#just a couple of the myriad reasons that I love Stephen Strange with all my heart

[sobeautifullyobsessed]

For all of its problems, there are still things I truly enjoy about Multiverse of Madness. Things that reflect some of Stephen's best qualities. Like his complete and immediate willingness to sacrifice his life, and even his own soul, to protect even just one other person.

We've seen this quality over and over on his MCU journey ~ and though it's a completely thankless job, he never hesitates. What the Ancient One properly called his capacity for goodness.

And the absolute brilliance and flexibility of his beautiful mind - coupled with the magic that he's built far beyond what he learned in Kamar-Taj. Dreamwalking into his own, dead Variant!

Seizing the Souls of the Damned and fashioning them into a Cloak to fly him across to Wundagore...and then using them to entrap Wanda (enough to slow her down, anyway)! Show me another MCU Sorcerer with that same ability to think out of the box and such incredible magic; magic worthy of the Sorcerer Supreme in any universe.

[amethyst-noir]

i enjoyed the inclusion of tony sort of... whoring himself in that last fic. would it be possible to write an au more centered around that subject? maybe stephen had to sell himself to get through medical school and sometimes it wasn't consensual? if thats too much i understand! just figured it might help some people who deal with that

[Sunday is now officially my post-it-if-you-have-something-day. People send me prompts, so they obviously want to read the result. Thanks for that; I feel honored.]

Uh, that’s a hard one but it caught my imagination. I won’t write non-con;the aftermath of it is bad enough. (I like sex scenes to be sweet and romanticand/or kinky as hell but always consensual and I’m bad at writing them.) So,this happened. The Stephen/Tony here is “just” friendship (aka themost important foundation for any relationship). There is the potential for itto maybe become more in the far-off future but right now? No. There are other,more important, things to do first.

And if the prompt itself and my note up there don’t make it clear enough: TWfor rape/non-con. It’s not described at all and not spoken about in detailbut it’s there because… well, look above.

Find a Way(to break the fall)

Stephen didn’tthink about it anymore. It had been buried deep beneath all the other shit he’dhad to live through in the last couple of years and it didn’t impact his day today life in any way whatsoever. His nightmares were of dying in a myriad ofways, one more painful than the other, not reliving the ancient past.

It wasn’t as if hewas looking for someone or that someone to be another man; he was too busyliving, learning and protecting.

So it was anunpleasant surprise for both of them when one day Tony grabbed him by the hipsto move him out of the way and Stephen flinched. Hard. He froze on thespot a second after and Tony put up his arms and backed away as if afraid of anattack. Only then he’d noticed that he’d put up his hands in a classicdefensive position, his magic tingling in his fingers to fight off the threat.

“Stephen?”Tony asked, more confused than afraid but a hint of fear lurked in his eyes andvoice. He still had trouble with magic, especially the offensive kind. And tohave a friend threatening him…

Shit. Stephen knew almost immediately why he’d reacted like that, of course. Hestill felt Tony’s hands on his hips, even though it had only lasted for a momentand his grip had been gentle. But suddenly he could feel bruises on his skin,beneath the layers of clothes he wore, and it was as if it had happenedyesterday. All his carefully constructed barriers - broken down in an instantby an innocent touch.

“Sorry, I’msorry. I’ve just…” He didn’t even try to explain further, just turnedaround and vanished as soon as the portal had formed.

*

The same night hisnightmares gained a new flavor - old and new elements mixing together to form anew kind of torment that was worse than ever before. Worse than the dreamsabout the accident; far more devastating than the dreams about dying in thedark dimension or the ones about his fight against Thanos. There he had beenable to do something, to fight, be active, resist, despite his handsbeing almost useless. He hadn’t been a victim by choice without any power.Helpless and desperate. The only thing that came close was the sensation oflosing himself and fading away into nothing.

Now, all thecombined trauma gave him a whole new appreciation of the term “nightterror” that went so far that he started to research ways for forgoingsleep altogether. Unfortunately, escaping into his astral form while his bodyrested wasn’t a long-term solution. Okay for a couple of days - or even weeksif necessary - but it put too much stress on his body and the toll would onlyget higher and higher the longer he used this escape.

Plus, there wasTony. The man who had backed off considerably since Stephen’s flight and whosepresence was sorely missed. Tony, who could be an emotional idiot but was morethan perceptive enough to see that something was off and by now was probablyworried sick that he had done something wrong.

Their friendshiphad started off strong and had only gotten stronger in the months since Thanos’defeat. Playful banter had become more, the flirting too and… oh. There it was,the reason for his reaction to Tony’s innocent touch.

Stephen felt sostupid he could have hit himself. Instead, he forced himself to look away from hisbook and at his resting body. In sleep it looked innocent, only the stillshaking hands betraying that something was not quite right with it. It hadbrought him some much pain and misery over the years but it still didn’tdeserve the treatment he put it through now. He deserved better. He puthis book aside with very slow and precise movements, took a deep breath and triedto force away the images from his youth that wanted to destroy his hard-wonpeace. He pushed away the memories of strangers with cruel hands and too muchstrength and tried to imagine what he wanted instead.

Himself, curled upin bed, Tony behind him, holding him loosely, both of them relaxed in theirsleep. No nightmares, just peace. For both of them.

I want this.

With a sickfeeling in his stomach he went back into his body, knowing that this littlefantasy would probably never play out. Others would.

The nightmare of athousand needles piercing his flesh everywhere, while Ebony Maw had his waywith him woke him a short while later.

He awoke in tears,his hands on fire, and with the knowledge that he owed it to himself to dosomething, anything to make it stop.

*

He tried themystic arts and the other Masters, of course. Made his farewells to a disappointedand wondering Tony and vanished to Kamar-Taj. Tried to lose himself in researchand training but also visited the healers. Meditated, tried to find peace withhis choices back then. Told himself over and over again that it wasn’t hisfault, that it was time to move on. It did help, a little, but not enough.

You need therapy. The voice of Doctor Strange, MD, became louder with every passing day.Stephen knew it was the truth, but still he resisted. He was stronger thanthat. He’d gotten over it on his own before, he could do it again. Andyou’ve it done so well the first time, his inner doctor mocked him. Stephenbegan to hate the logical, rational part of himself but finally concededdefeat.

*

“Stephen!You’re back!” Tony came nearer, his hands spread out wide. “Greetingsfrom this earthly realm, oh Master of the Mystic Arts! Welcome back on thisplane of existence!”

Stephen just hadto smile at the sheer joy in Tony’s voice and roll his eyes at the words, butthe smile dropped when Tony came to a standstill before they could embrace. Hisarms were still open. He’s waiting for me to make the next step, Stephenrealized and suddenly wanted to cry. Instead, he forced the smile back onto hisface and stepped into the embrace of his friend. Tony obviously suspected whathad set him off weeks ago because while he held Stephen in a tight embrace hewas very careful to keep his hands high up on Stephen’s back.

After a moment ofinternal fight Stephen just gave up and let himself collapse into the hold,trusting Tony to catch him.

Tony, of course,did, without a word. Except a soft: “I’ve missed you.”

*

“How did youknow?”, he asked about an hour later. He held a hot cup of tea in hishands to keep them as steady as possible and force his mind to be in thepresent.

Tony gave him alook as if he was earth’s biggest idiot. “I touch you on the hips and yourfirst instinct is to raise a defensive shield? I might not get people, as I’mreminded over and over again, but know that kind of reaction.” He lookedaway and played with his own cup of coffee. “I’m sorry. I’ve never saidthat, didn’t I? You never did give any indication that my touch wouldn’t bewelcome or I would never have…”

Why? How? Didsomebody hurt you or was it someone you love? Every protectiveinstinct he possessed reared up and demanded to know the answers, to extractrevenge. “I didn’t,” he said instead. “It didn’t occur to mesince it’s not something I’ve thought about… in a long time. It happened when Iwas a student, barely in my twenties. Practically three lifetimes away. It tookme as much by surprise as you.”

“Stephen.”Tony put his coffee down and focused all of his attention on him. It was likebeing in the focus of the sun itself, wonderful and terrifying in equalmeasures. “You don’t have to explain anything.”

“But what ifI want to?” The words had slipped out before he thought about theconsequences. He had played with the idea after he’d concluded that therapymight work for him but he couldn’t imagine talking to a stranger. He neededsomeone he already trusted, who already knew about his crazy life and hisexperiences in the last few years. He had thought about approaching Wong but asclose as their friendship was he just couldn’t imagine talking about… thatwith him. Or any of the other masters. The thought of speaking about this toChristine, the only other friend he hadn’t managed to alienate, was just asunappealing. Surprisingly, or maybe not, he could imagine to do so with TonyStark. Most people might not believe it but the man could be a great listenerwho had brilliant insights. “Forget it,” he said a moment later.There was no way he was putting even more pressure on Tony, he had already morethan enough demons of his own.

“Forgetit?” Tony echoed. “Seriously? You listened to me rave and rant aboutpretty much everything under the sun and then you want to deny me the chance ofdoing the same for you?” He suddenly looked a lot more vulnerable, as ifremembering something unpleasant. As always when he was uncomfortable withsomething he was rubbing his left shoulder. “I’m here, I’m free for thenext, oh, four to five days, longer if necessary.” He leaned back on thecouch, folded his hands into his lap and stared at Stephen. “You talking,me talking, just staring at each other thinking about how pretty we are… it’syour choice.”

Not everything waslost when Tony was still low-key flirting with him and it served as a reminderthat Tony didn’t suddenly see him in a completely different light. Stephenclosed his eyes, relieved. He carefully put his tea aside and stared at hisshaking hands.

“Whatevergruesome scenario you might have conjured up it wasn’t like that,” hebegan and grimaced immediately. “It wasn’t some brutal assault orsomething. It was by my own choice.”

“It was yourchoice that you were raped? Bullshit!” Tony sat up and startedpacing the room. Stephen got dizzy by just watching him. Then the full extentof the words hit him and the shook his head.

“It wasn’trape”, he said very quietly. “Coercion at worst. It was my choice. Ineeded the money and it was the quickest and easiest way.” He swallowed,feeling sick again. He forced himself to summon his tea just to have somethingin his hands again. He didn’t drink. “My choice,” he repeated.

Tony just lookedat him. If that’s what you need to tell yourself to get through this so beit, he seemed to think. “Easy is something else. If it really had beenyour choice you wouldn’t have flinched when I touched you.” Suddenly Tonywas kneeling before him and looking up. “But this is me, being pushyagain. Sorry. Backing down now.” He leaned back a little, presentinghimself to Stephen as if to say I’m not a threat, just look at me, beinghere. Surprisingly it worked. He was able to take a deep breath again andcould feel the oncoming panic attack recede a little bit. “Thank you fortelling me. I’ll be more careful in the future when I touch you.”

When, not if. Noteverything was irrevocably changed, Tony wasn’t disgusted and there was stillhope. One day he would ask Tony when and where he’d gone to therapy. He was fartoo good in getting people to get to calm down and knew when to back off -there was no way in hell the world-famous weapons dealer from eleven years agobecame the man he was today without some serious help. Professional, highlypaid, help from whose work Stephen now profited by proxy. He didn’t feel badabout it. He probably couldn’t even afford the help he really needed and thisreasons for not seeking it out still stood.

Tony was stillwaiting for an answer. Stephen stared at his hands and refused to look up.“I would like that,” he finally admitted, pushing against the wave offear that tried to claw its way up to the surface. He was safe now and morethan capable of defending himself should somebody try to take advantage of himever again. On the edge of his vision he could see Tony come nearer.

“Likethis?” he asked as he took the cup away from him. Instead he put hissteady hands over Stephen’s shaking ones as if he could still their tremblingby touch alone. The only feeling it caused was one of safety and warmth. “I’mhere, Stephen. Anytime you need to talk, just call me.”

Stephen smiled,touched by the gesture. “Thank you.”

It was a start. A rathergood one, considering everything. The rest would come in time.

=/\=