I meant it to mean original prompts, which this definitely is! If anyone wants to illustrate this, P L E A S E feel free to reblog this/tag me in your art because HOOOO BOY
——————–
By the usual standards of the typical compound chaos, it had been a pretty uneventful day.
A handful of team members were taking advantage of the peace in the common area– Thor and Bruce were crashed on the couch huddled over a small screen and sharing earbuds, Tony was hanging off the back of his armchair checking his email, Peter was lying on the floor half asleep on top of a thick history textbook, and Sam and Bucky were in the corner arguing over a game of Sims on the desktop computer. Something that was clearly Steve’s tiny sim on the screen shouted gibberish, breaking the silence in the room and making Sam slap Bucky on the arm, producing a hollow clanging noise and a glare. Pretty typical afternoon.
But this was the compound, so no one was particularly surprised when a strangled shout came echoing from the hall that led to the team’s private rooms.
“What was that?” Bruce mumbled, plucking his earbud out and squinting upwards from the screen held between him and Thor.
“Eh, maybe Clint and Nat are up to something,” Tony suggested, merely raising an eyebrow and idly swiping upwards on his tablet. “You know how they are.” He sat upright and cupped his hands around his mouth, rolling his eyes before shouting– “HEY, YOU IDIOTS, pipe down back there. You better not be breaking something!”
A string of obscenities was the only reply.
“Clint? Wow, where’d you pick up that kind of language? I’m blushing.”
“I am most certainly NOT Clint,” a deep, irritated voice shouted back. Oh. That wasn’t Clint.
“Mr. Strange?” Peter piped up from the floor, cracking his eyes open and pushing himself up in curiosity. “Is everything okay?”
“What do you think?” Heavy, quick footsteps thudded down the hallway towards the common area. “Look–”
Stephen Strange stuck his head out from behind the door frame, an impressively deep scowl on his face. “I don’t know what kind of hazing rituals you guys pull on new members of the compound, but this isn’t remotely funny.”
The scattered occupants of the room all exchanged confused glances with one another. Tony opened his mouth, only to tilt his head to the side and close it again. Even Bucky poked his head up to give Stephen a sort of bemused shrug before returning to the computer to drop sim-Steve into a sim pool without a ladder.
“Wizard, I’m afraid I don’t understand,” Thor spoke up, breaking the baffled silence. “We would never… what is the word you used? ‘Haze’? A new member of the team. At least, I would hope we’re all above that,” he added lightly, glancing around in an almost accusatory way, as if someone in the room was thinking about doing it.
Stephen gave a derisive snort from the doorway. “Oh? Well in that case, explain this–”
The sorcerer stepped out from behind the frame of the door, and everyone else collectively, to put it lightly, lost their shit.
Stephen was wearing absolutely nothing but his cloak, which hung from its usual position about is shoulders, and both of them were very clearly pissed off. To its credit, the Cloak of Levitation was doing a spectacular job at keeping its master decent; it was doing a wonderful impression of some Renaissance-era drapery, and was carefully and cheekily floating about Strange’s waist, keeping anything inappropriate from peeking out. It didn’t, however, cover the rest of Stephen’s not-so-hard-on-the-eyes body. Or a majority of his ass, as Tony seemed to notice in the reflection of the window, as he raised a hand to cover his view of the sorcerer’s body with a high-pitched ‘oh!’” Peter slapped his hands over his eyes like some kind of giggling twelve year old, Bruce had gone bright red, and even Bucky and Sam had their mouths hanging open slightly, Sims game momentarily forgotten. Only Thor let out a hearty, unembarrassed guffaw.
“I wholeheartedly approve of this new look! A needed improvement on those dusty old robes of yours,” Thor said, grabbing his half-empty mug from the coffee table and raising it in a ‘cheers’ motion.
A muscle in Stephen’s jaw twitched as he crossed his arms, looking to all the world like some kind of scorned deity. The soft glow from the windows and framing of the door behind him didn’t help but to reinforce the ethereal image of the sorcerer standing there, much to the chagrin of certain people in the room.
“While I appreciate the compliment,” Stephen started carefully, his voice low and strained, “it doesn’t change the fact that someone stole all of my clothes.”
“Stole. All. Your clothes?” Tony asked haltingly, his eyebrows threatening to travel straight up towards his hairline in disbelief.
“My entire wardrobe is gone, and I don’t particularly remember relieving my closet of all my worldly clothes.”
“You’re… sure?”
“Do I look blind to you?” Stephen shot back, a soft crackle of magic sparking to life in his fingertips at his rising levels of irritation.
“No, no, I just–”
“Wait,” Bruce interrupted, raising one hand and desperately trying to avoid looking at the reflection of Stephen in the window. “Do you have more clothes back at the Sanctum? Can you portal there and, and find a spare outfit?”
“I admire your quick thinking, Doctor Banner, but my spare clothes there are gone as well.”
Bruce’s eyebrows squished together in a confused frown. “How’s that possible?”
“I don’t mean to offend you all, but hardly any of you are permitted into the Sanctum without me present, and Wong hasn’t reported any visitors to me. So,” Stephen concluded, crossing his arms more tightly over his chest, “one of you is either stealthy enough to fool Wong and the Sanctum, or there’s some sneaky magic involved here.” Stephen eyed each person in the room, suspicious.
“While I do enjoy you in this form, Sorcerer Strange, I’m innocent in this,” Thor said defensively, raising his hands. “My brother is the trickster god, not I.”
“I’m new here too! I would never prank you, at least, uh, like that,” Peter chimed in, one hand searching around for his phone. He wouldn’t sink low enough to steal Stephen’s clothes, but he was definitely plummeting to the level of posting this to Instagram.
“Bruce and I, we have an alibi,” Tony added, motioning between the two of them hurriedly. “We’ve been working all morning together, and just left the lab an half hour ago.”
“Mhm. Well. Sam? Bucky? Any information?” Stephen asked, raising his gaze towards the corner of the room.
“Hey man, I’d never steal another dude’s clothes,” Sam said defensively, shaking his head. “Majorly uncool. I ain’t some college frat guy.”
“Right,” Bucky agreed simply, a slight undercurrent of sarcasm in his voice as he eyed Sam.
Stephen grunted, unconvinced, but uncrossed his arms after a moment, seeming to deflate a bit.
“Anyone else have any inclination of what might have happened?”
“…Clint and Nat can be, um, kind of childish sometimes,” Bruce suggested, glancing over at Thor. “They set Thor’s cape on fire one time.”
“Ah! Now that was an eventful party!” Thor grinned, clapping Bruce on the shoulder. “But yes, the two of them do cause mischief from time to time.”
Stephen shifted his weight from foot to foot, weighing his options as his cloak swirled around his waist. “So I’ve heard. Do you know where they are?”
“No, I haven’t seen them in a couple hours,” Bruce admitted, shifting so that he was sitting up a little taller, “but Thor’s pretty good at finding them when they’ve, uh, hid.”
“Think you could lead me to them?” Stephen asked, appraising Thor lightly.
“Certainly. Though I would advise perhaps seeking out some more clothing beforehand. They tend to gloat quite heavily upon seeing the product of their mischief.”
“Well, you’re roughly my size, Stephen,” Tony spoke up, getting to his feet. “You can borrow anything you’d like from my own closet. Just, y’know, keep the underwear.”
Stephen’s cheeks flushed, but he seemed to soften a little. “Really? Thank you. I’d appreciate a pair of pants right about now.”
“Sure thing, magic man. Follow me,” Tony said, motioning for Stephen to follow him down the hallway. “Bruce, Thor, you’ll go find Clint and Nat?”
“Most certainly,” Thor assured, clapping a fist over his chest and tugging Bruce to his feet. “It’s a dishonor to shame such a man like this.”
“I’m flattered,” Stephen replied, a glint of appreciative amusement in his eyes. “Sam, Bucky, can you tell us if you find anything?” he asked as he followed Tony towards the bedroom hallway.
“Sure, sure,” Bucky mumbled, waving a hand as he returned to clicking at the computer screen. “Sam’ll have his eyes out.”
“You will too, you lazy dumbass,” Sam retorted, giving Bucky’s metal arm a shove. He didn’t budge. “You shouldn’t have introduce him to the Sims, Pete, he won’t get off the goddamned computer.”
“Sorry,” Peter grinned, pulling himself off the floor and abandoning his textbook. “I’ll come back later to check out the sim house he built, but I’ll go help Thor and Mr. Banner for now.”
“Ah! Extra help! Excellent,” Thor grinned, holding out an arm to Peter as he tripped across the room. “Alright. Let’s check in the laundry area first, Clint rather enjoys hiding in the industrial washing machines, if my memory serves me.”
“Really?!” Peter asked excitedly, his voice jumping up an octave of disbelief as he followed Bruce and Thor towards the other doorway. “I can’t believe that–”
Their voices faded away along with their footsteps, and after a moment it was just Sam and Bucky left in the room.
“Bucky,” Sam whispered, glancing around before lowering his voice. “Bucky!”
“What?” Bucky murmured, raising his eyebrows innocently as he put down the mouse.
“What did you do?”
Bucky cracked a smile and reached into his pocket, pulling out a small, diamond-shaped artifact and pinching it between two metal fingers. “Remember this thing you nicked from the Harry Potter’s magic fun house?”
“Ay, I didn’t nick it, it was just lying on the floor, I figured I’d return it at some point–”
“The point is, I figured out how to do stuff with it,” Bucky interrupted, absolute mayhem dancing in his eyes. “But I didn’t know it was gonna do… that.”
Sam blinked, a slow grin starting to spread across his face. “…do you have all of Strange’s clothes somewhere?”
“Uh huh.”
“…wanna show me?”
“Oh, definitely. C’mon.”
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