Ten minutes later, Stephen made it back to the Sanctum, turning through the door and locking it behind him with a spell.

He sighed quietly. So. Another half-day to kill.

Stephen wandered around aimlessly, every now and again retouching the decorations here and there with magic or moving them around. (He'd always been an over-decorator at Christmas.) The problem with days off was there was literally nothing to do. He didn't feel like going anywhere but he didn't feel like being alone either, and everyone he knew was busy. Maybe Scott was up for a video call?

Stephen made his way slowly to the Sanctum's kitchen with the intention of manually making a cup of tea or hot chocolate. (He could just summon it, but that took out the fun of doing something. Plus, the kettle whistled the tune of "Jingle Bells" when it was boiling.)

As he walked in, still lost in ideas of what he could do, though mainly his head was full of an "er" sound, he didn't even notice the way his magical cloak friend was floating in after him, making oddly human-like gestures like it was telling him off.

Eventually Stephen turned around and saw it. He gave it a look he knew he'd certainly picked up off Loki – one of exasperation.

"Buddy, you know I couldn't have taken you out on a walk with me," he told the cloak, which had crossed its corners to look as though it was crossing its arms. "You draw a lot of attention, especially when you float off and bring strangers a stick."

Those moments were pretty embarrassing, and happened a lot more frequently than one would suspect. But as this was New York, and was the place where other-terrestrial gods invaded or defended, where mad, giant, purple Titans bought their spaceships and wielded magic glow-y stones wearing only one glove, where half-spiders swung around the place helping out with the local crime and was where Tony Stark had previously lived, the people were so used to weird events happening they probably hardly batted an eyelid anymore.

The kettle started whistling Jingle Bells. Stephen drummed his fingers on the worktop waiting. The cloak was still floating with its corners crossed, refusing to acknowledge him. Stephen sighed and picked up one of the spare sticks he kept under the sink in a box for the cloak. He threw it out the door straight down the hallway.

That did it. All moodiness evaporated as the cloak flew after it excitedly like a dog would do.

That cloak was the only company he was getting today, it seemed.

That was, unless Scott was free for a video call. Stephen pulled his phone out his pocket and typed out a message to Scott.

Hey Scott. You free for a call or something later? Just because I'm really bored and the quiet is driving me CRAZY.

He looked at it for a moment then deleted the bit about the quiet driving him crazy, because he didn't want Scott to think he was a loner. He replaced it with a smiley face instead.

Hey Scott. Are you free for a call or something later? :D

Stephen clicked send and watched the two ticks appear next to the message which signalled it had sent.

He exited Scott's profile and stopped. Under Scott's contact on the messaging app was Wanda. Strange hesitated, then clicked on it and read the last few messages he'd sent:

23 JULY

Stephen: Hey Wanda. Why'd you leave so suddenly earlier?

29 JULY

Stephen: Hey. Loki told me to say goodbye to you because he's going up to space.

29 AUGUST

Stephen: Hi Wanda. Will you be coming to the Avengers meeting later?

30 AUGUST

Stephen: How come you didn't come yesterday?

17 NOVEMBER

Stephen: Haven't heard from you in a while. What's up?

Wanda hadn't answered or even read any of those messages, so either she'd changed her number or was purposely ignoring him. He debated whether to send another message or not. The cloak returned with the stick.

Eventually he decided to send a message.

16 DECEMBER

Stephen: Wanda, is everything OK? I haven't heard from you in so long. Do you want to talk about it? And don't worry, I have no more multiverse-saving adventures for you to tag along on ;)

By this point the kettle had finished boiling, so he made his tea and went into the closest room he had to a lounge, flopping onto the sofa and watching the home screen of his phone as though something exciting was happening.

Before he could stop his mind from thinking it, he wished something exciting would happen. There was nothing to do anymore, and he'd never gone so long in his sorcery or Avenger career or even his doctor career having this little to do. He wished there'd be another Avengers mission, or another uprising in another timeline, or Wanda would just flipping text him back and tell them what it was that she found it necessary to ignore him for five whole months. Just something.

He really shouldn't have wished for any of that.