THE APPRENTICE (DOCTOR STRANGE STORY)

27

Hazel tried to hold the tears back, but it was like she didn't have control over her body anymore. Her eyes freely let her sobs down her cheeks, making her wipe them off as soon as they hit her skin.

"Hazel?" A voice croaked out from behind her. The girl turned around and saw Peter, hesitant to go near her.

"What?" She was quick to turn around, in order to not let him see her face. She wiped the tears off her face and sturdied her voice up. "Are we here?,"

"No, I-I just wanted to make sure you were okay." The boy slowly stepped beside her. Hazel didn't know how to respond to whatever he said. "I know this is a dumb question but...a-are you okay?,"

"I'm fine." She plopped herself down one of the steps and waited for Peter to sit beside her. "That was nothing,"

"You know, he only said that because he cares about you." He explained softly beside her. The sorcerer was quick to turn to him, scrunching her eyebrows.

"You're on his side now?," she scoffed in disbelief "you don't know anything about us. You don't know what he just said to me,"

"I know he only said it because he cares about you," He stated

"Yeah? What makes you say that?" The girl challenged and squinted her eyes at Spider-Man.

*
Flashback

The three watched Hazel walk away from them, the air still filled with tension. Strange seemed to be in deep thought, while the two only stared at each other in helplessness.

"Well that was rough." Tony whistled out loud to ease the tension. Stephen only gazed at him, then turned back into his thoughts. "Is this a regular occurrence, or-,"

"-I had a lot going on in my mind!" He defended and straightened up his posture. The man started to rub his temples. "She never told me about it and then this all comes and punches me in the face. She's in danger, and she doesn't even know it. Again,"

"Again?," Peter asked before Tony could and tilted his head a little bit. Strange hesitated to tell him for a while because he, for some reason, disliked him.

"When we found out she owned the staff, people were already after her. She was the last person out of everyone to find out," The man retold the story to them "and so everyone wanted to kill her for the staff , and she didn't even know it."

Tony nodded, then put his hands behind his back "so if this staff is so troublesome, why won't you just...not give it to her?," he asked "I don't know, just chuck it in a safe?,"

"That'd be careless, and even if I did, she's already connected to it," Strange stressed. He ran a hand through his hair out of frustration "which brings us all back to square one: I don't know what'll happen to her if Thanos gets the stone,"

"So she's in deep shit?," The man repeated and crossed his arms in curiosity.

"I-I took it all out on her and now she hates me. I don't know what to do-,"

"-she doesn't hate you," Tony shook his head "trust me, she doesn't. I know what that looks like. I...it can seem tough telling her what to do and getting mad at her, but sometimes it protects her,"

"Yeah, Mr Strange, it was just the moment, that's all," Peter added

"But that still doesn't excuse the fact that you totally hurt her," Tony brought to light and shrugged. "She's probably gonna be having fits,"

"Oh, she'll be having fits alright," The sorcerer let out a humorless laugh. "I've seen it happen too many times,"

"Yeah, hey, kid, go check on her to see if she's still here," Tony ordered Spider-Man, who nodded and started to walk away.

"Hey! No- don't you dare come near her!," Strange let out as an impulse, then dragged himself back into sanity "Fine, but no funny business. If you try to kiss her, I'll find out, and I'll get creative on how to deal with you,"

"I wasn't gonna try to-"

"-please," he scoffed "we're all guys here, I know that look,"

"Hey that's unfair! Mr Stark!" Peter frowned and turned his head towards Tony, who frowned back at him.

"Yeah, I'm gonna side with him on this one," he sighed "anyways, go"

*

"I just know," he managed to say "just trust me on this one,"

"Why should I trust you?," she once again prodded him with skepticism. She saw him start to think of a reason, making her heart heavy. "Sorry, I know you're a good guy,"

"It's okay," he replied and pursed his lips together "so..."

"So..." she tapped her foot against the floor. "I didn't expect you to look the way you do,"

"What did you expect?," he raised his eyebrows curiously

"You know what? I don't know. Just...not like this." She pointed around his existence and pursed her lips together.

"Is that a bad thing?,"

"No, definitely not," she shrugged and a smile grew on her face. "Crazy how we ended up seeing each other again,"

"Yeah," he chuckled and smiled at her. "I never forgot about you. Why'd you call yourself Wolfe?,"

"It's my last name," she explained "it sounds code name-y enough, so I figured I would use it instead of telling you,"

"Well...I'm gonna call you Hazel," he stared at his shoes and slid his foot around. "You know, you were sick earlier,"

"So were you?," she returned "how'd you get your powers, anyway?,"

"It's a long story. Basically, a radioactive spider bit me. All of a sudden, well, I was me," He replied to the girl "and since then, Mr. Stark's been mentoring me, kinda like you and Mr. Strange,"

"So I guess he has a thing for kids, huh?," she laughed and looked at the man from the distance "you guys are like father and son?,"

"Well...I-I wouldn't say that," The boy started to turn pink, blood started to rush to his face while he formulated a sentence.

"See? It's a thing," she assumed

"I'd say the same about you," he diverted her from the topic "so how'd you guys meet? Was he just kind of..there?,"

"No." She shook her head "I don't have parents and my sister got into some things. We grew up together, but I guess we just had to part ways. I never really knew what she was up to, but I'd say drugs, if I had to guess, so she left me,"

The girl started to reminisce about everything she had gone through.

"And so when we had a fight before she left, I left the house and some guys in tunics were fighting. One of them knocked me into a portal and..that's when Strange found me,"

"You were knocked in a portal to where he was?," he repeated, and she nodded

"I wanted to leave, but I realized I didn't really have anywhere to go to. So, Stephen took me in and taught me magic," tears started to fall from her eyes and she quickly wiped them away.

"Oh- I'm sorry, did I-,"

"No, you're fine," she waved off "it's just odd when you think you mean more to someone, but you don't,"