Who: Stephen Strange and Christine Palmer What: It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas When: Whenever Christine gets home on Thursday Where: Their apartment Warnings: Stephen Strange should just be a general warning
Despite what most people probably thought about him, Stephen wasn't usually intentionally a jerk. He typically didn't set out to hurt people unless he felt they deserved it. It was just that he tended to think they deserved it more often than not. And he had honestly never meant to hurt Christine the way he had. He wasn't stupid, though, and he knew he had. First with his ego and his constant need to be the best, to be on top of his field. And then... God, when he remembered the things he had said to her before he'd left for Kamar Taj, it almost made him sick. He truly didn't blame her for not replying to his emails. Or even for not reading them, though he wished she had. Stephen Strange didn't do helpless well and he had taken it out on the one person who was still on his side. He had done what he did best; he'd been cold, cruel, and calculating.
For all everyone kept going on about getting another shot at living here, Stephen wasn't sure that applied to him. Literally disappearing for five years tended to make someone a little gun shy about diving into anything crucial. And starting over again, this time with the knowledge of what could be? It was exhausting. Also, he was just really bad at retail. But he wasn't alone. He might even, for all intents and purposes, be making friends? Or at least acquaintances he didn't want to strangle.
And of course, there was Christine.
Pepper Potts-Stark's post reminded him that it was about the time to be decorating. It wasn't typically his thing. When he'd been wealthy and successful, he just paid someone to decorate enough for him to host parties and events. Kamar Taj didn't tend to acknowledge the holiday so he didn't feel much pressure to do so at the Sanctum. But that was there and this was here. This was Christine. Christine who he still owed quite a bit to. Christine who genuinely loved Christmas and had already brought in a few small things to get the holiday feeling going in their apartment.
And it was looking at those miniscule decorations that launched a plan.
Stephen didn't have quite the ability to manipulate reality that Wanda did, but he had his share of skills. He wasn't going to create entire human beings and change a whole city, but some garland, a few lights, the sort of Christmas tree that would make Rockefeller Center jealous... Those things he could handle. He was even able to manage a fireplace (and convince it not to give off heat, San Francisco wasn't hot but it wasn't exactly New York) with a crackling log and two stockings hanging from the mantle.
The perfectionist wasn't one hundred percent pleased, but it honestly did look good enough to be in a magazine and it would have to do. Creativity and imagination weren't exactly Stephen's strong points. But hopefully they'd make his beautiful but snippy roommate smile. And get her mind off the fact that he'd been fired again.
He was curled up on the sofa reading a book on Celtic mythology when he heard footsteps in the hallway. And he very intentionally didn't look up as she entered. The cat did, though, perched as she was from the newly created mantle.