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mostly-romance · 7 months ago

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Fate and Fairy Tales (Stephen Strange/Reader)

MCU Masterlist | Steve | Bucky | Tony

Summary: The Sorcerer Supreme spoke your soulmate Words while the magic of Kamar Taj healed your life-threatening wounds. Overwhelmed, you seek to hide your bond and save him from a lifetime of protecting someone as ordinary as you. The time comes to spend a week at the Sanctum, usually a reward for someone at your training level-- but will you make it through with your secrets intact?

Words/Warnings: 4,500 // none

This is a gift for the lovely @sobeautifullyobsessed, I do hope you enjoy! Here's an excerpt to tempt anyone else who might be interested! gif by @doctorstrangegifsparadise

“What do you hope to gain by your silence?” he asks, a tone of warning hovering just out of reach.

You’d already decided that pure silence has been like a scarlet Cloak to Strange’s bullish nature, so you hold up the microfiber cloth you’d been using on the window and address it, rather than him.

“What do you think, scrubcloth, was I looking to gain something by my silence, or simply enjoying my time in a sacred, meaningful space?”

His derisive scoff tickles the back of your neck, and you shiver. Suddenly he’s not an adversary but a man , one that’s technically yours for the taking. This is exactly what you were trying to avoid. His next words heighten your sense of danger.

“You are scheming, and I will find out why.”

Fate and Fairy Tales

Routine is important in Kamar Taj. You’re not much of a routine girl, but you’ve done your best to make up for that, something that’s gotten you recognized as a hard worker. There’s only one thing you’ve managed to dodge so far: a week-long assignment at the New York Sanctum. It’s practically a vacation, with easy work as a caretaker for the Artifacts, scheduled magic use to keep the defensive shielding active, and the opportunity to study some of the books that don’t leave the premises. The real draw for most of your colleagues is personalized instruction from the Sorcerer Supreme.

That's the part you’re worried about.

With your head down, you head for the library, crossing the courtyard by a less-traveled path. Despite this, the silver-threaded soulmate Words on your ankle itch under the leather band you’ve covered them with. Usually that means that Strange is in the vicinity. Though you don’t remember the catastrophic attack that brought you to the sanctuary for rescue, you do remember the flurry of magic and healing that followed.

The only face you recall is that of the tall, attractive man in mystical robes bending close to your crumpled form. He’d rested a steady hand on your cheek and spoken with authority. Look at me--you’re safe now.

They say soulmate Words burn at the magical moment they’re first spoken. You wouldn’t know; the agony you’d felt on that day has been mercifully removed from your mind; you and your magical healers had agreed to wipe your memories of the events leading up to your arrival. That indelible moment is all that’s left. Everything before your life in Kamar Taj has faded into a distant haze, a rare but warned-for side-effect.

A different kind of magic vibrates in your ankle, so much so that you stop and press your back against one of the columns at the edge of the courtyard, closing your eyes. Strange has to be very close by, but you’re off the usual path, and you’ve never spoken to him, so you know his Words won’t buzz from your presence. It isn’t that you’re afraid or repelled by him, far from it. He’s a charismatic leader, powerful to the extreme, and very handsome. You? You don’t even remember the person you were before learning to attune the Mystic Arts.

There’s no way to know what the Fates had in mind when they branded the two of you, but you suspect you’ve fallen far short of their plans. As a wealthy, talented surgeon, Dr. Stephen Strange was always out of your league, but now he’s the Sorcerer Supreme for a powerful cadre of magic users. It’s practically your duty to see that your ships pass quietly in the night, and you’ve done your best to see him as nothing more than the aloof leader of your mystic order. Besides, he deserves a partner as powerful, notable, and charismatic as he is.

To cover the resonant sound of his voice as Strange’s group walks by, you cast a sound-muffling incantation. Soon, the agitation in your ankle fades, replaced by the dull, hollow feeling of a missed connection.

Each time this happens, the ache lasts longer, meaning you’ll be in agony by the end of a week spent in Strange’s company. It’s going to be a nightmare to deal with that pain and the constant vigilance of avoiding directly speaking to your soulmate. The exhaustion alone might put you in danger of a slip up. Now that you can’t avoid your Sanctum assignment, the only thing left to do is persuade the Powers That Be to let you spend your time there under a Silence spell, preferably without explaining why.

Unfortunately, that Power is likely to be Wong, and he’s not known to Be all that lenient.

“--and that’s why I intend to spend the next two weeks under a Silence Vow,” you say, hoping your constructed excuses sound plausible.

Wong hasn’t said more than ten words since you walked in, but his expression speaks volumes. “You’re scheduled for the Sanctum in two days. You can do it when you get back.”

You start for the door with a decisiveness you absolutely don’t feel, hoping to get away with your plan via sheer audacity. “What would you say if I couldn’t speak in the first place, hmm? It’ll be a challenge! Thrive in adversity, and all of that.”

“Sonnet?”

A warm sense of belonging strikes you on hearing the name you’re known by here at Kamar Taj, and you pause to look back at Wong.

“If the Sorcerer Supreme gives his permission, I suppose a week isn’t the end of the world.”

You spend all of your energy preventing your shoulders from slumping as you nod and rush through the door.

It takes you 12 hours to come up with what to do.

Your plan is audacious and absurd, but what convinces you to do it is the knowledge that it’s an act of protection for both Strange and Kamar Taj itself. Someone clearly meddled with the proper order of things to mark you as soulmates, and you’re just… setting things right.

Besides, you’ve been putting your library books back on the returns shelf with portals since three months after you came here, so your plan is only four times more ill-advised than that.

You don’t have to go just outside the Sorcerer Supreme’s study to place your request for an official Period of Silence in his ‘to be fulfilled’ inbox (the existence of which you confirmed with one of your friends, who works as a part-time admin for Kamar Taj leadership), but your Words’ penchant for vibrating in his vicinity is uniquely useful tonight.

Right before you complete the mission, you cast the intricate, personalized incantation you devised to steal away your voice for the following seven days, just in case. No one will know it’s a spell unless they detect as much, but it’ll stop you from speaking out of turn and literally ruining everything.

That turns out not to have been necessary, though. There’s no alarm, no floodlight, no magical imprisoning sentry spell to trap you in place for the room’s owner to come discover what you’d been up to. You simply sneak back out the way you came, silently congratulating yourself on a job well done.

You implement the crucial second part of your plan the second you arrive at the Sanctum: detached competence. You place the groceries you purchased in their places, check the cleanliness of the kitchen and the efficacy of the appliances and tools, and move on to begin laundering all of the towels, sheets, and other cloth items throughout the building. That started, you embark on a deep clean of each floor. The goal is to both seem extremely busy and foolish to have taken on such a labor-intensive plan. It would be crazy to question your actions, given how overdue most of the work is.

The problem? Dr. Stephen Strange is crazy.

Your first encounter at the Sanctum happens one hour into your self-appointed task of thoroughly cleaning every Artifact display case. He’d arrived in the building fifteen minutes ago, according to your erstwhile ankle monitor, the buzzing of which felt almost audible by the time Strange walks into the room. You are on the floor underneath one of the largest display cases, halfway through a painstaking rag and q-tip removal of all residual dust.

With a surprised cough, the Sorcerer Supreme casts a spell to clear the air, rushing over shortly afterwards to crouch down and frown in your direction.

“What on Earth are you--” he starts to say, but you interrupt by lifting up the discard tray full of lemon-scented dusty q-tips, wordlessly tapping it against your industrial-sized spray-can of Pledge. “Must have been one hell of a lost bet,” Strange observes. You shake your head and move to clean out another line of dusty crevices, shaken by how attractive you find his frustrated amusement.

You wrestle with that for a three-dirty-q-tip-long pause before he speaks again.

“You could just use magic for that, you know.”

You swing your head out sideways to offer a skeptical look, which he answers by casting what is probably intended to be a cleaning spell on your next dust target. With as neutral an expression as you can manage, you swipe at the same area with your Pledge’d rag and hold up the (vaguely less dusty, but still obviously disappointing) evidence.

Your soulmate’s deflated sigh accompanies his departure.

Dinner doesn’t go much better; you’d chosen to make your favorite dish despite the 90 minute prep/cook time. You’d taken reassurance from reports that Strange tends to dislike vapid small talk at the table, but something about your silence makes him attempt it anyway.

At first he fires off a sequence of yes or no questions that end with something that requires a complicated answer, an obvious trap which you can’t help but admire even as you dodge it. Next, he turns on the charm, which would have worked if it weren’t for the secret you’re planning to keep from him for all eternity. Despite this, you can’t help but feel a bit of a thrill when he smiles at you. Strange compliments your recovery, your accelerated course of study, and your particular talents in concealment magic. The latter twinges your conscience; your specialty is in preparation for the worst case scenario, the one where you flee somewhere he can’t find you after speaking his Words.

As dinner winds to a close, Strange turns academic, and you almost break when he muses on the meaning of one of your favorite sonnets.

The man fights dirty.

You do your best to fend it all off with nods, smiles, and the occasional thumbs-up, but you’re definitely shaken. You’d never allowed yourself to see him as a man before, certainly not as a potential love interest. He’s attentive, intellectual, and clever, a trifecta that threatens your entire world-view. Eventually your implacable silence sends him into the kitchen with his newly-cleared plate. Seconds later, he appears in the doorway to glower at you.

“You made cheesecake?”

Your cheerful thumbs-up doesn’t prevent him from eating any, but it looks like a near thing. It seems that Stephen Strange hates mysteries almost as much as he hates not being in control.

The next morning at breakfast, Strange casts two spells on you in rapid succession. One is a diagnostic spell that leaves a harsh ringing in your ears-- and the second strips away your silence evocation. You’re left feeling anxious and exposed, but you lean into it and shrug defensively, hoping he’ll get so annoyed by your obstinance that he leaves you alone. Stephen Strange is very handsome when he’s upset, which is a twisted silver lining, to be sure.

You’d almost purged your mind of Strange thoughts (an exercise much more difficult than you would have expected, may the fates be damned) when he steps up behind you while you’re scrubbing windows. Almost the entire day has passed; it’s now the magic twilight time where you can see your reflection in the window but still look through it to see the cityscape beyond. The light outside is beautiful, hovering between golden and navy blue in a way that accentuates the ancient garb Strange is wearing.

“What do you hope to gain by your silence?” he asks, a tone of warning hovering just out of reach.

“What do you think, scrubcloth, was I looking to gain something by my silence, or simply enjoying my time in a sacred, meaningful space?”

“You are scheming, and I will find out why.”

You indulge your instinctive, annoy-thy-neighbor movement to spin around and pat at his chest reassuringly. You’d have said something snarky and encouraging to his Cloak Artifact, but instead the warmth of his chest under your hand and the determined look on his face steal your words away. Briskly, you play off your physical reaction by pretending you’d missed a spot on the window closer to the door.

Once in the hallway, you lean up against the wall and just breathe for a while.

The third day at the Sanctum always comes with one-on-one instruction with the Sorcerer Supreme. You wake with the weight of the world strung up above you, held at bay by the slender threads of your resolve.

Skipping breakfast, you opt for nuclear-grade coffee from a highly-recommended shop nearby. Strange had been absent from dinner the night before, which means the last time you saw him was during your heated confrontation at the window.

For the upcoming metaphorical and instructional battle with Stephen Strange, you choose Kamar Taj battle-dress. The rich, full robes allow for easy movement, which you complement with leather padding for your knees, elbows, and forearms. It’s your heart that’s the least armored today, an oversight you hadn’t considered. As you walk toward the practice room, all you can do is remind yourself how important Stephen Strange is to your order, to humanity in particular, even to the universe as a whole after his confrontation with Dormammu. If he were destined to be with someone ‘ordinary,’ it would be a skilled, compassionate doctor like Christine Palmer, not a woman with no past and an uncertain future.

To your surprise, Strange proceeds to spend the session treating you with kindness, showing no cynicism, sarcasm, or frustration whatsoever. He even weaves poetry into his instruction, the words shocking and romantic coming from that rich, practically sensual voice of his.

“In the absence of a more pleasing sound, close your eyes and listen to my voice, then watch my hands, then you can try it yourself.”

At that, you almost trip on your own feet. Thankfully, Strange was turned away and maybe didn’t see-- but did he somehow know you’d thought of his voice in the same way Shakespeare had written in one of your favorite sonnets? ‘I love to hear her speak, yet well I know that music hath a far more pleasing sound…’

“I know your brain is beguiled by book learning, but you must trust me that practice is the best way to achieve this particular attunement.”

On hearing that one, you drop the mystical pattern you’d been conjuring and frown at him. His own concentration dips, sending his spinning geometric leaves colliding into a shower of sparks that fade into fairy dust.

“What’s wrong?”

You put your hands on your hips, conveying as much ‘give me a break’ as possible.

His voice is gentle. “I thought you liked poetry.”

You almost retort. For a heart-stopping second you wonder if he’s trying to bait out some snarky, poem-related comment for fate to slice into his skin, but no. There’s no way he wouldn’t have magically commanded you to speak if that were the case, not when you’re known throughout Kamar Taj as Sonnet. This cements your resolve, and you convert your anxiety to kinetic magic and conjure a large version of the advanced shield he’d been teaching you to create. You make eye contact with him through the pulsing lines of the pattern, and he dips his head as if to concede the point.

It’s a turning point, a moment when the rightness of fate feels like it’s rubbing through your paper-thin defenses-- but when you focus on the backs of your hands instead of his piercing eyes, you see the defensive scars from your attack. Every reason you’re staying silent crashes back through, and you twist your fingers, spinning the shield into a spiral that guards you on the way to the door.

There you curtsey and leave, pressing the shield against the door on the other side to prevent yourself from being followed.

Seconds later you run smack into your soulmate. He’d opened a portal directly in your way with such precision that his Words on your ankle didn’t even have time to warn you. He catches you against him with one hand splayed across your back and the other clasping your exposed upper arm. Both of you gasp.

Your nerves are singing. It’s glorious and terrifying, stealing your breath such that you must close your eyes against its strength, held in fate’s embrace despite all your efforts to avoid it. The hallway is silent except for heavy, stunned breathing.

Strange swipes a warm caress with his thumb across the skin of your arm and steps back, steadying you for those first bereft seconds-- and then he lets out a deep chuckle.

“This is the reason. Your silence, your avoidance. This!”

It’s somehow both the perfect response and a completely unexpected one. You don’t know whether to be offended or tempted, so you lift your chin and cross your arms tightly, stubbornly leaving your eyes closed.

His chuckle has graduated to a beautiful full laugh. “All these years I thought you were a patient. Someone broken, someone I couldn’t fix. When I came here I accepted that I lost my chance-- and yet here you are! Talented in the Mystic Arts, unafraid of hard work, and as obstinate as I am. Do you even understand how relieved--”

You stagger back, eyes flying open in complete disbelief.

His beautiful eyes search yours, hands held up in the classic ‘not a threat’ pose, though you know differently. You shake your head, seeing his body relax and loosen in response, even as you clench up even more.

He cannot be serious.

Insidious joy seeps across the short distance between you, reminding you of the physical delight true soulmates find in each other. Isn’t Strange the one who knows most about the challenges he faces as the Sorcerer Supreme? If he isn’t concerned, why should--

No. That’s magic speaking, not reason.

You wheel around, turning your back on him. Your heart is a gash inside your chest, and the only way to heal it is to board the whole thing back up. Opening up a portal will give him a chance to follow you, but you’ve been practicing concealment for many months.

“Dear Diary,” you say in a clear, ringing voice, aiming at the dim ceiling rather than the man behind you. “Today I saved a great man from a terrible decision.”

“Oh, Sonnet, don’t,” your soulmate whispers behind you.

You are salt tear crystals compressed into stone as you continue walking away. In your mind’s eye, his confusion and dismay will soon turn into resolute understanding. There’s no other logical option.

“With galactic responsibilities like his,” you continue, “such a man cannot harbor weakness in the form of an inconsequential, imperfect partner--”

His voice is commanding as he interrupts. “You’re wrong.”

You are wrong, but about Strange’s wisdom, as it seems your soulmate is bewitched by the allure of magical bonding. It’s not his fault. He had given up, hadn’t considered the consequences, not like you have. Inside your chest is a hurricane of please yes and please no, swirling around your impenetrable heart.

Never since your arrival in Kamar Taj --never since you’d heard this man’s voice speak your Words-- had you imagined you’d ever be tempted to change your mind, but oh, oh, you hadn’t been prepared for him to disagree with your choice to reject the bond.

Ahead of you, the pair of ornate doors that protect this wing of the Sanctum swing closed, the metal bolt slamming home with a loud clang.

You start gathering magic for your escape. “So, Diary, for the good of all, I must reject the generous offer fate has made to me--”

Strange interrupts to correct you, his tone achingly gentle. “To US. ‘ I fear no fate-- for you are my fate, my sweet. I want no world-- for beautiful, you are my world--’”

The storm in your chest bursts forth into a torrent of tears. That poem by e. e. cummings has always been your favorite, and to have it used against you -! You throw your hands out at your sides, bursting open the doors to the rooms beside you and further still, breaking the windows you’d so recently cleaned.

You need access to as much magic as you can pull from the world at large, and it gathers in your outstretched fists, furious and barely constrained. Embers of magic dart out to sink into your ankle, while others dance around you to fly off out of sight behind you, probably into Strange. Many seconds have passed, and you recognize your mistake in facing away and thus being unprepared for whatever his next move is, but you’re a breath away from casting your spell.

You’d practiced up to this moment a dozen times, triangulating your inner being on a single point, a necessary point in time and space. When you release your grasped magic, you’ll burst into countless points of light and coalesce at that one place. It’s the last step, the one you haven’t been able to complete yet, as it’s limited to one try. Wong’s precious library had taught it to you as the Sorcerer’s Elusion, a combination of illusion and eluding capture.

“Go on,” Strange says behind you, an odd sort of acceptance in his voice. The exultation from his capitulation is the last burst of energy you needed, and you complete the spell, slamming your hands together in an explosion of pain and panacea.

You arrive in a heap at Stephen Strange’s feet.

“No! What?” you groan.

Stephen throws himself down and pulls you to his chest, one hand brushing the tear-wet hair from your eyes. “I’m sorry, dearest.”

You’re completely spent, but the magically-crafted, fate-tuned pleasure in his touch is sour in the back of your throat as you struggle to pull back. You forget yourself in that moment, aiming your misery and disappointment directly at him. “Just give up! I’m too broken, it’s not right!”

“That has never been true, and it never will be,” your soulmate says. “Trust me, I’ve been there.”

He strokes his fingers across the fists you’re shoving him away with, and even through your tear-blurred eyes you can see the scars he also bears. “You deserve better,” you whisper.

“How far into the tome did you read, about the Elusion?”

“You’re just trying to distract me.” The quaver in your voice nullifies your attempt at outrage.

“No, I’m trying to figure out whether you’re impulsive or arrogant,” Stephen says, clearly amused. You lift your head and glare at him, but the damned man cups your face with his hand just as he’d done when speaking your Words. “It’s only been cast successfully three times, Sonnet. If that’s not proof you’re worthy to stand beside me, I don’t know what is.”

You blink up at him in disbelief, your instinctive retort falling flat. “There’s no chance that’s true.”

His smile is heart-stoppingly gorgeous. “You’re right, in a way-- it’s four times now. All of the others were life or death situations.” He lifts you up to a stand with impossible grace, adding, “We’ll never live it down, I hope you know that.”

“Hang on, now!” you burst out, frowning against the rush of rightness his words engender. “There’s no we! You and I barely know each other! I’ve spent our entire acquaintance avoiding you, and I just broke a bunch of the windows in the Sanctum attempting to--”

“--ruin my life, yes, I know. There are some trouble spots.”

“Trouble spots?!" Your lifelong instinct during outrageous moments such as these has always been to pace around, sometimes while gesticulating, but when you start, your soulmate catches your hand in his, arresting your spin. He tugs, and though you hold onto your reluctance as a matter of habit, you end up standing in front of him.

Only then do the words ‘ruin my life’ register, and it’s enough to cement your feet in place and really look at him. He seems utterly sincere, gentle even, and he uses that opportunity to take your other hand, clasping both lightly, a low-dipping bridge between the two of you.

“I’m going to ask you some yes or no questions. Is that all right?”

“I suppose,” you say, instead of ‘yes.’

There’s heat in the little chastising glare he offers, but Stephen just says, “Did you research soulmates?”

“Yes.”

“Did you research me?”

You bite your lip. “Yes.”

“You researched escape mechanisms, both physical and mystic?”

“Yes.”

“Did you research fairy tales?”

Your brows crinkle up. “What?”

Stephen squeezes your joined hands and smiles. “In fairy tales about lovers, the couple often must use magic in some transformative way to defeat the obstacle to ‘ever after.’ You just defeated yourself. Was it enough, or should I start looking out for feathers or bark while I get to know you? I don’t think I'd make a very good tree.”

There’s an unfamiliar feeling in the pit of your stomach. It flutters there, and every time it makes contact with your innards, you feel more comfortable with this possible future.

It seems like… there’s a chance… it just might be joy.

“Oh, come on, you’d make a majestic tree, what are you even talking about?”

Stephen looks at you like you matter, and it’s heady and glorious until the expression starts to fracture into amusement, and his eyes widen. “No, trust me, trust me,” he gasps out, holding back a laugh. He pulls your joined hands up to his chest and drags you close, looking more vulnerable than you’ve ever seen him, not that you’ve let yourself be near enough to really say that.

“Tell me,” you whisper, scared he’s just thought of something that means you were right all along, now that you’re almost on board with the crazy insanity that is being his soulmate.

“It’s a poetry joke. I thought of a perfect, terrible poetry joke. You were right to-- well no, you weren’t, but--”

Stephen shakes his head and swoops down, capturing your lips in a brief, intense kiss before he says, “Could you consider the Road Not Taken with me?”

Your lips buzz with possibilities, but something makes you shake off your happy intoxication just long enough to examine why Stephen is so very apologetic. In your head, you pull out the memory of the Robert Frost poem he’s referenced. Two roads diverge in a yellow-- WOOD.

“There it is,” Stephen murmurs.

“Maybe I do deserve you,” you grumble. His triumphant bark of laughter warms you from the inside out.

“I certainly hope so,” he rumbles, sliding a possessive hand into your hair and tipping your head up for a kiss. When your lips meet, all of the best lines of poetry in your memory coalesce into the perfect sonnet about how love (and obstinacy) conquers all.

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