OPEN | all my friends see stars

[rehandle]

Who: Stephen Strange rehandle
What: Settling in, ft. heading out for food, getting stuck in with repairs and some stargazing.
When: The days(/weeks? I'm easy) after the second confluence, 17th Jan onward
Where: The Diadem Hotel, in and around Central City
Content Warnings: NWH spoilers in the thread with Peter



[ It's nice for a day or two, a good place to settle down and take in as much information as he possibly can. But the problem with luxury is he's been there, done that, and now it's— well. It's boring. Novelty isn't a novelty when it's borderline familiar, and with everything painfully easy there's not a lot left to really do.

Money was nice when he had work to fill the times between spending it. Comfort was nice when he thought that's what extortionately expensive and painfully bland interiors with city views and a fast car in the under-street garage was. Now his surroundings feel like a hollow reminder of the trappings of a life he's long since left behind. It's no wonder he gets restless. Downtime isn't something he's good at. ]



a) [ Catch him passing in the hall at the Diadem, trotting down the stairs on his way out to eat somewhere the bread basket isn't worth three or more times the average daily wage. Sometimes he's on his own, sometimes a heavy red cloak follows him down, floating along of its own accord. ]




b) [ The city's going to take a while to rebuild. He's read enough to understand that they're used to this, to confluences and powers and seeking out decent insurance premiums. But this last one had hit Central City particularly hard and while he's not usually a man on the street helping clean up the city type, aside from theorizing return strategies and reading up on the world they find themselves in (important and pressing, but he reads fast and knows how important it is to stretch your legs once in a while) he doesn't have anything useful to do.

He's not interested in the corporate buildings or anything single-residence that looks like it's owned by the kinds of people for whom reconstructing a house will cost, at worst, a week's less vacation time this year. He looks for something vital. A local library, a kids' sports field, a small apartment block the landlord is going to drag his feet over fixing up for at least six months longer than is necessary. If the contractors are already in, he offers them his help. If they're not, he gets on with it himself.

Mostly he involves himself in the early stages of any given project. You might come across him using his portals to help shift debris out of the streets and the shells of dropped-on buildings, or to make it easier to ship in new materials direct from the suppliers (is that a truck driving through a portal? Yes.) ]





c) [ On a couple of random nights, long after nightfall, dancing light trips under the door of the hotel ballroom. Hotels being as ever-lit as they are it might take some time to notice the dim patterns of colours - blues, purples, pastel pinks and oranges, greens - as they trip and switch over the pattern of the hotel floor in the hall outside. But they're there.

Inside, the room is dark. No - not dark at all, but no artificial light makes it in here. Not from any lightbulbs or LED shows, not under the door, not even through it if it's opened, kept out as if caught at the threshold. What floods the room with light instead, bright and expansive as it fills the entire space, is a conjuring of translucent planets and stars, solar system tracked out in vibrant magic, nebula painted in the air with pale blues and deep reds. It moves, alive and reactive: distant stars winking in and out, a planet rushing through its orbit when reached for, comets setting off on journeys if they're touched.

The furniture's all neatly stacked at either side of the room and as the hours pass Stephen can be found in something comfy: hovering cross-legged and close-eyed in the middle of it all with the cloak keeping him suspended, the centre of a magic galaxy; laying on his back staring up at the vista, hands resting folded on his torso, one lifting occasionally to twist empty air and send the view above scattering into new configurations; sitting off to the side to read something by the light of his illusion; having a midnight snack; the list goes on. He doesn't always react to the entrance of others. It's a big room - if people want to enjoy it by themselves, that's fine by him. ]


( ooc: feel free to interact with any of the above in any way you'd like, or drop me a starter/hit me up at miscreates or sculpts#6553 to discuss something specific! )

Comments

C

[kid_flash_found]

Sometimes Bart was actually kinda glad to have a pet that didn't mind being up late into the night, even if Kat-El preferred a more regular schedule. It was really nice on nights when memories had made it so getting sleep wasn't going to be on the menu. He'd put the kitten's harness on and went walking down to the common areas to see if anyone was around when he noticed the strange lights.

He'd opened the door and was trying not to just stare when his feline companion, normally very well behaved on lead, jerked free from his loose grip and darted into the room, leaping up on the form floating in mid-air to try to bat at the lights.

"Kat-El!" Sorry, mister, you've got a pound of domestic long-haired kitten trying to climb up to get at the floaty things that are darting around enticingly. Bart rushes over in a blur of movement to apologize. "I'm sorry, he doesn't usually do this..."

[rehandle]

He's always half-expecting an intrusion. This is a hotel, not his own space, and between staff and curious guests there's no hope of remaining uninterrupted all night. But to say that expectation extended to being suddenly barrelled into by something light but fast, something that the cloak doesn't react to bat out of the air before it can reach him...

He got the shout for warning. Second later there's a kid - maybe Parker's age - offering him an apology and he takes a couple more silent seconds to figure out what's going on, listening to the delicate little prickles of sound as something hooks and unhooks tiny... claws.

Oh.

Finally he catches a glimpse of it, and the hint of a bemused smile stretches under the frown.

"Doesn't bother me..." Heavy emphasis on the me because Stephen's not the one being crawled up like a ladder to the stars, technically. The Cloak endures without comment, movement or complaint for the time being, leaving... Kat-El? To continue on his space expedition.

[kid_flash_found]

Bart reaches out to at least unhook the dangling leash before it gets caught on something, figuring that he can outrun the kitten. He can't help smiling, though.

"We really did pick the right name for him. Never knew a member of the House of El that didn't have a thing for the stars," Bart says, chuckling.

He doesn't even think about it much as he shifts an arm to be exactly where he needs to be to catch the kitten when batting turns into a pounce for one of the glittering balls of light. The calculations are thought through in a flash.

But he does look around to see if anyone else is in the room at the emphasis. "There's you, me, the fur-monster, and...?"

[rehandle]

The 'and' answers the question itself. The kitten inevitably goes in for a pounce that's going to take him right to the trajectory that's been calculated for - but instead of magic star or empty air or the arms of his human, his little paws hit an outcropping of climbable fabric as the cloak shifts to provide some more height for Kat-El's explorations.

Stephen lists a little to one side with the sudden motion, but the cloak adjusts the balance and keeps them both in the air.

"The Cloak of Levitation." Introduction and answer. "And it seems it doesn't mind."

[kid_flash_found]

"Sentient couture. That's a little different," Bart says, letting his arm drop, smiling a bit. The kitten looks a little startled at first, but then begins climbing the new path, clearly interested in conquering this mountain.

"You can't keep him," he adds, in a mock-warning, then amends, "Either of you."

[rehandle]

A huff of unvoiced laughter from Stephen while the cloak plays ignorant, continuing to track out a path to the stars for the tiny mountaineer.

"Noted. I can't be held responsible for the actions of my outerwear but you will get points for calling it couture, so you probably won't have to chase anyone down any hallways."

Couture is the best compliment the cloak's received from a stranger since choosing Stephen for a wearer. While the pair's busy, now's as good an opportunity as any to introduce himself to another of his fellow hotel inmates.

"Dr. Stephen Strange."

C

[tinglesense]

[ Peter is only up wandering around the hotel because it's weird to share a room with someone in the first place. Okay, no, that's not true. He's up because he keep waking up or he can't sleep in the first place. It's not the being away from home thing so much as that things catch up with him at night. This place isn't so bad, even with giant mythological creatures. He's had a rough time the past few months; being technically dead for five years doesn't change how it feels to him.

So he wanders around the hotel just as himself, as Peter. If he were to go around outside, he might do the Spider-Man thing, but he's not sure if it's a good plan to hang out so close to the Diadem that way, given how easy it was to compromise himself right out of the gate like he did with Balthier. That wasn't actually his fault, really, since he hadn't known he'd have a roommate, but he's trying to play it safer now after that. So while he still keeps the suit on under his clothes, he's careful.

He follows the lights into the ballroom because it's late and this is weird, right? But he doesn't have that sense of danger, a sense that he should worry or that something is going wrong. So it's just curiosity. He's vaguely aware of Stephen's presence in the city because he saw the portals during the Cerberus thing, but there was too much going on then. He's avoided actually looking for the man on purpose, though. He has no idea if they're from the same place. Is it easier if they are or if they aren't? He's not sure.

It doesn't occur to him that these lights in the ballroom might be Stephen's doing until he opens the door and slides into the room and...oh.

Oh, right, of course. There's a whole galaxy there in the empty space, with one Dr. Stephen Strange just laying in the middle of it stargazing like that's just completely normal. Probably when you're Dr. Strange, it is completely normal. Peter stops on the periphery and just looks up at the stars for a long minute before he works up the courage to draw attention to himself. He clears his throat, louder than is even necessary. It's just his chronic awkwardness shining through, really. ]

Hey, uh, sorry. I saw the lights, so I just wanted to see what that was about. I can go if you're busy or...whatever.

[rehandle]

[ He's aware of it as soon as somebody steps into the space occupied by his magic. There's no indication that he's noticed. He doesn't flinch or shift or glance, just keeps on looking up at swirls of far off places mapped out in drifting energy overhead and - waits. The somebody will make themselves known or they won't. Either way is fine.

They do, in the end, and— ah. It's the kid.

Stephen's seen him - or evidence of him - in snatches around. Flashes of red and webbing, the possibility of a familiar face at the end of a long, busy hallway. The last time they saw one another was not under the happiest of circumstances, and Parker's life since then has gone a little sideways. He didn't presume that catching up with faces only made friendly in the context of war and loss would be high on his to do list, so he's left him alone.

But here he is, standing where he didn't need to stay, drawing attention to himself when he could have slipped away. Alright then.

Stephen still doesn't move, but he does answer: ]

Do I look busy?

[ He's stargazing in a ballroom. He's not busy. ]

[tinglesense]

[ Peter comes further into the room since Stephen doesn't just tell him to leave, but he's still not sure how to gauge this. Stephen's answer is…well, completely just how the guy is. He's Dr. Strange, not Dr. Friendly, after all. It's kind of like ask a stupid question, get a stupid answer. Only Peter didn't exactly ask a question and Stephen's answer was maybe curt, not stupid.

Okay, that metaphor doesn't work at all, actually! Peter turns that over in his head and tries to think of a new one, keeping his ongoing monologue blessedly silent for the time being.

He doesn't know how to ask the question hey haha this is really awks but do you know who I am without making it even more awks than it sounds. Of course Stephen can't be a normal person and just say his name right off, that would be too easy, so he's left here winging it. ]

I don't know. Not really. You could be doing some magic thing that is a lot busier on the inside than the outside, though. I have no idea how any of that works! You know that whole thing about "assume" or whatever.

[ He laughs a little – nervous, not amused. That's a reference that's a little old for Peter, maybe, but May knew it, so he knows it. ]

[rehandle]

I'm not busy.

[ ... Same old Peter Parker. At least when everything changes, the kid can be expected to be reliably himself. Stephen drags in one final deep breath, saying goodbye to peace and quiet for the immediate future, and sits up to talk with him properly.

Space dust churns about his head and dissipates off higher into the room. ]

I take it you aren't either.

[tinglesense]

...Oh. Uh...good. Cool. That's cool.

[ Stupid, what the hell am I saying?

Peter slides closer, since Stephen actually sits up and talks to him. ]

I mean, it's kind of the middle of the night and I'm trying to not let anyone see me leave and connect me with...uh...see me change my clothes or whatever so, no. I'm – I'm not busy.

[ He worries at his bottom lip with his teeth for a second. ]

I can't sleep. Probably it's just the hotel. It's way too nice for me. I tried to get them to get me a cheaper one when we first got here, but they wanted to put everyone here in this super nice one. Maybe the bed's too soft! It's probably that.

[ He talks with his hands a little too much, notices that, and shoves them back in his hoodie pockets. He's not really nervous or embarrassed around Stephen as a general thing, not after all the time he spent around him. He just has no idea if they're even from the same universe, or if they know the same things, or if Stephen is mad at him for trapping him with math that one time, or if he knows his name, or all of that. Not knowing where he stands is weird. ]

I imagine whatever you're doing isn't a big secret since you're doing it here, so, what were you looking at?

[ Completely smooth subject change, obviously! ]

[heartofthedream]

[ When Jean steps inside the room, her breath catches as the curiosity of what the lights might be pales before the beauty and grandeur of the universe spun in exquisite miniature across the vast ballroom. There is a part of her that will never be able to ignore the call of those stars, and her feet carry her toward the very edge. The closest area of perfectly scattered and strung stars and spiraling planets.

Her hands raised in a small cup under the first and closest star, looking at it closely.

(She'd held the whole of their universe in her cupped palms.

She remembers it. She remembers.) ]

[rehandle]

[ The star winks and sprawls in the cup of her hands, glowing vivid in the dark then shrinking into itself just to leap back to life again. Not in its dying throes yet. The magic that shapes it emanates a sort of vibrant energy - not heat or electricity, something intrinsically present but difficult to pin down to a comparable sensation. A shifted frequency in the interplay of atoms at the surface of the skin.

Before too long another spot of light leaps over her head, throwing itself a few dozen lightyears in the process as the layout of the starscape reacts to a disruption at another of its outer edges: Stephen's drawn a sun over his head to act as a better reading lamp for his table-edge perch. ]

[heartofthedream]

[ Jean watches the star as it flares before the frame of her fingers, drawn more to its light (even if it is missing its heat, it's blazing, burning star song). It's a replica done so well, but not r e a l, and still, even as she knows it, her heart (and something so much deeper, and broad, and timeless, and so much less human than even a soul could claim) aches within her, calling for a deeper truth, self, home she's never not also.

Jean looks up when the night globe of light, star spinning out, leaps over her, and she releases the briefly captive star in her hands. Instead, following the domino sprawl of waves throughout the microcosm cosmos to the man at its edge. Sunlit and familiar, for all that she can already tell that he is not, too. ]

Hello, Stephen.

[rehandle]

[ Stephen's head lifts slowly at the end of his name, a brief note of acknowledgement hummed out in advance of his getting to the end of the line he's reading. He doesn't recognize her. These days, that's not anything new. ]

Hello.

[ Spoken with the vaguest note of apology - I don't have a name to return to you - though he gets the impression by now that everyone who can call him by name knows well enough that he isn't the person they've met before. Loki's already shown him the face of another Strange from what would seem to be a heavily represented universe: clear similarities, clear differences. ]

I hope you weren't looking for a party.

[ He's got books and he's got stars and he's got tea if he makes it. Ballroom though it may be, festivities are sorely lacking. ]

[heartofthedream]

[ She can't stop the feeling of winsomeness still surging through her. The created universe spins around her, and her heart longs never to move, and it longs to feel the real universe, and she takes a steadying breathe trying to calm those whispers. She gave that up. She told the Phoenix to leave.

Who are you this time?

I am always Jean, and I am always the Phoenix,
the past whispers in her voice, in her words to Logan. ]

I'm Jean. [ It's soft, and he would know things if he were himself, which makes her wonder if she should be upfront with that now. There's still much around him that doesn't make him entirely easy to read even in this version, but some things are both easy and unpredictable in beginnings. ]

It's fine. [ Is as much as the apology gets. ] This is quite beautiful.

@ a

[geomagnetically]

[ Lorna should be paying more attention to where she's going, but she's not. She's just on a very important mission to find a decent cup of coffee — the keyword being 'decent' — while she's engrossed reading something on her phone.

You know when people bump into a store mannequin and awkwardly apologize before looking up to realize it wasn't a person after all?

When she brushes up against the floating cloak, she apologizes and looks up, gets surprised enough to step backwards a couple of too-quick paces, trips on her own feet, and lands on right on her ass with a yelp.

There's people and store mannequins, then there's the beauty and grace of Lorna Sally Dane aka the mistress of magnetism aka Polaris aka seasoned superhero-type being caught off guard by a cloak.

Don't worry about it.

God, she really needs that coffee. ]

[rehandle]

[ It was kind of her to apologise to the cloak - it means that Stephen's already turning his head through nosy instinct, halfway to watching when she actually goes down. Unfortunately that headstart doesn't do much to reduce the few seconds of post-yelp processing time, only really broken when he catches the cloak in an approximation of an indifferent shrug and is finally dragged into action by his need to glower at it.

The backtrack doesn't take long. He bends to collect her phone from where it's fallen and offer out a hand up. ]

Sorry. It could do with a little more behavioral training. [ That one directed with a slight edge to the cloak, you can attempt to save me from alien abduction but you can't bother to help a person up? ] Are you alright?

[geomagnetically]

[ She lets out a breath of a small laugh. ] Thanks. [ She takes the offered hand and brushes herself of a bit, before some of her humor comes out: ] Just a small bruise on my pride; somehow, I've had worse run-ins with stranger things. Usually after coffee, though.

[ ha. ]

I'm Lorna Dane, by the way, hi. The cloak's yours I assume?

[rehandle]

Loosely. It could technically abandon me at any moment, but conveniently it's obsessed with me, so.

[ That's not actually how a mystical artifact choosing its wielder works, but for all intents and purposes, in this case... As either punishment or confirmation the cloak swings around and attempts to hook over his shoulders. He wafts it away. ]

Stephen Strange. I'd offer to cover your coffee as compensation but I don't think it counts if we're both drawing from the same money pool.

c.

[ikols]

[ Loki doesn't do apologies, usually. Not the normal way, anyway.

In the midst of the magical galaxy a green star twinkles, joined by a second and third until their glow cannot be mistaken for random as they coalesce into a 3D portrait of Stephen. Not the one commanding the environmental spell, but another. There are minor differences between them, the angles of cheekbones or set of eyes, still recognisably the same man's variation, light shades of colour trickling in to make the illusion more discernible.

A second starts to take shape as the first winks out, this time of a man ten or fifteen years younger than the one Stephen might know, with blue eyes instead of brown, a man who is decidedly not dead (last Loki checked, anyway).

The room is otherwise silent and unmoved. ]

[rehandle]

[ The stars realign, conjoin, and it's certainly not him painting a from-memory self-portrait out of the raw material of his spell. The image fleshes out, and though he didn't need the confirmation the finished article - and the one that follows - all but spell out a signature. The images of two men from another world. One he wouldn't quite see in the mirror, the other recognisable as someone he'll never see again. (Good to know facial hair is multiversally mostly consistent).

Okay. Alright. Time to see what can be done about some bridges. ]

You caught me at a bad time.

[ Says Stephen to the empty room and the starlit effigy of Tony Stark, in way of explanation for the noted absence of his sense of humor the other day. He means it literally. Chronologically. ]

[ikols]

[ Whether because he still feels bad or doesn't want to subject himself to Stephen's gaze, Loki conjures the rest of Tony's figure until he stands there like a green-limned astral version of the blue hologram Loki once spoke with in Avengers Tower. The likeness comes to life and wanders around the galaxy, tapping a star here and there, and it isn't Loki's voice but Tony's when he speaks.

Yes, someone is definitely in hiding. Guilty. ]

That's practically a talent, isn't it? Catching a wizard with a speciality in time off his guard? It deserves a medal.

[rehandle]

[ If it were another Stark wandering around, speaking to him with an absent larynx, he might put a stop to it. But this is a man he doesn't know, a man who he's told is alive and well, and there are distinct enough differences that he can mostly omit the connection.

So the frontman holds as Stephen watches him meander the stars, speaking to him only incidentally. ]

Unfortunately not. That particular specialism's up in the air on account of a dearth of equipment in the department.

[ikols]

Still. Experience is experience.

[ "Tony" walks around to see Stephen from the front, hands in his pockets as he eyes up the sorcerer's mood. ]

What made you want to sit in star soup today?