“I bring it in half full depending on how you look at it. I’m helping out you and the Earth by reducing waste. You never finish the coffee anyway.” Y/N walks over and rubs the chapstick into his lip using her thumb, “And I’m moisturizing your lips at the same time.”

“I’d appreciate if you would stop drinking my coffee that you buy with my money.”

She pauses at her desk and raises her eyebrows before giving her boss a stiff smile, “Yes, professor.”

The next day she walked in with his mocha and an oat milk latte. Later, Stephen stares at a half empty cup. The thought of drinking the cold mocha deepens his frown. Before the day is over he throws away the cup muttering a “Damn her.”

Y/N was infuriating but Stephen was exasperating. He had yet to understand that you were not his PA personal assistant but his TA teachers assistant. When approached by the university, asking him to employ graduate students he had settled on one because he could “Only deal with so much incompetence a day.” The good news for Y/N is that she got paid 4x as much as other TAs. The bad news is that she got 4x the amount of work plus Stephen’s gross abuse of power.

Exhibit A: It was currently 1:29 AM and Stephen was calling Y/N to request cookies because he couldn’t sleep. “Just drink a tall glass of milk,” she groaned into the phone.

On the other side of a the phone, clad in a robe her boss said, “I have poured a glass of milk but I have no reason to drink it because I don’t have the cookies you made for the faculty event.”

“Professor Strange, those take two hours to make. It’s either the cookies or I pass the last part of my exam.” There was a pause before she threw up her hands, “Stop thinking about it!! Me failing this exam is not an option.”

“What do you need?” Stephen’s voice is sincere as he opens his car door.

Y/n huffs, relaxing into her chair. “I need help with recalling terms and patient care scenarios.”

“No, I meant for the cookies!” Stephen startled when he heard a beep. Y/n had hung up. He arrived to her apartment after a quick detour holding a large box under one armpit and the other hand holding a bag of cookies ingredients.

She shook her head letting the older man in, wondering only briefly where he had gotten her address. Especially after the Pad Thai incident.

Strange placed a large box on her limited counter space. “I figure this will help you you prepare the cookies quicker.” He had brought her a KitchenAid mixer.

Stephen added, “This is my property. You’ll return this upon leaving my service.”

She would have believed him but it was dangerously close to her birthday and “It’s bright powder pink.”

“And?” Stephen replied assembling the machine.

“I don’t think this will fit your stainless steel modern kitchen.” Stephen simple shrugged. Y/n decided it was too late to argue with the man and retrieved the ingredients. The man had driven to her house in the middle of the night with slippers on. He clearly wasn’t in his right frame of mind.

Y/N spent the night baking as Stephen quizzed her. He came up with the idea to use the recipe for the cookies as a mnemonic for her to remember terms. He gave Y/N obscure and dramatic patient scenarios so she could assess the best course of action.

As they shared cookies with Y/n questioned her deeply satisfied professor, “Do you think I’ll be good? Would you trust me to take care of you?”

He chased down his third cookie with milk before clearing his throat. Stephen regarded her in a way he didn’t look at anyone: with pride. “I don’t trust you with my life; I trust you with others lives and that means a thousand times more.”

Y/n had fallen asleep comforted by the weight of a large book in her hand on the couch as usual. The next morning, it was unusual to find herself in bed, blankets drawn over her. She stepped into the now spotless kitchen where a warm oat milk latte rested.

A note read: “The world is in your hands.” -Stephen Strange

You remember the conversation. “Would you ever hurt me with these deadly fingers of yours?” You held his hands in yours hoping the question was as light as your touch. You sat in limbo, sometime between too late at night and too early in the morning, twilight. You circle his palms, trace the raised scars on his fingers, soothing the trembles with the glow of your magic. He chuckles, shakes his head, looks back down at his hands. “I don’t think this is working.” You say at the same time.

Shy smiles invade both of your faces. You spent so many late nights together trying to cure the trembling in his fingers down to the nerves. The sanctum offered him no answers and there you were. Every cell of your body is coated with enough energy to do anything you wanted, cast any spell, manipulate time, shift realities, travel the multiverse.

Starpower–Stephen called it. He watched the cosmic activity in your irises until you cleared your throat. Blinking, you looked down when the intensity of the moment became too much. “I think the problem is all in,” your hands rose to the gray at his temples, “here.” You colored them something vibrant with the hue of your magic. You whispered into the air, “You’re healed.” Stephen’s hands were steady when they cupped your face to kiss you.

Sometime later as his fingers traced your spine, “As I doctor, I signed an oath to do no harm.” He kissed your shoulder, “But as your lover, I swear that I will never hurt you.” He pulled you close, maybe it was an effect of his power or just him that made you feel so warm.

Now, you lay in the same position, nose to nose as he tries to explain how every variation of him is not meant to be with you. “I don’t think we are soulmates,” his hand reaches for yours, “But I do know that I am meant to be with you until this universe explodes.” Cosmic dust forms over your joined palms. Light from the rising sun filters through would-be particles of a new star. A planetary nebula.

You wake to scattered touch that floats across your body. “Stephen,” his name is nothing more than a mumble engorged in a yawn as it falls out of your lips. Your eyes open to the sight of your lover sitting up and stroking your body. “You fell asleep.” You reach up to stroke his face that is momentarily changed by a smirk, “So did you.” He hums in assent as his hands continue to wander over your frame.

“What are you thinking about?” You question as Stephen is a man of many words except when puzzled. “I’m thinking about you,” he replies and you chuckle, “Of course you are, I am right here.” He leans down to kiss you, ignoring the possibility of morning breath, “We can’t stay in bed all day.”

The covers shuffle as he sits up on the edge of the bed. You crawl to him, wrap your arms around his shoulders and place a kiss under his ear, “Tell me what you are really thinking about.” Your voice barely above a whisper echoes in his mind. Stephen inhales deeply through his nostrils. He knows you are not using your powers on him but it is the way in which he dissolves into you. He readily shares everything with you and he can’t fathom how it’s not due to enchantment.

“That man, the other me, came for you.”

Your arms wrap tightly around his waist to comfort him, you press another kiss to his shoulder, , “He didn’t come for me. He came for Christine.”

“That does not make me feel any better.”

Your hands wander across the plains of his chest, “What could I do to make you feel better?”

The hand that skims across his navel as it makes its way to his groin is caught, “This is not what I had in mind.” He places a kiss to the back of your hand, “However enticing.”

“Okay,” you flop back on the bed. “What can I actually do?” Your head lolls to the side where you see Stephen hiding his well-sculpted body under robes. You sigh and crawl to the edge of the bed where he grasps your face. He places a gentle kiss on your lips, “Let’s get to work.”

Less than 15 minutes later, you are carving spells from order in the basement of the sanctum. Spells float in the air, glowing with energy. “This is not how I wanted to spend my Sunday morning,” you push a line of runes to Stephen so he can inspect them. He adds them to the spell hanging in the air, “I’m sorry but this is necessary. We can’t allow for more variants of myself to enter our universe in search of you or Christine.”

You lower your hands and your spells fall out of the air, “Wait. Are we doing this because you are jealous? We can’t enter the multiverse for that. How do you even know they will come for us?”

“I know me and I know I would cross the multiverse to be with you.”

“Hmm,” as your hands raise the spells return. Stephen finishes crafting before drawing a protection spell on your forehead. “The spell we created should lock them out of our universe and erase their memory of our brief encounter. Are you ready?” When you feel the last of Stephen’s magic fade into your skin you open your eyes.

“Where to?”

Earth 1610

“Are you sure this is the universe we should be going to first?” You questioned leading Stephen through this universe's sanctum, hand in hand.

“This universe is a good starting point. It’s a lot like our own.” Stephen says matter of factly while struggling to position himself in front of you. “Thanks to the information Christine provided I was able to determine what universes it would be necessary to breach.”

“Is that why we aren’t visiting the Earth’s from your latest excursions?”

“Yes, but mostly because those Stephen’s are dead.” You nod and continue creeping along the sanctum wall. Your mind briefly flits to an image of Stephens corpse covered in rubble trapped in a world that is not his own. You wondered if there was anyone he left behind. Did they know he was gone forever? He was the Sorcerer Supreme of his universe; he would be gone for weeks sometimes without a word. If there was a person who cared for their Stephen as much as you cared for yours, they would have been able to feel it. The moment he was taken away from them a piece of their soul would have been extinguished. You made a mental note to ask America later.

“I don’t think that Stephen Strange is alive in this universe either.” Before your Stephen can question what you mean, your power flares and explodes against the illusion. “I’ve seen that painting four times. We are walking in a loop. You would use a stronger spell to protect against multiversal intruders.”

With another burst of your power to the opposite wall the illusion crumbles and reveals a man in traditional robes. He’s barely out of his early twenties with features not so dissimilar to the person beside you. The same black hair and high cheekbones but dull cerulean blue eyes.

“I’m wounded.” The person in front of you feigns offense with a sarcastic bow and even more sarcastic smirk. He rises and meets your eyes, “Here to reconcile, I presume.”

His searing gaze is fixed on Stephen. They study each other for a moment, assessing. The man in front of you sneers and you feel Stephen tense.

But Stephen was bracing for an attack that wouldn’t come. If the man in front of you intended to harm you he would have done so already. His next words confirm your hypothesis, “It’s far too late, father.”

His guard was down for a reason. He didn’t suspect that the two of you were from a different universe. He thought your Stephen was his father. With a nod from him, a tray of tea appeared in front of you. There was a sensation at the back of your knees before you were forced into a chair.

Stephen gives you a sideways glance as if he is trying to telepathically communicate alarm. He is wary of tea and makes no move to indulge neither do you. Your gaze is pulled back to the young variant in front of you when his voice is directed to you. “Are you who he found after he abandoned my mother? I hope you don’t get knocked up. He runs.”

You evaluate the young man again as he stirs his tea. His fingers are free of scars and his eyes are full of bitterness. However he came to be a master of the mystic arts it probably has little to do with a traumatic accident but rather the disdain in which he regards his “father.” You can imagine a boy, growing without his father desperate to find a piece of him until it’s presented as a connection to the cosmos. All the magic in the world could not fill the void but malice could.

Maybe this Strange’s origin is the most traumatic of them all.

Your thoughts are the loudest thing in the room. The men don’t speak, they inspect. When your Stephen begins to say something the young man’s jaw ticks and the words die out on his tongue. At this moment, he’s not ready to hear it. He’s not ready to hear any excuses or explanations. None of them matter. What is done cannot be undone. The young man speaks your assumptions aloud.

“Although I bear your name, I want nothing else from you. Leave. Now.”

When you rise to leave the spell falls from your fingertips and floats into his tea. Out of the corner of your eye you can see it dissolve. You’re not sure if he will return to the cup but you don’t dwell, deciding that he is not a threat to the multiverse. You open a portal back to your universe.

Stephen opens his mouth to say something. His lips form the word sorry but he shakes his head, steps through the portal and deserts Stephen Strange Jr. again. Later when you ask him why he chose not to speak he tells you, “It was not my apology to give.”

Earth 1218

You stumble into the universe. Stephen rights you, “Rough landing.”

You scoff, throwing up your hands, “I’m getting tired. I’m sorry I can’t make the portals three feet away from the variants anymore. We’ve been to so many universes. After that one where we're all monkeys I am pooped! Opening multiversal portals is not as easy as it looks.”

Stephen brushes your hair behind your ear and cups your face, “It’s okay, love. We’ll go home after this universe and pick up some food from Alfonso’s.”

“Promise?”

“Yes, now, where are we?”

You look up past his shoulder and see a clocktower and a ferris wheel? “Oh, I think we are in England. Wanna head to the London sanctum?” Stephen nods, following you until your steps become unsure. “Why are we in Suburbia?”

“I don’t know.”

“People are giving us weird looks.”

“I tracked the variant to this. . .house. This universe's sanctum is cozy."

Stephen takes a deep breath and grabs your arm. “Better get going. We need to place our order at Alphonso’s thirty minutes before close.” You head toward what you assume is the London Sanctum and knock on the door. A man in all black opens in it and his face flashes with amusement before stepping aside.

“Good afternoon, Mr. Cumberbatch.”

“Did he just call me a cucumber patch?” Stephen questions as you stand in the foyer of a beautiful but modest house. A place that feels like a home, lacking the coldness of the New York Sanctum. You pick up a picture of Stephen. He even looks good with brown hair.

“Must be some sort of slur in this universe,” you say aloud, leaving your thoughts of his attractive brunette variant in your mind.

“Or in England.” Stephen takes your hand and leads you deeper into the house as if he knows where he is going. “We need to find my variant and leave.”

You find yourself in what looks like a home theatre. Stephen’s voice flows through the surround sound speakers. “This Earth’s YouTube is high definition,” you marvel at the beautiful picture on the screen. All the clips of you in your home universe using your powers are fuzzy in audio and resolution.

Suddenly, the scene switches and cuts to the brunette Strange. He begins talking to Jimmy Fallon about filming a“movie” and he uses marvel as a noun. The most shocking thing about this universe is not that he seems to be an actor playing Stephen but that he is British. Proper tea drinking, trolley ride British.

You hear the talk show host say with finality, “Well, you all can see Benedict Cumberbatch in Dr. Strange Into the Multiverse of Madness in a theater near you.”

Stephen pulls you out of the room and back up the stairs, “Something strange is going on in this universe.”

“I don’t think there’s anything Strange about it,” you motion to the French doors where outside of the glass you can see something that can only be described as a family unit. This universe’s Strange or whatever he may be chases three young boys with a particular resemblance to him and a woman who watches them with a beaming smile.

Stephen is mesmerized by the sight, all his focus on the happy family. You grab his hand and he intertwines your fingers. “We should go,” you open a portal back to your universe at the storefront of Alphonso’s.

Later, you slip out of Stephen’s arms. You dress in the darkness. When Stephen stirs because he cannot feel your heat you reassure him that you will be back soon. The place your travel next is cold and devoid of life but you feel an overwhelming duty to shift through rubble and debris in search for the remnants of one.

Earth-26111

A woman finishes a melody that is vaguely familiar to you. She closes the door to a magenta room and the content look on her face falls. She is one of the rare variants of you: powerless and in the throes of grief. You watch as she crumbles away from her daughter. She consoles herself, settling into the couch wrapping herself in a plum blanket. “I know you’re in here,” she says into the silence, “I know you won’t hurt me. Stephen would have not left us without protection.”

You reveal yourself, stepping from behind a bookshelf. There’s nothing you could say. If you lost your Stephen nothing would make it better but she has a piece of him, a reason to keep breathing.

You give her back all of him. Not his soul but the body that contained it, the arms that held her. Her defender is home where he belongs.

“Thank you.”

“I’m sorry,” you say even though it’s not your apology to give.

This remix to a request by @moonchild-cupcak I am so sorry it took this long love and this only part one. I was inspired by you so I promise there will be more! What other Strange's would you guys like to meet? I hope you enjoy! Do the Tumblr things!