Work Text:
The first time it happened, Stephen brushed it off. He felt a little off that day, which could easily be blamed on the ceremonial dish Wong made him try. The second time it happened, Stephen could practically hear a voice screaming at the back of his mind, begging him to investigate it. He soon forgot about the incident due to the mutated elephant rampaging through the city. The third time was impossible to ignore.
Everyone in Queens knew of Spider-Man. Hell, everyone in the world knew of Spider-Man. The guy (child) was an internet sensation who quickly became an icon due to his interactions with the late Tony Stark. The world knew him as a relatable hero who looked out for the “little guy”. Stephen Strange knew him as a nuisance.
Stephen’s first interaction with Spider-Man quickly became a nightmare in which the two of them were turned to dust after losing the battle against Thanos. For the short time he knew the vigilante, Stephen quickly realized Spider-Man was a child in a weaponized suit Stark made him. He would never admit that this realization only made his distaste for Stark grow.
Having to briefly calm the shaken teenager after they all woke up who was seemingly the only one in pain, was an experience Stephen often tried to forget. The haunted look in Spider-Man's brown eyes, the shaky muscle response to push all stimulus away, the pained tears dropping down his cheeks, and Stephen's own too-cold response of "get up, we have to go" as he sent a child to war. All factors he would much rather forget.
But too much has already been forgotten.
Nearly a year after the return of all those who were "blipped" and a month after he helped Spider-Man close a gap in the multiverse, Stephen found himself watching a calm Spider-Man kick his legs as if he weren't sitting on the top of a twelve-story building. The master of mystic arts felt drawn to the idle vigilante. Not just in a curious human sense or maybe even an empathetic sense, but a metaphysical sense. There was something about Spider-Man that whispered to his magic.
Gliding towards the teen, Stephen ignored the immediate tenseness that filled the other’s body as he made his presence known.
“Dr. Strange!” Spider-Man announced in exaggerated excitement. Clearly an attempt to hide his anxiousness towards the man’s arrival.
Stephen landed softly next to the vigilante, “Spider-Man,” he greeted before facing the skyline his counterpart was previously admiring.
Spider-Man laughed tensely, “What’s up, doc?”
The wizard leveled him with a glare that he awkwardly laughed off before looking back at the view.
As Spider-Man redirected his focus elsewhere, Stephen analyzed his current state. There’s been an obvious costume change. This one was more reminiscent of an action figure. A bright red to match an electric blue with a subtle webbed design spread across. No trace of Stark. God rest his soul, but Stephen couldn’t help the feeling of relief that passed through him at that thought. This was 100% Spider-Man. No child-soldier additive squeaking through.
Behind the costume, however, Stephen could see the exhaustion. The energetic teenager’s posture screamed “Sixty-year-old man who just got a divorce and watched his dog die” aka absolutely miserable. There was an attempt at hiding it, but Stephen was good at reading people. Spider-Man was lost in misery.
Before he could make any more observations, the brightly colored hero straightened his spine and diverted his attention downwards. A loud yell for help quickly followed.
“Sorry Mister Doctor Wizard, duty calls!” Spider-Man saluted him before throwing himself off the building.
Strange rolled his eyes and opened a portal back to the Sanctum. He forgot about the whispers of magic that followed the young hero.
Another month goes by, and Stephen found himself leaving a tailor, having gotten his suit readjusted. Christine’s wedding was in two weeks. The thought of it left a bitter taste in his mouth.
Stephen was happy for Christine. He’s happy that she’s happy. Chris seemed to be a nice guy according to his and Wong’s social media stalking.
His totally not jealous thoughts were interrupted by a loud roar. No, yell. No, snort? Stephen froze as an oversized elephant with spikes down its back raced through the street, quickly followed by a familiar blur of red, blue, and a ray of orange.
“Look out! Danger Dumbo coming through! Move lady!”
Sighing, Stephen opened a small portal to his bed, placed his tailored suit on it neatly, and summoned his cloak. A relaxing day full of not jealous thoughts would have to wait.
Quickly following the rogue elephant, Strange quickly caught-on to Spider-Man’s plan of steering the animal towards the water and away from dense populations. He could help with that. Focusing on the street below, Stephen opened a large portal the elephant quickly fell through. Following it, and Spider-Man through to the other side, which led to a beach, he stayed back as the other hero approached the downed animal.
“Easy, girl. Sh sh sh easy,” The teenager cautiously approached the elephant with a large syringe in his hand, “It’s okay. It’s just me, your friendly neighborhood Spidey! This is gonna help you, I promise.”
Stephen didn’t know why the other bothered. The elephant clearly couldn’t understand the words coming from his mouth. For some reason, this act seemingly made the magic around the younger’s body pulse. Like it was trying to say something.
Spider-Man was soon close enough to inject the unknown syringe into the animal’s neck. She slowly shut her eyes, succumbing to whatever concoction was just injected into her bloodstream.
The younger backed up until he was eventually standing next to Stephen, “Thanks for… you know-“ he made a comical gesture obviously meant to mimic the opening of a sling-ring portal, “-portaling her here,” he finished gratefully.
Strange nodded, “Couldn’t have another teenage mutant ninja vigilante running around,” he smirked at Spider-Man playfully, “one is plenty.”
The teenager laughed, “Trust me, this one will be doing no ninja-ing any time soon,” he gestured back at the elephant that seemed to be getting smaller.
The wizard squinted, “What did you give it?”
“An antidote. She was mutated by some college kids who got a little too excited with their research on agitating dormant genes and wanted a big test subject,” Spider-Man answered solemnly.
Stephen nodded, “The larger the need to prove oneself, the larger the likelihood of mistake.”
This statement seemed to make the vigilante flinch as if he were slapped. The magic pulsed. Strange raised an eyebrow in question.
Spider-Man shook off the questioning look with a forced relaxed demeanor, crossing his arms behind his head, “You wouldn’t happen to know the fastest way back to Queens from here, would you?”
Strange sighed dramatically but opened a portal to an alley.
Spider-Man thanked him and was halfway through the portal before he remembered the elephant in the room. Or rather, the elephant on the beach.
“Can you portal her back to her enclosure?” He asked curiously, “I can carry her there if it’s an issue,” the vigilante quickly amended, not wanting to seem as if he were bossing the Doctor Mister Master Magic-Wielder around.
“It’s fine, kid, I’ll put her back,” Strange told him earnestly. The kid’s smile was palpable even through the spandex mask.
“Thank you, sir!” He gave Strange a familiar two-finger salute as he finally walked through the open portal.
With the brightly costumed teenager gone, Stephen smiled sadly at the elephant on the sand, “Let’s get you back to where you belong, little one.”
Two months passed. Christine got married. Wanda made her throne her tomb. America made a home at Kamar-Taj. Stephen coped with the tendrils of darkness inside of him.
His third eye opened on a rare occurrence in which the darkness of the Darkhold flared awake. The newfound evil inside of him worried Stephen, but it also allowed him new abilities. One of which, allowed him to embrace the magic around him.
Before, if someone had a spell cast around them or if they, themselves, held magical properties, he would see a faint orange glow around their person. Now, however, it’s like an aurora. A symphony of colors surrounded Kamar-Taj as Stephen left, having just visited America.
Having the teen in his life opened a different side of him than the magic did. It opened a more fatherly side. Stephen couldn’t help but notice the paternal instinct that would often overtake him when he was around America or some of the younger students.
As he left the warm light of Kamar-Taj, Strange inhaled the familiar scent of the New York Sanctum. His sanctum. The smell reminded him of studying in the library at school, but it also held the faint citrus notes of magic.
Magicking himself a cup of tea, Stephen looked out the large window at the forefront of the sanctum. The window was just high enough to where one could look over the neighboring buildings and see a bit of the New York skyline. The sun began to set as Stephen let his mind wander.
Minutes passed when the calm revery was broken. Stephen noticed a familiar figure land on a building a little ways away. The figure slumped as they took an exhausted seat on the lip of the roof. The newfound fatherly instincts began to kick in just as his third eye did. The figure was encircled in his own aurora.
Placing his tea down, Stephen grabbed his cloak.
The trip to the building did not take long. As Stephen got closer, he noticed two things. One, the teenager was shaking with sobs. The shaking was mainly caused by him containing the cries, but many were still getting out. Two, his mask was off.
Haunted brown eyes.
“Get up, we have to go”
Residual innocence quickly overtaken by pain.
“Where are we? Where’s Mister Stark?”
“No time. Let’s go, kid.”
Hurt.
“Kid?”
The boy gasped and quickly tried to cover his face back with his mask. He clumsily stumbled off the lip and onto the gravelly roof. Panic flooded his aurora.
“Hey hey calm down,” Stephen quickly tried to soothe the boy, squatting down just out of reach so as to not seem like a threat, “It’s okay it’s just me. I’ve seen your face before, remember?” His shaky hands hovered just over Spider-Man’s shoulders.
“Ti-Titan,” the teenager stuttered.
Stephen nodded, “Yes, exactly. I’ve already seen your face, it’s okay,” he sat back on his haunches, “can’t put a name to it though.”
At the shiver that followed his words, Strange’s cloak unraveled from his shoulders and landed gracefully over Spider-Man’s spandex.
Not wanting to startle the kid (because that’s what he is. He’s a child crying alone on a rooftop), Stephen relaxed his posture and sat down on the roof, leaving a good three feet between him and the tear-covered hero.
Silence, occasionally broken by sniffles, spread across the roof. Not so much tense as it was accepting. If there were anything he learned from America, it’s that he shouldn’t push. Stephen would wait until Spider-Man made the first move.
Minutes passed.
“Have…Have you ever been scared that like, everyone would forget you?”
Stephen glanced at the sky, not wanting to put pressure on the teen that would make him retract his conversation, “I think that everyone’s scared of being forgotten; scared of not leaving their mark on the world.”
“No,” the kid shook his head in frustration, “no I mean, like, if you woke up one day and everyone-everybody that cared for you just… forgot. They just forgot about you.”
Stephen glanced at the teenager next to him, “I can’t imagine the hurt I’d feel but I think it would be a lot.”
Quietly nodding, Spider-Man sniffed.
They both let the silence consume the rooftop once more, however, this time they were both thinking of what was just said.
More time passed.
Stephen didn’t want to push, but he had another question for the teenager, “Why do you have magic guarding you?”
The kid tensed, ignoring the question.
Stephen furrowed his brows in thought, “Every time I’ve seen you these past few months, you had magic surrounding you like a shield,” the boy’s breathing seemed to pick up, “Do you know anybody who could have done that? It’s very complicated magic, I don’t know anyone who could cast such a spell.”
The magic surrounding Spider-Man pulsed. Like it was screaming at him. Begging for something, Reaching towards him.
“It’s like it’s keeping something in,” Stephen’s eyes narrowed, “Protecting it.”
“I’m sorry sir,” Spider-Man whispered, “I can’t tell you.”
Turning towards the vigilante completely, Strange stared into the doe brown eyes, “If someone with mystic abilities is hurting you, I can help you-“
“No!” The boy’s eyes widened, “It’s nothing like that, I promise!”
“Then what is it?”
“I can’t tell you.”
“Spider-Man, I can help you if you just tell me who cast the spell around you.”
“I don’t need help, okay?” He stood angrily, Strange’s cloak jumped from Spider-Man’s back at the sudden aggression, “Please, Mister Strange, leave it alone.”
Stephen stood as well, letting the cloak wrap around him, “That’s powerful magic that you’re dealing with, kid. You can’t trust it.”
“Yes, I can.”
“How do you know?”
“I just do, okay?”
“Don’t be stupid, kid!” Stephen yelled, getting agitated, “How do you know that the one who cast it won’t weaponize it against you?”
“I-“
“This person can put your entire family in danger, Spider-Man,” with that statement, the kid seemed to shrink into himself, “Don’t let misplaced trust endanger them.”
“It’s not misplaced,” Spider-Man insisted, grabbing his head in frustration.
Screw everything he learned from the gentle parenting book Wong got him as a joke. The kid was going to get himself killed by trusting the wrong people.
Stephen laughed sarcastically, “Uh huh, sure kid. I’ll definitely believe that the bleeding-heart friendly neighborhood vigilante would never put his trust in the wrong person.”
This seemed to finally push the hero to the edge, “Stop it! It’s not misplaced trust!”
“How do you know?” Stephen yelled back.
“Because it was you!”
Stephen reeled back.
“It was you who cast the spell!” Spider-Man continued vehemently, “You put the spell on me and everyone around me and I know it was for the greater good but my own best friend won’t even look at me because I’m a stranger to him!” The tears were back with a vengeance. He jabbed a finger into Stephen’s chest, “I feel like a stranger at my own aunt’s grave! People ask how I knew her because nobody remembers me! Nobody remembers Peter Parker!” The aurora flared.
Memories pushed through Stephen’s brain like a tidal wave.
“I can help them”
“Have a heart, Strange”
“Call me Stephen” “Thank you, Stephen” “Still feels weird”
Peter Parker. How could he forget Peter Parker?
Returning to his consciousness, Stephen looked at the crying boy hugging his knees on the ground.
“Oh, Peter.”
Dropping to his knees quickly, ignoring the spark of pain it caused, Stephen pulled Peter into an awkward hug. He’s been getting better at comforting people, but this had to be the hardest occasion yet.
“I-I’m sorry for yelling at you, Mr. Strange,” Peter sobbed out.
Stephen shushed him and ran a shaking hand through his oily curls, “It’s okay, Peter.” The boy’s own name seemed to pull fresh sobs from him each time it was said, “It will be okay. I promise you.”
Time passed. The sun rose. Stephen sat against the roof with Peter’s head on his leg. Stephen’s hand never left the boy’s head. He could tell how much the physical contact meant to the kid.
Brown eyes opened.
Some of the haunted look was scared to the outskirts.
“Thank you, Mr. Strange,” Peter rasped, throat sore from crying.
“Please, call me Stephen.”