Your name is Stephen Strange, and you are being lectured about food science. Bruce Banner not only has several opinions about this issue, but is also the closest you've ever seen him to breaking his Polite Gentleman persona in order to educate you about the dangers of experimenting with unprescribed nutrition pills.
So then you spend the next twenty minutes explaining a sorcerer's food problems to Bruce, then another five helping him cope with the mental trauma that is a bowl of purple tentacles. Another fifty minutes are devoted to breaking down one of the purple tentacles to see how much theanine is actually in them, and then forty more minutes are buried in recipe and chemistry books while Bruce does something scientific to determine whether or not cooking with theanine is anywhere close to being an acceptable strategy.
And surprisingly… the answer turns out to be 'yes'.
Of course, Bruce then spends another thirty minutes thoroughly informing you that under no circumstances are you to ever serve theanine-laced food to anybody but a fellow sorcerer, because the amount of theanine you're going to have to consume per meal to match the content of a purple tentacle is far, far, far over the recommended daily limit of 1/8th of a teaspoon. You make sure to appease him by agreeing fervently.
All of which to say, you have full permission from your local dietitian to begin theanine experiments, and you immediately order a full pound of bulk theanine powder off the internet. Powder, not tablets, because Bruce has kindly informed you that powder will be much nicer to cook with. You'll have to find a different purpose for the small pill bottle you're already purchased. The powder costs a truly staggering amount of money when compared to the amount of product you're going to receive - but on the bright side, you've qualified for free shipping.
Small mercies.
In some ways, your new position as Sorcerer Supreme is comparable to your previous position as Head Surgeon, in that a lot of people lower on the hierarchy scale come to you with their problems, questions, comments, concerns, cries of anguish, and literally anything else they feel might be important at any given time.
The way where it differs is that, unlike at the hospital, there is no one you can foist the responsibility off on when you feel irritated, nobody who you can point the masses at to get a break for yourself. There is no Director of Sorcerers like there is a Director of the hospital. Or, maybe there is, except that now you're the Director.
It turns out that in the wake of the Ancient One's death, everything about the Sorcerer community had come to a bit of a standstill. Any decision that needed the Sorcerer Supreme's say in the matter ground to a screeching halt, because there was no Sorcerer Supreme to give a say. Now that you've taken up the position, and the chain of authority is intact again, every piece of paperwork that has been building up in the meantime has suddenly found itself in your library. It's a dozen different four-foot-high piles of intimidation, just sitting and waiting to be addressed.
With rightful trepidation, you take the first paper off the top of the stack closest to you. It's a draft proposal of the recruitment process - apparently, some of the sorcerers in the community think the rate of new initiates ought to be cut down. You raise an eyebrow and wonder how a system that already relies on new people actively seeking the sorcerers out could possibly be made to be less exclusive than it already is.
You heave a sigh, grab a pen, and sit down to draft a Polite Rejection. It's a good thing your time as Head Surgeon made you fluent in legal jargon; you have a feeling you're going to need it.
The next few days go by in a blur of paperwork and tea, with a few queasy moments from your continued attempts to avoid tentacles scattered between. The tracking number for the theanine powder tells you that it will be in sometime later this week, and you can only feel like it can't come soon enough. You've been subsisting on tea and miniscule portions of things like plain toast and dry cereal for over two weeks now, and you're beginning to seriously feel the effects of that.
Plus, having the theanine powder around will be an excellent excuse to get away from your paperwork for a while. You haven't left the library in over twenty-four hours, and you haven't left the Sanctum in even longer.
So when Wong pokes his head into the library to tell you that there's a man in the main hall of the Sanctum asking for you, you have to work very hard to not seem too eager to take a break. Your work ethic has always been impeccable, and your stubbornness equally so - you would have continued to slog through your duties until they were done, regardless of how you felt about them. But you're not going to deny yourself the chance to do something, anything else for a while.
Which is how you find Jonathan Pangborn standing in your foyer, arms crossed and shifting awkwardly from foot to foot. He looks torn between ease and uncertainty - which, you suppose, might be somewhat understandable. He did choose to leave the sorcerer community, after all, and despite the fact that the Ancient One preached openness and acceptance, there will always be those few people who will shun the ones who turned away.
Also, Jonathan is only just now recovering from having his magic and body control brutally ripped away by a man he likely once called a friend. That's probably left some mental scars.
Well. The very least you can do is be hospitable. Tea? You offer.
Earl Grey, Jonathan returns, which is how you both end up in the kitchen, cupping mugs and taking awkward sips to avoid starting conversation. In your defense, it's a very difficult conversation to start from your end - there is absolutely no easy way to broach the topic of, 'so how's your magic settling back in since I returned it to you after it was ripped out by a former friend?' without feeling like you're in hostile territory. You're going to wait for Jonathan to start this discussion, thanks.
Jonathan seems to be having much the same problem as you, though, and so you're nearly done with your tea by the time he gets up the motivation.
Thank you, he says quietly.
...On second thought, this is somehow more uncomfortable than the silence. You immediately try to deflect. You don't need to thank me for righting a wrong.
But you didn't have to try, Jonathan fires back immediately. You didn't have to track me down.
He's right, and he knows that you know it. There goes your ability to deflect.
Thank you, Jonathan repeats, fervently this time.
You stare at him, then down at your empty mug and imagine Wong's face if you manage to screw this interaction up.
You're welcome, you manage, feeling supremely out-of-sorts. You're not good with gratitude, especially genuine gratitude. It makes you feel like you have to find a reason why it's not deserved. A side effect, probably, of your previous personality and all the regret that you feel for it, which strikes you as not necessarily healthy, but. Well. You have larger problems right now.
You have to bring up Mordo.
Tact is not something you have ever been good at, and you likely never will be. So instead of trying to dance around the topic, you instead take a deep breath and plunge right in.
The sorcerer community has Mordo in custody, you tell Jonathan, for his crimes against the people. As a victim, Jonathan by law has the right to meet with - and if he so desires - judge his attacker. Justice, in the sorcerer community, is often a very mutual effort. You know for a fact that, on top of Mordo's confinement, he has had several 'visits' from sorcerers who felt understandably miffed by the theft of their magic. Not all of those 'visits' have been fit for polite company. (There has definitely been some angry screaming.)
Jonathan, to his credit, leans back and furrows his brow in thought. Eventually he says, Has Wong spoken with Mordo?
You can't suppress a shudder at the memory. Mordo had been all but unresponsive with terror for two whole days afterward.
Then that's all the retribution I'll need, Jonathan decides. Left unsaid, though you can read it on his face, is the fact that he will not willingly approach Mordo, possibly for the rest of his life. You don't press the issue; you know better than that.
Your meeting goes a bit more smoothly after that, especially after you press the bottle of theanine pills into Jonathan's palm as he leaves. He doesn't get the same side effects as a full sorcerer would, because he is not actively interacting with his magic, but he does have digestion issues from time to time. According to Bruce's research, taking a pill as a supplement with each meal will be more than enough for the type of magic-symptoms that Jonathan experiences.
He may or may not tear up when you give him the bottle. He hasn't been able to eat pizza in six months. You're concerned that he might have a religious experience at the thought.
Although, if you'd been unable to eat pizza for six months, you'd probably be pretty grateful too.
Jonathan implies that he'll keep in touch this time, which you think that Wong will appreciate more than you will - but for all that you and Jonathan got off to a rough start on the basketball court all that time ago, it seems to have been smoothed over by your more recent interactions. Maybe, you'll be able to count him among your friends someday. You think you'd like that.
Then you let out a sigh and head back into paperwork purgatory. Those signatures aren't going to write themselves, and given that your hands will never quite allow for easy penmanship again, you want as much time as you can devote.
Elise gives you a Look as she passes through on her daily rounds, the one which bluntly informs the recipient that she Does Not Approve of whatever is happening. You carefully ignore this and pretend like you've been a competent human being who totally stopped for a lunch break and hasn't actually been at this since the beginning of the week.
If you're convincing enough, she might not set Wong on you.
Elise turns out to be a moot factor, because eventually Wong sets himself on you. He does this by confiscating the paperwork and not telling you where he's hidden it, with the caveat that until he sees you perform some self-care, he won't be giving it back. This, you think, is distinctly unfair, because you haven't been neglecting yourself at all. You still shower, brush your teeth, brush your hair. You just maybe haven't worn anything nicer than sweatpants and a hoodie for the past week.
They're clean, you inform Wong when he gives you his mistreated-book/favorite-apple expression, because while you will admit that your outfit is not in the best shape, you're not the kind of man who wears dirty laundry. Wong knows this about you.
Unfortunately, he also knows that the day you willingly wear sweatpants around the Sanctum is the day when you need to be removed from whatever you're fixating on. This is how Wong kicks you out of the library and into the kitchen, where the theanine powder has been sitting on the counter since it arrived three days ago. Elise had perched it there as a pointed reminder that you have other things to do that aren't paperwork, but you've been carefully ignoring that too. You're almost halfway done with the piles, after all.
Still, you know that Wong won't let you back in the library until he's been satisfied that you've taken enough of a break. So, you roll up your sleeves, grab one of the bags of theanine powder, pull up the measurements you made with Bruce from your memory, and get started on a homemade pizza.
...Jonathan made it sound amazing, alright?
Your name is Stephen Strange, and you really hope that theanine pizza dough is going to mesh well with pepperonis and mushrooms.
I continue to bluff my way through food science. Please don't squint too closely at it, I have no idea how well this is gonna hold up under tough scrutiny.
In other news, I now have "does Stephen Strange have a favorite pizza topping" in my search history. (The answer, by the way, is 'who the heck knows'. If he does have one, I couldn't find it, so I rouletted for my toppings instead.)
Sorry for the wait, life's been crazy. This seems like a good time to reiterate that I don't abandon stories. No matter how long it takes me, I will always come back.
Lastly, please note Stephen's newest enemy: paperwork, that insidious little devil.
-Changeling
Thanks to draco1221, mikeyb93, Sighlert, Purrskitty6, gourmetix313, O Cavaleiro da Luz, ProwlSIC, ArtBlock, Laties228, for Favoriting/Following!
