Doctor Strange may have changed careers rather dramatically, but it was not for nothing that he'd become one of the world's leading neurosurgeons, nor, for that matter, one of its leading sorcerers. It meant, of course, that he was far from stupid. He might have been more than a little arrogant once, but he was always brilliant.
This meant that it took him even less time than for the average person to figure out that something was not quite so "standard" about his new Cloak. Really, the fact that it had helped him find tools and had also strangled someone for him during their first fight together, had been quite enough of a clue even for most other people.
He had not realised until he had scrubbed off after the Ancient One's surgery though, just how... sensitive the Cloak could be. Any remaining arrogance withstanding, it was with far more startlement than actual annoyance that he had stopped it from drying his tears, and it had continued to act in a similar way in the days following the battle of the Hong Kong Sanctum.
The first few days after Hong Kong had been almost frantically busy, but eventually a pattern had formed. He had started to get comfortable in the Sanctum, settling in with books in the evenings like he had used to do up in the mountains during his training, in his small chamber there.
It was quite different in the aspect, of course, that here he had a multitude of rooms to chose from for his reading, but he quickly settled on a favourite. There was a large study, close to where the room which he had claimed as his bedroom was located, with an open fireplace and plenty of books nearby as a bonus, and that quickly became his first choice.
The first night he actually had time to sit down and read another tome, one he had somewhat unusually legitimately borrowed from Wong for a change, he had hung the cloak up in his bedroom and settled in with a blazing fire to read for a while.
He had tensed up as he heard a noise, not ten minutes into his reading. Had someone breached the Sanctum? Surely that was not possible, not without alerting anyone? Perhaps Wong or someone else from Kamar-Taj had come over for a quick visit?
Before he could get up and investigate, the doorknob to the room he was in started to turn. Frowning, Strange stilled where he was about to put the book on the table next to him and rise. This was like some sort of horror film or something, and he would not stand for that kind of sillyness. Just as he had realised that and stood up, the door opened and revealed his Cloak.
"Hello there," he greeted it, a little bit puzzled at its abrupt entrance. It had not been long, but he had already given up the idea of resisting talking to a piece of clothing. The Cloak was a powerful relic and clearly intelligent, and he was a Doctor, believing in evidence. That meant that if speaking to his Cloak yielded results, then he would speak to his Cloak all that he pleased. At least - when no one else was around to hear him do it and deem him crazy for it. Preferrably, anyway. He was actually quite beyond truly caring what people thought. Assuming he ever had - he was not too sure.
"Is something wrong?" It certainly didn't seem like it, as the Cloak just floated into the room without any sense of urgency whatsoever, closing the door tidily and then, somewhat to Strange's surprise, flung itself over the back of his chair like most people might collapse onto their beds after a long day.
"Alright then." Settling in again in his chair, ignoring the warm, velvety red fabric falling down onto one of his shoulders, Strange went back to his reading, disregarding the Cloak's excentricities for now. He was not in the least surprised though, when it draped itself in the exact same position the next night.
By the time Strange knew the entire Sanctum by heart and had started to bring mulled wine into his little library room with him, as the cold of winter (such as it was, here, which was nothing compared to winter in the mountains) was closing in, the cloak had made a habit of sneaking into his lap instead during these little evening reading sessions, stretching out over him like a perfect blanket and draping its folds down his legs, the collar usually resting against one of his hands as if demanding to be petted.
It also quickly developed a habit for winding its fabric around his forearms, but as it never did anything to hurt him in any way, nor ever wound itself around him too hard, he saw no harm in letting it. It was a bit like reading with a giant snake in your chair, but he had taken over from the Supreme Sorcerer of the Earth as its Protector. It took more, much more than a cuddly Cloak to unsettle him, and he had started to idly pet it within a week of it starting to rest in his lap. No, to unsettle a man like him, it would take considerably more. It would take something like... a woman. And as had always been the case for him, there was only one woman which that could possibly be. Christine.
So, my first attempt of a light-hearted Cloak of Levitation fluff story became a very deep, soulsearching, from-the-heart type of instrospection story instead (it is posted if any reader is curious, title is "Doctor Strange and the Cloak") so I though I'd give the pure fluff another go. This, of course, became something else entirely. Stay tuned, and I'll even tell you what that is eventually. (When I have managed to figure it out myself.).
I am not Marvel and do not mean to steal their stuff. Just... making them some free commercial material! (Which they cannot use without a silly disclaimer telling everybody it is MINE! Hehe.)
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