“I’ll neither confirm nor deny.” Stephen Strange had been the bane of many an archivist’s existence, even before he went about breaking into books with literal padlocks on them and stealing them right out from under the nose of Kamar-Taj’s head librarian. He likely still had black marks in some Nebraskan public libraries, too, where he’d taken reference material and simply never returned them, only paying off the fees years later.

But as he settles in at the table, he notices the change. The gloves had been easy to overlook — maybe Mobius has bad circulation — but the altered cutlery isn’t, and Strange’s attention-to-detail lingers on it.

(Familiar— a flash of recollection, his irritated physical therapist, his own assistive implements in those excruciating weeks after surgery after surgery—)

He swallows those memories. Tries to shake it off, considers whether or not he should just ask what happened, and how blunt he can be. And— wait, what had Mobius just asked?

“I’m getting there,” he finally says. “Still doing tricks,” har har, “but it’s still nowhere near as powerful as I used to be, which is the main frustration.”

He’s bad at accepting his changed limits. He wonders if they have that in common.