hovering in the air. “Sir?”
Stephen shakes his head, his eyes crinkling with a hint of humor. “What have I said,” he chides, “about calling me sir?”
And oh it is worth it to see realization creep across the teen’s face like a clearing of clouds after a storm, confusion giving way to delighted disbelief. “How—??”
The sorcerer crosses his arms in front of his chest, trying to school his face into a stern mask—but the faint, fond smile playing at the corners of his lips gives him away. “Hello, Peter Parker.”