ᴅᴏᴄᴛᴏʀ sᴛʀᴀɴɢᴇ (mysticism) wrote in stromaisleic, @ 2023-03-16 21:27:00 |
|
|||
There was a very haunted beach sort of vibe here - and given the nature of the lighthouse, of the creepy church that Stephen wouldn’t touch with a ten-foot pole, it didn’t seem surprising. It wasn’t exactly a tropical getaway with powdery white sand an an abundance of sunshine - more like corridors made of rocks and sandstone you could easily slip on, where slate gray pebbles were washed smooth during their tremulous journey down the coast, creating a soft whisper of a rustle as they were lapped at by the waves. Fog, that too - for an extra ‘horror’ effect, of course. Fog thick was maple syrup, breathing it in causing a watery chill - he had to wonder what the island was hiding. Probably plenty of secrets, like they all were, but secrets were always uncovered over time. It was the way of things. He’d gone to get Natasha from where she was staying - these houses could all use some work, but it provided something of a project to dig hands into - and had found something at the lighthouse that resembled a flask (there was an abundance of cooking equipment, at least - so he grabbed a bottle, it was fine), pausing to stop at the fresh water supply to fill up his treasure. Then it was a walk along the beach, with Cloak at his back and fluttering gently, a potential pair of wings - but his relic also kept him warm, patched together with maroon and navy blue material which covered the hole where he’d taken a magical blast from Wanda, in the name of protecting America. America. He hoped she was okay. “Just tell me where you want to stop - I’ll transfigure us some vodka,” he offered, water sloshing in its bottle. * Knowing that there were people around with enhanced senses, Natasha wanted to make sure they were far enough away that they wouldn’t be overheard. She wasn’t ready to hear Steve or Tony’s thoughts about her actions on Vormir and was relieved that they had both been pulled here before that occurred. Of course, that time point raised other potential issues, like the fact that the men hadn’t made their peace since the whole Accords thing, but that was something Natasha could handle, even if it meant smacking them both until they admitted they were idiots. Natasha wasn’t the type to open up to anyone about her thoughts and feelings, preferring to keep those things to herself so they couldn’t be used against her. Despite not having actually met Strange face to face prior to their arrival here yesterday, she did feel like she knew the man and was surprised to find herself more at ease with him than she usually was around people. As they walked, she watched his cloak moving as if it had a mind of its own. Magic was still largely unknown to her, though she realized she probably needed to learn about it if they were going to be stuck here for a while. “You are going to be very popular around here if people find out you can transfigure alcohol,” she remarked as she finally came to a stop and spread out a blanket she’d liberated from the house where she set up camp. * “Oh, good,” Stephen snarked, his tone laced with sarcasm - maybe a twinge of amusement too, because this was certainly a situation to be in and it may as well have happened to him, right? Right. “Popularity. My dream goal.” He supposed he didn’t mind though, really. Sometimes you just needed something to take the edge off - and given that they all had plenty to worry about, especially since they had no idea where they were or how long they’d be here or where they would get a change of clothes? Well. It was either let the worries stack up like building blocks, or find some way to cope. Cloak twirled off his shoulders like a living shadow, a graceful execution, and changed shape as it moved - it then lovingly draped around Stephen’s neck and formed a knot, turning itself into a scarf for now, while he settled on the blanket that Natasha spread out. The Cloak was full of tricks, however - and it seemed to want to encourage him to be social. Kind of a new thing, honestly - he didn’t invite people over, didn’t host dinner parties, didn’t even really have candy to give out on Halloween, not unless kids wanted instant oatmeal, powdered myrrh, or crystals that had been attuned to the energies of a black moon. Stephen Strange? Loner? Check. “Here you go - “ His fingers tutted elegantly over the water bottle - a moment later, the liquid changed though you wouldn’t know it unless you tasted it; vodka tended to be odorless. “Let me know how that is.” * Natasha held the bottle up to her nose and sniffed. Cheap vodka often had an unusual scent to it and as much as she wanted a drink right now, she wasn’t sure if she could trust Strange’s magic. Not detecting anything amiss, she took a careful sip. After a moment, she nodded her approval. “I’ve had better, but I’ve also had much, much worse.” Russians took their vodka seriously. This would do. After taking a longer drink, she held the bottle out to him, assuming that they were sharing. “Your cape has quite a personality,” she commented. “Is that some kind of spell or something else?” Natasha didn’t know a lot about Strange or magic and she was interested in learning about both. * Passing the vodka test with a Russian administering the aforementioned test? An amazing feat. Stephen would take that as a win. “High praise,” he chuckled, smooth, like smoke curling into the air. Or like they were trading stories in the back of a bar someplace - compared to this beach, a bar admittedly seemed a lot warmer. But the chill of the sea breeze was actually somewhat invigorating as salt scraped the high planes of his cheekbones, so he supposed it could be worse. “It’s a Cloak, actually - capes are shorter,” he winked, and had probably pointed that out just to be a shit. He’d never tell (narrator: yes, yes he had). Then he took the bottle and indulged in a swig; good vodka was a bit spicy, and this fit the bill. Briny, almost. “But no, it’s not a spell - Cloak’s more like a relic. Perhaps an enchanted one, dating back centuries. It was encased like other relics at the New York Sanctum - but I broke it free during a scuffle and it just so happened to choose me as its companion.” The bottle was passed back to Natasha - seemed almost surreal to be sharing a drink with her right now. They hadn’t really known each other when shit was hitting the fan yet they ran in the same circles - or circles that were close together. Everyone was united to stop Thanos - most everyone. Yet it was nice - he wouldn’t get this opportunity back home. “That feels like...so long ago,” he added, almost wistful. * “My apologies,” Natasha said, her tone completely serious as she addressed the piece of fabric around his neck. “I meant no offense.” Once upon a time, she might have thought it was crazy to speak to a Cloak. These days? Nothing really fazed her. Maybe knowing that this was her last hurrah had something to do with that. If they ever figured out this place and managed to send people home, she would cease to exist. That thought had her taking another very long drink when Stephen handed her back the bottle. “I read your file,” she said. “But I don’t really know your story. I mean, I know about the accident and I know you helped Thor and were trying to stop Thanos. I don’t know how you got from point A to point B though.” Or rather, she knew what the file said and she also knew from personal experience that there was probably a lot that wasn’t included. She enjoyed the chill in the air, it reminded her of Russia, the place she still considered home even after all this time. A place she would never see again. Her expression remained stoic in spite of her thoughts. * “My file, huh?” Stephen wasn’t surprised he had a file - with SHIELD or whatever else. Nor was he surprised by the fact that someone like Natasha had researched him - she probably had to, and it wasn’t as if he was a stranger to being on lists. HYDRA had him smack-dab on their threat list - maybe SHIELD as well, to some degree. After all, Strange had always been something of a wildcard. “I didn’t know you were even interested in my story.” Since they were here, may as well share. He turned the bottle in scarred hands before taking another drink, the vodka going down easy - no, it likely wasn’t up to far with the finest varieties but he’d done his best. It was good to share for the purposes of a beach talk - if he squinted, he could pretend they weren’t even on some creepy, haunted island. “If you know about the accident, I was desperate to heal my hands after that. Blew through all my savings looking for some kind of miracle cure,” Stephen said, tone rough but quiet and thoughtful. He hadn’t really told this story in awhile - but he remembered every moment, his life experiences like his own Akashic Record. Doctor Strange and his hero’s journey. Except it had taken him awhile to feel like any kind of hero - took him awhile to feel anything besides pain, when he’d finally crawled out of it and did what he had to do to protect the world. It had been entirely his fault, naturally - that accident. He thought he could drive distractedly at night in the rain, navigating mountain roads that twisted like fiery serpents, and be perfectly fine - he wasn’t. “I met this guy, Jonathan Pangborn - doctors told him that he’d never walk again but here he was, playing basketball. I asked him how he did it and he told me about a place in Kathmandu. Kamar-Taj, where he was trained in the mystic arts and learned how to heal himself through magic and mindfulness. Needless to say I was skeptical, but - I went to Nepal and convinced the Ancient One to teach me.” He supposed he could heal himself completely, but - he’d already had that talk with the Ancient One. About choosing between himself and a greater purpose. Besides, the brokenness of his hands served as a reminder that not everything could be fixed, or had to be fixed; it was a connection to humanity, in an odd way. * It seemed as if they all had some kind of tragic backstory. Natasha wondered if anyone ‘normal’ ever found their way into the superhero gig or if the overwhelming desire to help others was born out of a response to trauma. Based on the people she knew, the latter seemed to be the case and Stephen’s story was no different. Of course, the stories she heard were of an arrogant man and from what she’d seen the past couple of days, he was anything but. When she reached for the bottle of vodka, she caught his hand in hers so she could hold it up and examine his scars. She could understand why he’d been so hellbent on finding a cure in the immediate aftermath of his accident. Natasha’s body was riddled with scars courtesy of her youth in the red room and her many years in the field as both a Widow and a SHIELD agent so there was no judgment in her expression, simply curiosity. Once that was satisfied, she let go of his hand and took a drink of the vodka. At the rate they were going, they were going to run out of alcohol long before they ran out of stories. “That whole meteoric rise from begging for training to Sorcerer Supreme is pretty impressive,” she said. * When Natasha took his hand, Stephen paused - froze, kind of, because having someone actually touch him beyond something like a handshake or America catapulting at him for a frantic hug was something he was rusty at experiencing. Didn’t freeze in a bad way, of course, more like he was just surprised - the scars on the backs of his hands were raised, and had faded to bone-white over the years. But there was still the uncontrollable flutter of his fingers, something that channeling magic to help him do precise tasks like repair a watch wouldn’t ever fully fix. And that was fine - he’d gotten used to it. He’d evolved, in a sense, when it came to his injury - didn’t feel like he was looking at a stranger’s hands anymore, when he looked at his. It was almost odd, the passage of time - the way it split into Before and After. Before, you could Google the name ‘Stephen Strange’ and a wealth of information would pop up - everything from article after article lauding his exemplary career as a neurosurgeon, to many hospital wards dedicated to him. And then After? There was nothing. “Yeah, well,” he snorted lightly, self-deprecating humor. “Being dust for five years took Sorcerer Supreme away from me - not that it matters much, I guess. It’s a lot of rules and conformity - I tend to want to solve problems in unconventional ways.” Right. Dreamwalking into his own corpse and knitting the souls of the damned into a cloak which he commanded to carry him to Wundagore definitely could be filed under unconventional. “What about you?” he asked. “Any interesting stories that I don’t know? Though I’m guessing what most people don’t know about you could fill many books.” * Unconventional was the best way to get things done in Natasha’s experience. Maybe that was also part of the superhero package. You had to think outside the box sometimes and some people were incapable of doing so. The corners of her lips turned up in a smirk at his comment. “Until yesterday, Steve didn’t know I have a sister,” she confirmed. The only person who knew of Yelena’s existence was Clint and even he only knew a very limited amount about their experiences. Her years in Ohio with Yelena, Alexei, and Melina were a treasured memory that provided her with comfort and strength many times when she was in difficult situations and something she largely kept to herself. “Yelena and I were both raised in the Red Room Academy,” Natasha explained. “We were sent undercover in Ohio for three years where we lived with two other operatives as a typical American family. Three years we lived as a family.” Her tone turned wistful as she discussed the experience. “It was… nice.” Natasha took another drink from the bottle and then offered it to Stephen. “When our assignment ended, we were separated, but I still consider them my family. We were able to reconnect a few years ago.” And take down the Red Room, hopefully for good. * “A sister - interesting,” Stephen remarked, grasping the bottle. But he considered for a moment and then returned it to Natasha - she could have the rest of the vodka. He’d already consumed a few shots worth and he wanted to keep himself sharp. Who knows what Bad Decisions™ he’d make while under the influence. “I thought I saw her here too? Yelena?” Her and Rogers chatting on the forum, on his entry - he’d simply observed without interrupting, but he’d taken note of what was said; Yelena had mentioned her father then as well (my dad. Natasha’s too). So while he heard a blip (no pun intended) here and there about Natasha having a sister, learning that it was because of an assignment added an extra layer. “Family bonds are important - they are nice,” he agreed. “They seem to form much to our surprise sometimes.” He missed having that - a lot. Missed the farm, for all the trouble it was - missed his sister, the happy times before the crack of the ice splintered and echoed in his ears. “And the Avengers are your family too, I assume.” She’d died for them, after all - that meant something. * “Family bonds can also be dangerous,” Natasha said. Caring about people gave you vulnerabilities that your enemies could use against you. It was one of the primary reasons that no one knew about Yelena and, to a lesser degree, Alexei and Melina. Especially after she defected from the Red Room and joined SHIELD, she didn’t want to put them on anyone’s radar. It was also why Clint had kept Laura and the kids out of the SHIELD files. She closed her eyes for a moment, thinking about her best friend and how he coped, or rather, failed to cope, with losing his family. While Natasha had many regrets about things she’d done in her life, jumping off that cliff so Clint could get Laura and the kids back would never be one of them. “We became a family, yes.” A dysfunctional family, but a family nonetheless. “Clint and I were already close.” It was why Coulson had contacted her all those years ago when he’d fallen under Loki’s enchantment. This conversation was getting much more personal than Natasha expected. It might join her list of regrets at some point, but for now, she was rolling with it. “Who’s important to Dr. Stephen Strange?” she asked. * “I guess in certain lines of work they can be dangerous,” Stephen nodded. “Pretty important in a place like this though.” Or so he assumed - but they had to work together if they wanted to get anything done, or have any sort of hope of leaving. Overall, he had a feeling it would be an exercise in opening up - in forming connections and maintaining them. He glanced at the sea, the way it crashed like its own symphony, reflected the sky, and then receded - stay out of the water was paramount, yet he couldn’t help but admire from afar. And there were so many boats - surely fishing wouldn’t hurt? Ponderings for another time, probably when they decided that eating leafy greens wasn’t going to cut it. And he couldn’t conjure or transfigure too many marshmallows. “What, you don’t believe that I’m a grumpy loner yelling at people to get off his lawn?” he smirked, shifting his gaze back toward Natasha. “There are a few people. There’s - a kid. America. I found her because she was being chased by this creature, a demon henchman - someone wanted to take her, to steal her power from her, and kept chasing her. She can travel the multiverse, which means it’s a highly lucrative power. So I protected her - and now she’s in training at Kamar-Taj.” He thought there might be someone else too - it was just hard to grasp. Dent on paper where the pen left imprints behind, that sort of thing. Odd for someone who clearly recalled everything. * Natasha laughed at his comment about being a grumpy loner. Most people saw her as aloof and dangerous and while she could be both, those who took the time to get to know her soon learned that she had a cheeky side she enjoyed letting out to play. It wasn’t her fault that a lot of people were too intimidated by her to put in the work to get past her walls and she was hardly going to make it easy on them. “Wow, that is an incredible ability,” she agreed. “I imagine it’s a lonely one too. Especially for a kid.” If she was constantly jumping from one universe to another, she likely didn’t have any strong bonds. “She was lucky you found her.” The crashing of waves was a soothing soundtrack to their conversation. Sitting here like this, it was easy to forget the reality of their situation and the tremendous amount of work ahead of them. The wind picked up a bit and Natasha took another drink of vodka in an attempt to stave off the shivers. “Who was after her? HYDRA? The government? Some new player?” * Ah, explaining that? Therein was the difficulty. “New player, sort of,” Stephen replied. “I think I mentioned a lot of things had changed once dust settled from, well, all of us being dust. Wanda was - having trouble with the loss of Vision. I don’t think the government was particularly helpful either, when it came to allowing her to honor him as she chose.” But that didn’t surprise Stephen - suits had never seen Vision as a person, just as a commodity they could exploit for their purposes. A weapon. “It’s a long story and I don’t think I want to get into it right now - another night, another bottle of vodka, perhaps. But the gist of it is that Wanda was reeling from multiple losses and wanted to recover some of that - she went down a dark path in order to obtain what she desired, likely promised things that she couldn’t ever truly have and a lot of people got hurt.” He realized he was being vague but the thought of elaborating made his temples throb - maybe some other time, but at the moment it was all kind of fresh. Being there, possessing the corpse of his dead self and watching as Wanda brought down a crumbling evil temple around them in order to end the Darkhold’s temptations was still fresh - Stephen didn’t judge her, because he knew how potent the sway of that damn book was. At the heart of her, she was good - and he forgave her for what she did in the name of coming after him to get to America. He might need a little more time with some other aspects - the scorched remains of those fallen sorcerers and the rebuilding of Kamar-Taj continued to haunt him - but for the most part? Their stories were too similar for him to feel any other way besides understanding. That was what being the Scarlet Witch was all about - endless power, endless grief. “Anyway, I trust you’ll keep that between us?” he asked. “If she shows up here, I’d like for the opportunity to talk to her.” Because it was a little chilly, Cloak decided to make itself useful - the relic unfolded from around Stephen’s neck and morphed into a bigger crimson blanket, draping over both him and Natasha. Cozy. * There wasn’t enough vodka in the world for that particular conversation. The last person Natasha expected to hear was a threat of any kind was Wanda. They had bonded during their time on the run after the mess with the Accords and Natasha was the one who convinced Steve and Sam not to interfere in her dalliances with Vision. After the loss of her parents and the experiments by HYDRA, Wanda deserved some glimmer of happiness in her life and Vision provided that. “Your secrets are safe with me, Doc,” she said, assuming that he, in turn, would keep her confidences without her needing to ask. Natasha was surprised when Cloak unfurled from around Stephen’s neck and stretched across both of them, though she did move a little closer as a result of their makeshift blanket. She finished the vodka and set the bottle aside in the sand. “I’m almost afraid to ask what else I’ve missed,” she said. “But what is the rest of the gang up to?” * “I’m not entirely sure,” Stephen confessed - stretching out, he reclined sort of casually and then pulled those daddy long legs back up again to sit criss-cross applesauce. The vodka was slithering through his system and felt warm, syrup drizzling in his veins - sure, alcohol tended to actually cause one to be colder since it sapped up heat from the body’s core but the psychosomatic effect was pleasant. Between the bug-themed crime fighters and the archer with a mohawk? Yeah, he didn’t really keep up with the Avenger-types. “I’ve mostly been in kind of my own mystical corner of the world. But when it comes to the gang, I’ll just assume no news is good news - they’re all on their own journeys. I’m sure there are things they have to figure out for themselves, or work through.” It wasn’t easy - fuck knew the challenges the world faced stacked up. But Stephen was grateful for his weird, wacky life - he’d take each new challenge as it came. * “Especially the kid Tony dragged along to Germany who ended up in space with you guys,” Natasha said, leaning back on her elbows to get more comfortable. The vodka hadn’t been enough to get her tipsy, but it definitely helped her relax. “This is no life for kids.” At home or here. “It worries me how many seem to be part of our population,” she admitted. “Teenagers are stupid and there are a lot of ways they can get in trouble on this island.” Not to mention quite a few of them already seemed to have issues with authority figures. So far, everyone was pitching in and working together, but Natasha knew that things could turn on a dime at any moment. Natasha sighed. “Figures even after death I don’t get a break.” * Stephen chuckled, a smooth sound - scotch poured into a glass, and yeah, maybe next time he should transfigure scotch. He could sit by a fire and pretend to be classy. “It’ll be alright,” he assured, as Cloak’s ‘arm’ raised up on one side and patted Natasha’s shoulder comfortingly - it seemed to like having people huddled beneath it for warmth. “I’m far from what one might call an optimist, but I do know that much.” Sure, kids would be kids - but he wasn’t about to infantilize a teenager, a young adult. The couple of teens he talked to seemed capable, if a little bit untrusting of adults - and he couldn’t blame them for that. But he found that not automatically swooping in to parent a youngin’ was a good course of action - it was possible they didn’t even need a parent anyway. Just someone to provide guidance, and that he could do. He shrugged, a lift of broad shoulders. “We’ll just take it a day at a time and figure things out as we go.” * At first, Natasha thought it was Stephen who was patting her shoulder and it surprised her. When she realized it was actually Cloak, well, she was still surprised and a little weirded out, but also kind of touched by the gesture. She let her head fall back and then turned it towards him. “Sometimes it sucks being the adult in the room.” As the only female on the original Avengers team, it was a feeling she was far too used to. Especially with Steve and Tony. “We’ll make it work. We always do.” Enough people seemed willing to step up that Natasha knew she wouldn’t have to bear all that weight on her own again. After the five and a half years post-snap, she was tired. “We may need more nights like this though.” She found that she liked talking to him. He was smart, funny, and had a way of being reassuring that she found comforting. Plus he could make vodka. * “Anytime,” Stephen agreed. “You don’t have to be the only adult in the room by yourself, so just keep that in mind.” They weren’t alone here - the responsibility of everything didn’t have to fall squarely on one person’s shoulders. Though he knew Natasha had basically spent those five years after the Snap keeping the remaining Avengers together - keeping the world together. She took control because no one else did, though luckily that wouldn’t happen now. He nudged her gently with his shoulder this time, no Cloak interference. “I’ll bring the vodka.” * Natasha favored him with a rare, genuine smile. “Thank you, Stephen. For the vodka and the conversation.” As much as she would like to stay here forever and forget about everything else they had to deal with, she knew they were both too responsible to shirk their self-determined responsibilities. “I suppose we ought to get back though. Make sure no one has burned anything down.” It was mostly a joke since the island was small enough that if something catastrophic happened, she figured they wouldn’t have missed it, but there also were valid concerns about things blowing up either literally or figuratively. |