Work Text:
“How is she?” Strange asked as he watched the Cloak of Levitation playing a spirited game of tag with Morgan Stark.
“You know kids,” said Pepper with a small smile, taking the buttered peas from Wong. Strange resisted the urge to correct her – he most certainly did not know kids. “They’re resilient. Morgan, honey, come sit.”
The little girl squealed as Cloak dodged her tag, then squealed again as she tripped over her untied shoelaces and tumbled into a ceramic vase that was at least two thousand years old and had held at least half that number of spells over the years, some probably still active. Cloak caught the vase – and Morgan – before Pepper could even gasp.
“I’m so sorry,” she said, hand over her mouth as she turned to Strange. “She has the energy of an arc reactor.”
“Hmm.” One long breath later, Strange gave a tight smile. Another breath. He tried to relax his face so that his efforts didn’t look like a grimace.
It wasn’t the energetic kid’s fault he was so tense. It was…
…a mystery more opaque than the secrets of Kamer Taj. Strange had no idea what was wrong with him lately. This dinner made that abundantly clear.
He sprinkled salt over his peas and tried to push down the disappointment.
In the past few weeks, a weight had settled over him. A dark cloud seeped into every corner of his senses. Every step, every moment felt off. The gloom was so acute, so sudden and oppressive, that Strange initially thought it was some new entity come to Earth, the herald of the next assault. Except nobody else could detect a change, and Wong assured him that all the Sanctum wards were still in place, all the security spells still untripped.
No, it wasn’t an enemy. It wasn’t Earth. It was just him.
The spoon was heavy in his hand, the peas like bowling balls. All he could taste was salt and much.
Even Strange’s spells felt heavy and off-balance lately. His focus shook like it’d been torn and shattered as thoroughly as his hands had in the accident. He stayed up nights — more than he had in med school, more even than in Kamer Taj. But he didn’t stay up studying. He paced. He tossed and turned.
You cannot beat a river into submission.
The Ancient One’s words repeated in his head, as if he had forgotten all the advanced study and long nights toiling over ancient books. As if in this darkness, he had only enough energy to grasp the most basic words learned long ago. As if some part of him had been gouged out so the storm cloud could rush in.
You cannot beat a river into submission.
But his mind, his power was not a river anymore. It was a dense fog, and he could not find his way through.
Any damage that occurred here tonight was Strange’s own fault for deciding that the cure to this darkness was to host a dinner party at the New York Sanctum.
Now, he just hoped everybody – including the ancient magical relics – survived the night.
Strange gave Cloak an exasperated but grateful look as it arranged the ancient vase on its plinth. “Hey, get over here,” he addressed it sternly. “No tag at the dinner table.”
Morgan giggled as Strange addressed his outerwear. It came to rest over his shoulders, draping over the side of his chair and making him a tad more comfortable, if a little overdressed for a casual dinner with distantly connected friends-of-friends he barely knew. The girl finally sat down between her mother and Happy Hogan.
“They’re more resilient than us,” said Happy. He sniffed as he twirled a forkful of spaghetti. Strange was far from the only one facing darkness these days.
“Maybe that’s what all that energy’s for,” Wong added with a dour look at the child. But he couldn’t fool Strange, who caught the ghost of a smile as the Sorcerer Supreme opened a portal to the mashed potatoes, then another to the gravy as the child gaped in pure, unabashed awe. “But that kind of power must be used with great caution,” he said, gesturing at her with the potatoes spoon, “and greater responsibility.”
She nodded seriously, her eyes still glistening in the gold sparks from the portals.
Strange had become an expert in Wong’s microscopic smiles and could tell that he was probably enjoying the dinner more than Strange himself. Well, the Sorcerer Supreme probably needed a break from all those other duties he was always going on about.
Strange sighed over his own potatoes.
“How are you holding up, Doctor?” Pepper asked quietly.
He smiled. “Please, Pepper, we saved half the universe together, I t-think–”
Strange stuttered to a stop, hit by the truck of deja vu. It was a feeling that had taken up the habit of slamming into him at random intervals lately. He wondered if it was a consequence of looking into so many futures. Or maybe using the time stone. Was he doomed to feel every odd ripple in his own stream of reality? Maybe this was the cause of his feeling out-of-sorts. Perhaps he’d tampered with reality one too many times to rest comfortably within it.
“--um, Stephen, please. Call me Stephen.” He hitched a smile onto his face. “And I’m… I’m… good. I’m good.”
Stephen was not good.
And this dinner wasn’t working.
What was he thinking bringing a bunch of grieving people together over spaghetti?
Stephen was thinking that it had been over a year since the final battle against Thanos. Since they’d lost Tony. He had thought that having this little gathering would help. Just a couple of those in the area closest to Tony – plus Wong because he was usually here anyway and what was Strange going to do, kick him out?
A part of him was shocked that Pepper had said yes. As his own nightmares constantly reminded him – on the rare occasion he could actually sleep – Strange was sort of, practically, unavoidably-if-you-werent-going-to-deny-it, directly responsible for Tony’s death. He still saw it. Waking and sleeping, his mind threw up the images of the Avenger, burned and fallen, his light gone out, in his eyes, in his heart. And Pepper, of course, fighting to be brave in his last moments.
Of course, Strange knew that if he had not pushed things onto the one winning path, many more would have been lost. But somehow, knowing this did not make the guilt or the nightmares go away. Flashes of alternate paths taunted him, too. All futile, of course, but still tugging on his guilt with infinite possibilities.
What if…
You could have tried…
Maybe…
Intellectually, he’d made peace with his decisions during the war. But maybe emotionally, they would always pick at him.
“Tea?” he asked into his barely touched dinner. “And pie?”
“Yeah, that sounds lovely,” said Pepper.
“I could go for pie,” said Happy, he pulled a smile onto his face that Strange recognized from his own forced cheer.
Strange escaped to the kitchen. His hands shook as he gathered the tea and dessert, using only the minimum of magic. He was still askew. Off balance. Alone, it was even worse; the weight pressing in on him dug mercilessly into his head, his heart, his throat.
Somehow, he felt even worse than he had before the evening had begun.
And god he was tired!
Even when he was able to sleep, even when the nightmares allowed him to evade wakefulness for a few blessed hours, he woke up to darkness, to a deep sadness pressing down on his eyelids, seeping into him from his first second of awareness.
He’d felt like this once before it all – before Thanos, before Kaecilius, before he was who he was now. But that time, he’d just had eleven stainless steel pins stuck into his bones. That time, he’d been grieving himself. Grieving the life he thought was his highest achievement.
That time, the cause of his suffering had been obvious.
Gold sparks sprayed the kitchen. Strange heard Morgan give a delighted gasp. Wong reached through to pick up the apple pie and a stack of dessert plates. Strange brought in the tea. Cloak grabbed two cartons of ice cream.
Morgan had already gotten up again, this time to peer at a set of swords on the wall that… actually, Strange had no idea what they did. He mentally crossed his fingers, hoping that they were just a bold decorating choice by the last Master of this Sanctum.
Cloak dumped the Vanilla Bean and Hulka Hulka Burning Fudge on the table and went to hover protectively over the child. Strange tried to relax. It turned out that Cloak was a decent baby sitter, which was good because Strange had never been a kid person. Others’ offspring had always been an annoyance — even before he had the defense of the Sanctum to worry about.
“Did you ever want one of your own?” Pepper asked, following his tense gaze and quickly shepherding Morgan away from the sharp things.
“I don’t… I didn’t,” Strange said slowly. Beyond a vague not liking them, he’d never really thought about kids. Before Kamer Taj, he’d enjoyed the high-powered workaholic life. He was more affected by the fling with Christine than he would have ever admitted at the time, but mostly he’d been busy enjoying the life of a self-absorbed bachelor.
“I dreamed I had a son,” he said suddenly, remembering it as he said the words.
In between the accumulated nightmares of crushed hands and Dormammu and Thanos and Tony’s burned body, laughter rang out. A chattering kid pestered him. Strange could feel his own annoyance through the dream memory.
“Here?” asked Pepper. “In the Sanctum?”
“Yeah.” He forced a rough, derisive laugh. “Running around with all his little friends, gawking like it’s a class trip to MOMA. Dreams, right?”
“Can you?” asked Happy. “Have kids? Don’t you guys have to take some kind of… oath of celibacy or something?”
“There is no oath,” said Wong. “But the Master of this Sanctum must be willing to put its defense above all else. Imagine fighting the forces of darkness while some little monster is getting into the ice cream.”
Morgan, who had been reaching for the Vanilla Bean carton pulled her hand back and giggled. Wong opened the ice cream and with a flick of his wrist floated a healthy scoop onto the little girl’s plate.
“For starters,” said Strange, digging into the apple pie. He let a smile — tiny enough to rival Wong’s — creep onto his face. The darkness needling him was as painful as ever, but it was hard to be totally impassive watching the Sorcerer Supreme entertain a kid. “Imagine them getting into the undercroft.”
“The undercroft?” Happy echoed dramatically. “Is that where all the dark magic takes place?”
“Hm.” Strange gave a wouldn’t-you-like-to-know quirk of his eyebrows.
“I think it’s where the last Master of this Sanctum banished the pilates machine,” said Wong.
Happy laughed, then looked concerned. “But really, though. Besides the shiny portals, what kind of magic do you do here? And in the undercroft? And what kind of area of affect are we talking? Is it like…” He waved a hand vaguely over the table. “…here?”
“No dark magic in the vicinity of peas,” said Strange. “There’s a strict rule against it. And our new Sorcerer Supreme’s a stickler for the rules.”
Wong nodded seriously.
“Before the Blip, Tony…” Pepper hesitated, it was the first time this evening that anyone had actually mentioned him. “Tony dreamed we had a kid. And then…” She smiled fondly at Morgan.
“I think she’s saying it’s time for you to start dating again.” Happy pointed his spoon at Strange. “That’s what the dream’s telling you. Are you clairvoyant? Because Tony said that was all bunk, but he honestly didn’t really know much about all this.” He waved a vague hand again.
“I’m not… exactly clairvoyant,” said Strange, scooping out some Hulka Hulka Burning Fudge. “Not like that anyway. This was just a dream.” He was starting to regret bringing it up.
The idea of him as a father was absurd.
But maybe this was just a biological clock thing.
It was possible, if unexpected. Stephen felt in a lot of ways like his life had just begun, like it began at Kamer Taj. His new life had begun there. Though battle and responsibility wore on him, he didn’t feel old. Magic gave him far more energy than he’d ever had as a sleep-deprived, over-caffeinated, hyper-competitive neurosurgeon. At the time, he thought all the intensity and competition gave him life, but now he could could see that it was just a clever facsimile.
Still, as a man of science, Strange had to admit it could be simple biological forces — ancient evolutionary pressures and his lizard brain telling him to get a move on. He wasn’t going to be middle-aged forever, and if he thought running around after kids now would be a pain, he definitely didn’t want to feel what it’d be like at seventy.
Wong was right, of course — having children or a spouse wouldn’t work well with his responsibilities to the Sanctum. It would compromise his duty to defend it at all costs. He had sworn to that, if not to the whole celibacy thing.
But, he’d never wanted kids. Not really. Not specifically. So how could simple, biological pressures cast such a cloud over him now?
Well, biology could be a jerk. Strange knew that. He looked at the scars still decorating his hands as he scooped up the last of his ice cream.
“I think somebody needs to get home to bed,” said Pepper, ruffling Morgan’s hair as she gave a gigantic yawn.
“I was just thinking the same thing,” said Wong. “There’s a whole new crop of overconfident idiots to train tomorrow.”
“Yeah,” Happy added. “ I’m gonna need my eight hours if I’m watching this little monster tomorrow. Meeting’s still at eight, Pepper?”
“Yeah. And you know the board, they’ll be arguing all day.” She gave a tiny smile. “Nobody to just run off and do the thing anymore, damn the consequences.”
Happy nodded, as they shared a small, quiet moment of of reminiscence.
Strange felt a little guilty, but he was relieved the dinner was coming to a close.
Strange did miss Tony. But he’d never known him in the same capacity as Pepper or Happy. Friend, boss, husband, father. He’d known him only as the superhero — fourteen million, six hundred and five versions of him, granted. But he couldn’t possible compare his loss to Pepper’s or Morgan’s or Happy’s. Not that that made the loss painless — far from it — but he felt almost like he was intruding on their grief. Claiming it as his own when he’d suffered the least of all.
And this macabre grievers’ dinner had given him no solace. It had not filled up the darkness. The void still gaped inside him, and he still had no hints as to what caused it.
They cleared the table together, and Strange’s mind drifted back to his dream. It had been one of those so vivid it felt real. Like he had lived years, a lifetime maybe, in the span of a few REM-fueled minutes. There was an argument — something about college admissions. He’d rolled his eyes at the boy’s “old” movie references. They’d even fought beside each other.
That was messed up. Who would bring their kid to a battle like that? That was exactly why he could never be a father. Why he should never want to be a father. He could bear the safety of the world on his shoulders, but not that.
In the odd, shifting tradition of dreams he remembered emotions over details — like losing his temper and yelling at the kid, but yelling what? The anger, sadness, pride were acute, but his memory couldn’t even grasp a name.
“We should do this again some time,” said Happy.
Strange didn’t realize they had moseyed all the way to the front door until Cloak waved. Only Morgan waved back. Suddenly, she ran at him and threw her arms around his middle. Stephen realized full well she was really hugging Cloak and not him. But as he patted her awkwardly on the head, a thread in his heart seemed to snag, catching and tearing at something deep in the void.
Then finally, the guests were gone, and Strange shook his head at his own foolish dreams. Kids in the Sanctum. What an idea!
“Well, this is me.” Wong gestured at the portal he’d just opened. “Back to Kamer Taj. You’ll manage?”
Strange nodded.
When the last sparks faded he walked alone through the empty sanctum — as alone as he’d felt at the dinner table surrounded by friends. The darkness around him taunted him, mirroring the unnamed pain within. The New York Sanctum felt extra empty, like an unnatural chasm had opened up beneath its silent halls.
Something was missing, and he’d probably never know what it was. Maybe it was a consequence of war. Having witnessing so much staggering loss, maybe it would always be impossible to tell which wound specifically was festering. It all blended together. Who knew why he was feeling like this, and why now.
Far off in the dark, a door creaked open.
Suddenly, Strange was alert. He wasn’t so bound up in his own wallowing that he couldn’t fulfil his duty to defend this sanctum. Hands up, spells at the ready, he strode back to the foyer.
A slim beam of orange light cut in from the street lights outside. In the open door stood a teenage boy, his shirt splattered with rain drops.
There was something familiar about him.
But not for a second did Doctor Strange let his guard down. “Stay where you are and state your business.”
The boy’s eyes went round and he put up his hands as Strange stepped out of the shadows. “Right, yeah. So… I don’t know if this is allowed or-or—“ the kid stammered nervously like it was a class presentation. “I don’t know how this all works, but… Doctor Strange, sir, I think I need your help.”
Strange had the sudden weird urge to correct the boy, to tell him to cut this sir stuff out. But that was stupid, he’d just met the kid. He kept his hands up. His eyes narrowed.
He noticed movement out of the corner of his eye. Cloak was waving.
The teenager waved tentatively back. “That thing is so cool,” he said. Then he smiled, and his whole face lit up.
Suddenly, the gaping void shifted inside Strange. In the glow of the streetlights, it felt for a moment as if the darkness retreated ever so slightly. Slowly, he lowered his hands.