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“Good morning, Mister Ro-”
Sharon’s words immediately died in her throat when she saw the expression on her boss’s face as he entered the room. She slowly put her coffee mug back on the conference table, afraid to spill hot coffee all over herself.
“Morning, Miss Carter.” Everett Ross replied icily as he moved past her into his office and sat behind his desk.
Nothing unusual, you would say. But there was one big difference about Everett Ross this morning and it wasn’t his obviously swollen belly. They had already gotten over that surprise last month when Everett told Sharon and their other co-workers that he is indeed carrying twins. What was unusual about Everett this morning was the red cloak that was floating behind him, following him everywhere like a little puppy.
Sharon immediately recognized the cloak as belonging to Doctor Stephen Strange, the new Sorcerer Supreme, as well as Everett’s mate and husband. When they first met, he told her that his cloak has a mind of its own and proceeded to apologize whenever the cloak bothered them by floating around without its master or popping up unexpectedly, often scaring people in the process.
“Can you not?!”
Sharon snapped out from her thoughts when she heard Everett yelling. She glanced into his office and saw the cloak wrapping itself tightly around Everett’s midsection, as if was trying to hug him and make sure he was warm. Everett continued to grumble about the unnecessary of magic artifacts, how tired and done he was dealing with magic, and cursing a certain sorcerer supreme.
“What’s wrong, Everett?” Sharon steps inside the office to get a closer look at Everett. The poor man was huffing in his seat with one end of the red cloak starting to pat his pregnant belly lovingly. “Why is Stephen’s cloak with you today?”
“It insisted on coming with me,” Everett growled and glared at the cloak. “I tried everything I could to stop it but it was no use!”
Sharon bit back a smirk at the absurdity of the situation. Sure, she’d had to deal with weird sorcery events since she began working with SHIELD and the Avengers, but that didn’t even come close to current situation of the living cloak behaving like a puppy with one of its masters.
“Did Stephen do something about it?” she asked, raising an eyebrow.
“Stephen?” Everett scoffed, looking even more annoyed at the mention of his husband’s name. “He fucking encourages his cloak to do this!”
Interested, Sharon takes a seat in front of Everett’s desk. She freezes when the cloak perks up and begins to look her up and down, sizing her up to determine whether she’s a threat or not. When it decides that Sharon is not a threat, it goes back to rubbing Everett’s face. Everett groans and pulls it away from his face, smacking it away when it tries to do it again.
“If I were a betting woman, I’d say that the cloak just wants to protect you and the babies,” Sharon suggest with a small smile.
Everett looks up and directs his glare at Sharon. “It wants me to suffer, Sharon. End of story.”
Before Sharon can reply, the door to Everett’s office opens and Stephen Strange walks inside.
“There you are!” He said, snapping his fingers. The cloak gave Everett’s stomach one last loving pat before floating over and settling around Stephen’s shoulders.
Everett narrowed his eyes at his husband. “Tell your damn cloak to stop following me around! It’s hard to be taken seriously when I have that thing wrapped around my stomach like a cummerbund!”
Sharon snorted but quickly looked down at her hands when Everett shot daggers at her.
“If I could get it to do my bidding, I would certainly tell it that,” Stephen replied, the smile evident in his voice.
“Well try harder!” Everett snapped before picking up a pen. He stiffened when Stephen quickly moved across the office and stood behind his chair, leaning down and kissing his flushed cheek.
“How about I make it up to you?” Stephen rumbled, nuzzling Everett’s bond mark peeking over the collar of his shirt. “I’ll make you dinner tonight and massage your feet.”
Sharon watched in amusement at Everett squirming in his seat. “Fine, but keep that thing away from me for today. I have several important meetings and I don’t need the extra baggage.”
“As you wish,” Stephen replied, giving Everett a peck on the cheek before turning and creating a portal and stepping through it. Once he’s gone, Sharon clears her throat and gives Everett a smile before getting to her feet.
“For the record, red really is your color. You should wear it more often,” she said before running out of the office, laughing when Everett threw his pen at her.