Magic with Your Demons

"Hey! What're you doing to my brother's car?!" Gabe shouted, wheeling out of the house as fast as he could.

The guy in the red cape started and the sparkler light constructs around his hands fizzled out as he turned to face Gabe.

"This car belongs to your brother?" the guy asked, surprised.

"Uh, yeah. That's why I called it 'my brother's car,'" Gabe sassily replied. Seriously, who was this old guy who looked ready to go LARPing or to a Con?

"Do you know where your brother is?" the stranger keenly asked.

"Depends on why you're asking," Gabe said evasively. It wasn't exactly wise to let on that there was only him in his wheelchair around if the stranger wasn't friendly. Especially since the light show earlier was probably some form of powers and Gabe had a hard enough time fighting against normal people.

The man blinked. "Right. Uh, let's start again, if that's okay?" he offered and Gabe nodded, willing to see where this would go. "Dr. Stephen Strange, acting Sorcerer Supreme. I'm here to check in on the entity known as the Ghost Rider since it's on my list of potential extradimensional threats. It's not generally a threat to worry about, usually more helpful in safeguarding the Earth from others from its home dimension, but I'm just going through the whole list seeing as I'm new management. Your brother's car here has traces of its power on it, so I was using my magic to try and locate the actual thing using the power left on the car."

The kid kept up his level face at Doctor Strange.

"Look, I know this sounds weird, but it's the truth. The little light show I had going on when you started yelling at me? That was magic," he explained. It kind of broke the rules of secrecy, but if the books were right, the Ghost Rider was a two-part entity and this kid's brother was probably the human part. He was probably going to find out sooner or later, if he didn't know already.

"It's not the magic part I'm having trouble believing, it's the good intentions," Gabe explained.

Doctor Strange nodded, unoffended. He'd done a bit of research to find the current Ghost Rider's stomping ground and some of the reports of its victims hadn't alluded to the innocent blood they had spilled to get the Rider's attentions at all. It was also, admittedly, not the nicest of neighborhoods, so the distrust was a fairly natural defense mechanism.

"I understand. Though to be honest, I'm probably the only sorcerer with the power to maybe make it in a fight against the Ghost Rider, but pretty lacking in the experience department to pull it off," he decided to reassure the kid.

"Thus 'acting Sorcerer Supreme'?" Gabe questioned. Robbie's S.H.I.E.L.D. friends had been giving him some pointers on dealing with potential threats and part of that was paying attention to what was said and connecting the dots.

"Thus 'acting,'" Doctor Strange agreed. "So how about I give you my phone number and the next time your brother has the time, have him call me so we can set up a little check-in meeting." He was careful not to mention how the kid's brother, the Ghost Rider, probably wasn't around (or maybe even in the dimension with how long his spell had been taking to locate it) at the moment.

Gabe gave the acting Sorcerer Supreme a considering look. "… I can do that," he said, turning around to grab a notebook and pen from the backpack hanging off his wheel chair. Gabe offered them to the doctor, who pushed them back to the boy.

"It's better if you write it down. I lost most of the dexterity in my hands a while back, my hand writing's barely legible," Doctor Strange explained.

"Okay," Gabe accepted. He knew better than to pester someone else about a crippling injury.

Gabe dutifully wrote down the phone number Doctor Strange provided along with the sorcerer's name and the emblem for the New York Sanctum (he showed Gabe the amulet that signified his current stewardship over it to copy). With that done, the acting Sorcerer Supreme left via Sling Ring, which Gabe had to admit was pretty cool (and looked a lot like what Simmons had described Robbie's fiery chain made portal to look like).

Robbie was glad to finally be home. The Hell dimension had lived up to the name (again) and it was just nice to be in control of himself again. The best part though was that he was home, not just on Earth again, but at his house and with Gabe again. He was going through the stack of letters and papers Gabe had set aside for him during his absence when he came across the lined notebook paper with a phone number, the name Doctor Stephen Strange, a circle with some curving lines through it, and the instructions to call the number when he had the time.

"Who is this guy?" Robbie absently wondered aloud.

[Interfering little magic user.] the Spirit of Vengeance replied to Robbie's surprise. [When you call him, tell him to piss off, I'm still doing my job.]

"Sure," Robbie agreed. He trusted the Spirit enough to tell someone else to not poke their nose into their business.

Then Robbie blinked. "Wait, magic's a thing?"

Author's Note

Yeah, so I noticed that Robbie's self-made portal's animation was really similar to Sling Ring portals, so this crossover (is it really a crossover when they're both MCU?) with Doctor Strange happened. It also works really well when sorcerer's are supposed to guard against extradimensional threats/intrusions, which the Spirit of Vengeance is, and Doctor Strange has a threat list he's keeping an eye on according to the mid-credits scene, which I think Ghost Rider would qualify for even though he's friendly-ish.