America doesn’t think it needs to be discussed, and if it did need to be discussed she didn’t know what she would say.
I’m sorry I’m still afraid of you sometimes even though you sacrificed so much for me?
It feels like a betrayal when she shrinks away from his stern voice, or hides when he comes to visit because she doesn’t feel as if she has something worthwhile to show him.
She still could do little more than make sparks, and even though she’d pulled it off before, she still had very little grasp on her star-hopping powers.
He’s different from the other Strange, different from any Strange. She knows this. Appreciates it more than anything, especially when he takes the time out of his day to take her out to buy a phone and a laptop - even some things to spice up her room.
Wanting her to make it her own after realizing she hadn’t had a place to call her own in the last decade. Sometimes he tries to ask questions about what she did in all that time.
He’d become more subtle in his pondering over time. His different approach gained him more answers, along with other things.
America’s certain at this point he knows of her transgression, knows as much as she trusts him there’s always going to be some part of her afraid he’d let her go. Kill her. Even if the time ever came, she’d let him.
He’s not the only one who worries her this way. In fact her fear is more prevalent with Wong, and that she felt a lot less guilt for. Reasonably in the end when Wong came to the very same decision the first Strange she met did, she understood even when she felt like falling apart.
She hadn’t been worth the ruins of Kamar-Taj, nor the lives lost. Often she wonders if she should have just let it happen in the first place, surely her power, not gift, would have been better placed in Defender Strange’s scarred hands.
Panic attacks weren’t anything new, in fact most of her experiences with them sent her flying throughout the multiverse.
She doesn’t know what about it in particular sets it off this time, the flash of a sorcerer in red running through the hall for some odd reason is enough for her brain to fire off in alarm.
Defender Strange, Wanda. She sees them behind her now tightly shut eyes, and suddenly she’s gone.
When she gathers her bearings once again, rubbing the tears out of her eyes, and reclaiming the oxygen that failed to acquaint themselves with her lungs. America adds another tally to her long list of universes she had never been too.
The stars are permanent fixtures in the sky. Bright enough to shine in the daylight. She imagines it’s a spectacle at night. A watery smile lights her features, an odd feeling of belonging reaching out to her from them.
If only she shined as bright.
Taking a seat, America fixes her gaze. Wondering just how exactly she’d get herself home, because even if for once in her life someone would be actually searching for her; no matter what Strange did he wouldn’t be able to get to her.
This was all on her.
Being the sorcerer supreme was a tall task, one Wong didn’t like lightly. Especially when it meant he had to be the bearer of bad news. And informing Strange of America’s disappearance was a much taller task than others.
Many threats still surrounded the child, both from others and her lack of full reign on her powers. This fact kept them all on edge. Especially Strange's.
Wong has long since been acquainted with the terse look on the former sorcerer supreme’s features, it's no different now.
“She wasn’t taken?”
“No,” Wong reassures, shaking his head, “I’m afraid she was startled and left herself,”
“Right,” Strange returns, staring at the void of space that had previously warped out into a star and subsequently stolen his ward away.
“If she is anything like who she reminds me of, she’ll find her way back,” Wong assures, truly believing it.
“Doesn’t mean I can’t worry,” Strange finds himself returning, spinning on his heel with a flourish of his cape to take a seat. Ready to wait until his apprentice returned. Hopefully unharmed.
It was hard enough knowing he couldn’t do a thing to retrieve her now, especially with the darkhold gone - although even he knew it lay in wait in the photographs in his mind - he couldn’t be tempted.
Not if he didn’t want that third eye to appear again, the one that America had recoiled away from with a quip that it was worse than Defender Strange’s ponytail. He may have agreed but she hadn’t needed to say it out loud.
Tucking his shaking hands around an apparated cup of tea, Strange readies himself for the worst knowing America often found herself in nothing but trouble - as street smart as she was in other universes - those variables could change.
All he could do now was trust her resourcefulness, then maybe the incessant beating of his heart would stop.
Her hunch that the night on this planet would be nothing short of extraordinary was correct. It was almost bright enough she wondered how the people of this world slept. Likely with the same thick black out curtains she had in her own room.
The thought of her room draws the attention of her stomach, associating her place of residence with what usually came hand in hand with shelter. Not to mention she hadn’t eaten all day.
She’d skipped her own first rule, finding food, to look at the stars in the hopes she might just become one of them.
Relaxing her mind in the way the sorcerers at Kamar-Taj taught her, America thinks back to where she wants to be. She nearly pictures her own room which she had done not seconds ago, until she realizes that’s not what she wants. Or rather who.
Figuring she couldn’t just imagine her unique Doctor Strange lest she tear him in half with a portal or something, America conjures the New York sanctum with an internal plea.
A light blue electric crackle of power has her lifting off her feet, crashing back to Earth-616 in the sanctum's lobby. Their doorman, a man she hadn’t had the fortune of meeting, raises a brow at her shy wave, but says nothing at her appearance.
She was more well known than she thought.
“Is Strange here?” She finds herself asking tentatively, hugging around her stomach in case it grumbles.
The irony that she wants the comfort of the very man that frightens her doesn’t fail her notice. Maybe they really need did need to talk about it.
“This way,” the doorman thankfully gestures, leading her through the library Wong used to tend, and to the chamber where the eye of Agamotto used to rest.
The chambers' walls each hold a different symbol, one of which she recognizes as the circle of Kamar-Taj. He gestures at the door and leaves her with a nod.
“Thank you!” She calls after him, before popping open the door. Still amazed about the magic imbued in the heavy wood making such teleportation possible.
Stepping through, America takes in the familiar surroundings of the very temple she’d had to duck away in when Wanda launched her attack. It was less than comforting.
Maybe she could ask Strange to let her stay in the New York sanctum, that wouldn’t be too much of a problem, would it?
Keeping that thought in mind, America feels her shoulders drop in relief at the sight of Strange staring where she’d disappeared; foot tapping wildly as Wong paced as regally as possible.
When she noticed they hadn’t been alerted to her presence she saves them from their reverie, “I think we should talk,” it comes out more insecure and bashful than she intended but there's no going back now.
Their reaction is instant. Wong straightening up and then immediately sagging in relief, hands planted on his hips whilst Stephen approached with a multitude of emotions mixed on his face America couldn’t decipher.
“You came through the door’s,” Stephen notes, voice the slightest bit labored as he towers over her even with his currently slouched posture.
America nods, “I came back through the New York sanctum,” she admits, feeling the need to duck further away at his gaze due to the fear she feels. For once it’s not Strange himself causing it, rather her next admittance:
“I was looking for you,”
The comforting hand settling on her shoulder is all she needs to push forward, burying her face into his collar-bone and scrunching her fingers at the backs of his shoulders where the fabric of the cloak of levitation brushes her knuckles.
“I’m glad you found me kid,”
She doesn’t ask where he got the food from, if she’s honest she’s pretty sure he slingringed away someone’s door dash order but she's too hungry to care.
She digs right in, blinking languidly as fatigue sets in. Wong is sat across from her and Stephen, of course, is at her side.
At some point the cloak of levitation had tethered itself to her shoulders. America has to wonder if Strange had instructed it to do so as to keep an eye out for her. Not that she minded, it was a comforting weight there.
“You said you had something you wanted to talk about,” Wong begins, thankfully after she’d already taken a few bites of her pizza because as hungry as she was her appetite stalled.
Noticeably enough she could see in her peripheral Stephen’s glare being sent at the sorcerer supreme. Obviously upset. It’s funny he’s the more patient one in this situation.
“I was thinking, would I be able to stay at the New York sanctum?” Tucking her hands against her lap, she’s ready to reason if she needed to go Kamar-Taj for lessons she could always go through the very door she took today.
“I don’t see why not,” Wong points out, looking to Strange since he was the defender of the place after all. (The defender of her too.)
Her breath catches in her throat, waiting to see just what his verdict would be.
“We have the space,” Stephen answers, it as close to a yes as he would ever give. America sags against his shoulder in relief, only to tense up again at his next words, although she doesn’t pull away.
“I have a feeling that’s not the only thing you wanted to talk about,”
Contradicting her feelings yet again America turns her head closer to his shoulder, hoping to hide against him as she admits what felt a lot like sin.
“I got scared earlier…and left because, well-I thought it was you. Not you now but other you, the one you saw in your dream,” the cloak of levitation pets at her skin in comfort, sensing her woe.
Physically she can feel him stiffen, the action making guilt crash down upon her in a wave. So much so she feels like she needs to talk, to not let them get a word in edgewise because she doesn’t think she could handle whatever they had to say.
“I know it’s wrong, and I know it’s over with. And even if it had been you I would have understood-“ Strange shivers for some odd reason at that, “And Wong I forgive of course it’s just sometimes it’s like my brain doesn’t believe that everything’s okay when I know it is. I trust you guys but sometimes I am still so scared and -“
“America,” Stephen’s voice is uncharacteristically soft as he interrupts, as is the protective arm that settles around the backs of her shoulders afraid she’d send herself away again. He didn’t want to lose her.
“Whatever you feel about everything, even us, it’s okay,” the former sorcerer supreme explains equally as softly as he spoke before.
Wong’s hand reaches over the table, and with the slightest hesitation and all of Stephen’s support she reaches out to take it.
“I'm sorry little one,” The sorcerer supreme apologizes, looking broken behind the eyes yet resigned. She understands why.
Feeling her stomach grumble and her watery eyes return to normal, sluggishly she lets go of his hand which he doesn’t seem to take offense to and quietly gets back to her meal.
They do too, yet Strange never takes the arm he has around her shoulders away.
The sanctums were odd, set and stone and ever changing all at once. She shouldn’t be so surprised her new room is right next to his own.
She shouldn’t be surprised he personally takes over her lessons, and America shouldn’t be surprised that Wong goes out of his way to assure her of his goodwill even when she isn’t feeling threatened.
But what Wong does for her that is most important, that throws her off her feet, is answer the question that had been nagging her since their dinner. Why had Strange flinched at her words?
“Being the former sorcerer supreme, Strange had to make decisions that no man should ever have to make. He didn’t want ending your life to be one of them,”
America fiddles with her sling ring at that, wrinkling her nose before embracing the sorcerer supreme in a hug.
In time things would get better but for now things weren’t so bad.