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A young Stephen Strange sat under a giant oak tree. He watched as the snow fell, oblivious of the almost painful cold he was beginning to feel. Stephen was only in his pajamas as he didn’t have time to change into warmer clothes when he ran away. The weather worsened and yet Stephen still did not move. The winds grew stronger and the snow fell harder. The ground was layered in a thin layer of snow, the cold biting his bare feet, and yet, Stephen still did not move from where he sat, curled up with his arms wrapped around his legs.
“You’ll catch a cold or get frostbite if you stay out here too long”
Stephen jumped as he frantically looked around. The snow was on the verge of becoming a storm before turning into a blizzard and it was too difficult to see anything 10 feet away.
“Hello? Who’s there?”, he called out. His voice was scratchy and hoarse.
“Why are you out here?” it continued.
From what Stephen could tell, the voice sounded like it belonged to a woman. Stephen tightened his hold around his legs, as if becoming smaller would protect him. It felt like someone was speaking all around him, never being able to pinpoint where it was coming from. “Who are you?
The voice didn’t answer.
“W-where are you?”, he shivered as he began to feel the cold seeping into his bones.
“Look at you,” the voice came from his right and Stephen whirled around, finding a peculiarly dressed woman standing in front of him. He widened his eyes and stared in anxiety. The woman was beautiful, her pale skin slightly flushed from the cold. She had enchanting green eyes and auburn hair, with a red and black headpiece secured on her head. Her outfit was just as beautiful, with a similar color scheme as her headpiece. The woman looked like she came straight out of one of those superhero comics that he used to read. She knelt down in front of him and gently touched his cheek. Stephen’s eyes widened even more at the black at the tips of her fingers.
“You’re freezing.” she muttered, and then, impossibly, glowing red energy formed in her hands. It gathered around him and he felt a rush of warmth wrap around himself. It surrounded them like a dome, blocking the snow and wind from getting inside.
“How did you do that,” Stephen asked in wonder.
“Can you teach me?” he quickly added.
The woman smiled almost sadly and sat down next to him, “I was…born with it”.
“Oh” Stephen muttered, slightly disappointed.
They sat in silence, both watching the snow spin wildly outside of the dome. “Who are you” he suddenly asked?
“Wanda,” she replied -moment later- “What’s your name”?
“Stephen”
“Nice to meet you Stephen”
Stephen didn’t say anything. He curled back into a ball of misery. “What’s wrong?”, Wanda asked.
“My dad and I got into a fight,” he said, picking at one of the blades of grass poking out of the snow, “it’s nothing really, we get into disagreements all the time, just not ones as bad as this one. So I ran away”. Weirdly enough, Stephen found it so much easier to open up to a complete stranger he’d just met than to his family members. He knew he shouldn’t be trusting random strangers, but this woman wasn’t random, not what his sub-consciousness was telling him.
Wanda was oddly silent, staring seemingly nowhere but still listening to every word he was saying.
“I just…” Stephen paused, refusing to cry, “I just don’t want to disappoint my parents. But everything I do just doesn’t seem to be working, especially after Donna died”.
He lost the fight and tears began falling from his eyes. Warm arms wrapped around him and Stephen found himself returning the hug, sobbing into Wanda’s shoulder.
“Donna,” Wanda said softly, “was she your sister”.
Stephen nodded, “she was the best”. He rubbed his eyes and sniffed. Wanda found it worrying for a child as young Stephen to be able to pull himself together so quickly. He didn’t pull away from their hug so Stephen and Wanda stayed in their comfortable embrace, with Stephen leaning against Wanda’s neck and Wanda positioned in a way that looked like she would attack anyone who came too close or looked at Stephen funny.
Stephen glanced at her fingers and jumped to the question. “Why are your fingers so…” he trailed off.
“Weird?” Wanda offered.
“Yeah”.
“It’s a long story,” she rubbed her fingers, “I got this as a result of finding a way here”
“Here? You got that from getting here?! Nebraska?”
Wanda laughed, “Nebraska wasn’t my intention. I actually went a little too far into the pa-”
She clenched her fists in frustration? Anger? Stephen didn’t know.
“Stephen.”
“Mhm?”
“I just want you to know that, no matter how hard it gets, there’ll be people who love you so, so much in the future. There’ll be people you look up to that will always stay by your side and there’ll be some that will have to leave your life too soon.”
Stephen looked up at her in confusion but nodded.
Tears gathered in Wanda’s eyes, threatening to spill and make her stay here, forever, with Stephen. To take him away from all the pain that he was going to live through.
“Sleep, Stephen”
He yawned, suddenly finding it extremely hard to stay awake, snuggling into her warmth.
“Will I see you again?”
“Not for a long time. But I’ll be in your future”.
Wanda smiled fondly after noticing that Stephen had already fallen asleep. She kissed his forehead and hugged him. “Know that there’ll be someone in the future who loves you so much that they are willing to tear down the multiverse and time itself for you”.
-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.
It wasn’t until the next morning that Stephen was found, fast asleep, surrounded in a red energy dome that wouldn’t let anyone near him for a solid ten minutes before it faded away and Stephen was woken up.
It wasn’t until a very, very long time that Stephen finally found out who Wanda truly was.
And it wasn’t until years after that, that Stephen came to realize that Wanda had been using the darkhold to save him.