Title: Comfort Cooking feat. A Comfort Eater
Paring: Stephen Strange X Reader
Warnings: shyness, food, cooking, fluff
Spoilers: yes, for Doctor Strange (2016)
Requested By: theConjurerSpark -- I've only recently watched Doctor Strange so please, please forgive me for writing your request so late!
Author's Note: IDK if it was like this for just me, but when I watched <i>Doctor Strange</i>, I felt really uncomfortable seeing him w/out his facial hair? Like, when he's clean-shaven, that's Sherlock Holmes, not Stephen Strange, my dudes. Anyways. Enough rambling.
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You met him in the mountain village. Everyone spoke of the disrespectful foreigner, more so than anyone else who had come to Kamar-Taj to study the mystic arts. More than you remember them every speaking of you. Then again, few people talked to you, if any. Here, in Kamar-Taj, you worked on your meditation, how to channel your prana, using a sling ring...the usual.
While you watched from afar, learning slow, steady, you seemed to see the fanatical Stephen Strange performing quicker than anyone, speeding along with his learning. While he made friends with Mordo, you kept to yourself, while he used his sling ring for endless studies, you stuck to the regime the rest of the people did. Not that you weren't bright enough, or courageous enough – the man was cockier than you, than anyone else here.
It was an October when you were making supper for yourself. Not a fan of all the dishes made for the rest of the people, you took it upon yourself to hoard packet ramen and other foods that kept you going when you missed home. It wasn't like home missed you, but still. Nothing beat winding down from the day by making a good bowl of ramen.
"Where did you get fries?" A deep voice asked.
You almost drop the tray you're working on over the small cookstove, and whirling around, you get into position to fight whoever has snuck up on you. But the curious person whose inquisition about your once-potatoes is not here to attack you. It's just the new guy. Strange.
"I smelt them, nobody makes them here," he adds, seeing your stance.
You raise your eyebrows. You live in the rooms furthest away from all the commotion in Kamar-Taj, and incredulous, you ask, "You smelt my fries?" A beat passes between the pair of you, and still holding the tray, you add, "You're not going to leave until you get some, aren't you?"
He nods.
You huff, knowing what people from your old country were like. "Americans..." you mutter. Placing the tray that you were making down, you busy yourself by selecting a few chips for the intruder (and filcher) and wrap them in old newspaper. "There, enjoy." You say, handing the small parcel into his quivering hands. "Grew them myself."
He thanks you, and giving you a small nod, excuses himself. Even though you've just lost a handful of your favourite comfort food, you feel something small, and warm explode inside your chest. You shake your head, not thinking anything of it, and go back to serving your homemade French-fries and settling down with a good textbook on the mirror dimension.
When the news came to you of what Kaisilius had done to the Ancient One, you sat down breathless, empty, unsure. She had been the roots to your new life here in Kamar-Taj; you could not fathom a world without the leader who had taught you more than loss and agony. The fancy American ex-doctor had seen it happen, according to the gossiper you overheard, but the party he was with had not returned yet.
You lay curled upon your bed, palms open, chest rising and falling very shallow, trying to trick yourself into going to sleep. But it was no use – you stayed there for what seemed like hours, thinking of the life you had come from before.
All your life, there seemed to be a flashing neon sign over you that screamed ignore me! Your parents divorced early, married step-parents, and then neglected you for their midlife crisis's and stepchildren. Maybe you weren't assertive enough. Maybe that was it. But you made it all the way to twenty-two, halfway through college when your only friend died, a heredity brain aneurism. If it weren't for the Ancient One who found you hitchhiking on the freeway, you'd probably be somewhere very different.
"They're back!" someone shouted, outside your door. A thunder of footsteps flurried the peace, making way to the courtyard.
It wasn't the curiosity to see the body of your old teacher, or perhaps to appraise the students who had faced the rouge Kaisilius, but the need to do something that roused you from laying upon your bed. The people who usually milled around the hallways were gone, off to see the heroes of the hour, and quietly, you close the screen across your doorway, and undo the loose floorboard beside the small bookshelf to take out your small cookstove, and setting it up, use your magic to prepare water to boil for ramen.
But by the time you've dished your noodles up, garnished with your favourite vegetables and sauce, there's a knock upon your door, and entering, is the same man who found his way to your room last time you cooked.
Stephen Strange.
You do not know what to say, or even, what he is here for. To you, he's just a fellow student, and surely, he thinks the same of you. "I heard what happened," you tell him, and looking at the bowl before you, the bowl that you made because you were borderline depressed and needed incentive to get out of bed for, you offered it for him.
He hesitates. "You – I don't come to you just to take food from you, __________."
You pause as well. "You know my name?" you ask, your words barely a whisper. It's strange. Nobody knew your name. He does not answer. Instead, he enters your room, and closing the screen behind him, he takes a seat on the floor before you. The only thing between the pair of you is your little cookstove, and suddenly, the room is smaller than it seems to be. You've still got the bowl of noodles in your hands, and you look at it, and then to your guest. "Do you want these, or not?"
Stephen hesitates, a handful of seconds passing between the question, and his thoughts. "...yes, thank you."
As you pass the bowl into his hands and making sure he has a hold of your favourite blue-painted ceramic vessel, you prepare to make another bowl for yourself. As you work, you sneak glances at your guest, watching as he slurps at your noodles. At one point, while you're waiting for the noodles to soften in the bubbling water, he places the bowl before him, half-eaten, and sits pensive. Then, he speaks.
"You haven't questioned why I come to you and take your food."
You stir the noodles, "I'm not the type of person to question another person's motives."
"You let anyone take things from you?" He asks, brow furrowing slowly, and he pushes the bowl away from him.
You stir at the noodles some more. "I try to be a little braver than what you just said," you don't look at him as you admit those words, tending to the noodles. Slowly, you add your garnishes, and using a spell, produce a seasoning to flavour. "Unless what people speak of you isn't true, I heard you are a man who is used to getting things. I'm a person who is used to earning things, and too kind for my own good."
He scoffs at your description of himself. "I –,"
You cut in, finding some bravado in you. "It's rude to refuse food when given, you know?" you tell him. "I grew up poor. I was going to be doctor, like you were, but it all went to shit." You smile softly, sadly, "There's always a time when it goes to shit." He takes his bowl back, and continues eating. With a mouthful, he hums in agreement to your statement, and delicately, you whisper, "How do you know my name?"
Stephen pauses, his mouthful not reaching its destination. "__________..." he whispers, "You were the first person I met in the village, remember?"
Faintly, you do remember. You'd come the day before, and shy as you ever were, looked to him, quietly greeting him. You might have been a neglected child, but you still had manners. You nod, remembering those months ago. "But I'm...I'm me," you whisper, dishing the ramen out for yourself. "I'm hardly noteworthy."
Stephen slurped the rest of his noodles. "I'd argue otherwise, __________" he rises from his perch as you take the first mouthful of your noodles, and returns his empty bowl. "Thank you, for your food and company."
You wake with the sun tumbling through the curtains upon your bed, streaming in as though glittering gold is falling upon your form. It's a warm morning, unseasonably so, but, the presence beside you in the sheets has become a seasonal acquisition that will last longer than the periodic changes of the earth. In the morning light, Stephen looks truly like the hero he is famed to be throughout the world, throughout time and space. He may be sleeping, and looks innocent as a babe, but from the small split lip, and the puce bruise under his eye (from training with Wong, and sparring with you), but you know what power he has in his veins.
His eyes open a crack, lips pulling up to wince from the sunlight, and then, from his cracked lip. "How can you look so good in the mornings?" he asks you, voice gravelly with sleep slicked over his vocal chords. You burrow your head into his shoulder beneath the sheets in protest, and hear his chuckle. "I love you, __________."
Into his shoulder, you mutter, "I still can't believe it..." you whisper.
"That I love you?" Stephen asks.
You shake your head, looking up to him, catching the gaze of his light eyes, "No," you reply. "That this is real."