#They met at a gala and recognized each other as kindred souls

[glow-worms-are-believers]

Dowd’s Crowd (dp x dc)

“Don’t look now, but Mr. Swanson is looking our way again,” Bernard says quietly, as he prepares to bite into his hors-d’oeuvre.

Sam groans. “I hate that guy.”

Bernard nods, his mouth full of pastry.

“You steal someone’s toupee one time and suddenly you’re a delinquent,” she continues, raising her glass for another sip of sparkling non-alcoholic cider.

“Everyone knew about it anyway,” Bernard agrees, having finished his mouthful. He looks into the distance wistfully. “Still, I wish I had been there to see it.”

“I wish we could leave already,” she gripes and her companion sighs.

“I’ve got a 30-minute quota of presence to fill,” he answers morosely. “We’re not even halfway through.”

Sam hums sympathetic. “Mom said I just had to stay the first five minutes if I wore a dress,” she tells him as she looks down at her pastel gown in disgust.

“You can leave, then,” Bernard says, sounding in even lower spirits than before. “I’m glad at least one of us gets to escape.”

Sam turns toward the other teen, barely stopping an eye-roll. “Please,” she says, “like I’d leave you alone with these losers. I’d like to think I’m a better friend than that.”

Bernard’s eyes go all big and starry. “Really?”

Sam actually rolls her eyes then. “Come on you big baby,” she says as she grabs his arm and starts dragging him away, towards the refreshment table. “Let’s go spike the punch.”

[mysticartsydaydream]

Meet Annabelle Rogers:

It’s time to post the new fic! So, before I post, let’s catch you up to speed with our main girl and her best friend.

Annabelle Marie Rogers (born July 26th, 1989) is a member of the Avengers. Adopted informally by Steve Rogers, she took the Rogers last name in lieu of her own, as her biological family is no longer in the picture. She uses the hero alias Rêve, and her powers include dream manipulation, telekinesis, and mind reading. Since 2016, she has worked with Stephen Strange, who later became her boyfriend, on mastering the Mystic Arts and has gained much respect from her fellow sorcerers.

Annabelle worked as a Stark Laboratories intern beginning after she moved to New York in 2011. Graduating at the top of her class from Emory University in biomedical sciences and kinesiology, Annabelle studied to eventually become a dance teacher and physical therapist. Tony Stark met her at a gala for the New York City Ballet, where Annabelle was invited to meet the ballet master and discuss her potential career. Stark, of course, jumped at the chance to work with her, recognizing the same genuine curiosity about the mind in himself and requested she work for him instead.

During the Battle of New York and subsequently thereafter, Annabelle’s work took her out of the labs and with the Avengers, where she met her adoptive “father,” Steve Rogers. He grew close with Annabelle after being paired on several missions together, finding a kindred spirit in her pursuit of justice and higher truth. Steve and Annabelle forged a bond that reminded them both that the other would never be alone in the world. The fight for a better world and defending those who can’t doesn’t have to be a lonely one.

The battle with The Winter Soldier left Steve plagued with nightmares, so Annabelle worked with Bruce Banner to develop a medicine that would help put the nightmares to rest. Unfortunately, after an accident in the lab late one night, Annabelle inherited the serum’s same power of dream manipulation. Her new abilities also came with telekinesis and mind reading, with a keen sense of emotional intelligence.

The Avengers Civil War exposed her deepest vulnerabilities: abandonment and the fear of failure. Her powers so fresh, she found herself doing more harm for the team than good, especially when the media slandered hers and Wanda Maximoff’s names. Feeling the weight of the world and a million pairs of eyes on her, she retreated into isolation back in New York. This period of loneliness and wanting to forget about magic led her back into the real world. On a night out, Annabelle found a bar down in Hell’s Kitchen but found much more in the company of Matt Murdock.

He commented on the old Emory sweatshirt (Foggy technically did, but anyway—) that she threw on over her shirt, not expecting the chilly weather, but it was all she brought. Matt and Annabelle playfully jabbed and referred to each other by their school names, Emory and Columbia. She didn’t expect to find herself back at Josie’s the next night, but she couldn’t resist wanting to find out more about the buttoned-up lawyer. She suspected he wasn’t as buttoned-up as he appeared, and she would have been right.

A whirlwind romance began, the passion between them undeniable, and Matt felt himself slowly opening up his heart like he’d done with no one else. He planned to tell her about his identity in a way that wouldn’t scare her, but Annabelle found out about his Daredevil lifestyle before he was ready to confess. During the events of the Wilson Fisk takedown, Annabelle’s suspicions grew when Matt’s disappearances became more frequent and his excuses less plausible. She went to his apartment one night and found the trunk in his closet that gave her every answer she needed. Scared of what this job might mean for them and their growing relationship, she broke things off and went off the grid.

Taking time to herself for months, she searched her soul and questioned this power, even tried to cure herself on her own, when her research led her to the doorstep of the Sanctum Sanctorum and into the mentorship of the (at the time) Sorcerer Supreme, Dr. Stephen Strange.

He was reluctant at first to take an apprentice, especially one who just wanted to figure out how to get rid of her abilities as quickly as possible and never look back, not caring much for the study of the Mystic Arts or him in particular. Both of them agreed to find a solution and keep this a limited-time arrangement. But Strange realized quickly thereafter that Annabelle’s mind held the capacity for great knowledge and beautiful expression, creativity and logic in one, something rare in a magic user… and that he liked spending time with her. He remembered what he was like as a beginning student and didn’t want Annabelle to make his same mistakes. He urged her instead to see the possibilities of her newfound abilities and how she could use them to help others. The two of them found ways to communicate through music, which enhanced both her magic and their growing relationship.

Annabelle held a natural affinity for the ways of the Mystic Arts, surprising herself most of all. Beyond his frustrating pride, she discovered how similar she and Stephen truly are in their ways of thinking and unwillingness to settle for anything less than acceptable. A few months into their training, a tough mission wracked Stephen with guilt afterwards. Ravonna Renslayer forced Stephen to confront his darkness and see the darkness in Annabelle too. When Annabelle found him in the Sanctum by the window afterwards, she consoled him, finally calling him by his first name. They shared their first kiss.

Their relationship is still fresh. As of “The Chain (Keep Us Together),” Annabelle and Stephen have been dating for four months.