Stephen Strange was beginning to get frustrated, placing a flat knife on the table. "I mean how can you bear it? Aren't you bored?"

"Why would I be bored?" Christine said, taking a bite of her spaghetti in this lowbrow Italian restaurant she liked so much. It was a hole in the wall, it smelled like grease, and the booth they were sitting in had stained plaid patterns that were absolutely horrendous. But the food did taste good, Stephen couldn't ignore that, and Christine was a redeeming light in the little den in her shapely blue dress and red hair.

"We just stick people with that miracle drug and they're all better, except an occasional tumor that it doesn't wipe out or a bullet that needs to be extracted first," he said. "It's the least interesting this has ever been."

"Stephen," Christine said, "Emergency work is important."

"They do more interesting work in the morgue," Stephen said, hating himself even for saying it. But it was true, autopsies were more complicated than, 'inject the extremis and then the antidote twenty minutes later'. There was probably more interesting information in the meatballs Christine was eating. "We're glorified paramedics."

"You should be more grateful for the health of your patients," Christine said, putting down her fork. Why did she always have to lecture? "But if you're not enjoying it, you could go into full time research. Everybody's looking for the next Extremis."

"They don't need to," Stephen said, enjoying another bite of his rather good ravioli. "Extremis and the Super Soldier Serum cover everything except death and Osiris has cured that too. Except a swift, hard blow to the back of the head, humanity is truly immortal now." The implications were fascinating in the long-term, but many people - foolish people, in Stephen's opinion - were still unwilling to sign up for the program. He had been one of the first in line and it was clearly stated as his preference in his living will. Whatever power had made this universe had made some questionable choices and there was no reason to expect the next to be any better.

Christine frowned and looked down at her bowl. She had not done this, in spite of his urging. It made no sense. "Well, take one of those Osiris courses, be whatever you want, you're more than smart enough."

"Have you seen the waiver?" Stephen said, balking at such a reckless idea. "Suicide rates over ten times higher; plus the costs of therapy and other treatments if I have a less severe break. With a memory like mine it could be even worse. No thank you."

"Look, if you're not going to try anything else," Christine said, her voice annoyed. "You could at least be grateful that you get paid like a king to be a glorified paramedic."

"Oh, I'm grateful, gratefully bored. So thankful." He folded his hands in prayer, "Oh, great universe, please, render me ever more obsolescent."

"Would that be so bad?" Christine asked, as if he hadn't worked his whole life to get where he was in the medical field. "You could settle down a bit, spend some time on…" she smiled playfully. "Us."

Stephen snorted.

This was, it swiftly became obvious, not the right move because it got a big scowl and Christine was gripping her fork more like a murder weapon than an eating utensil.

"You would get bored of me in fifteen minutes," Stephen said, scurrying to correct himself. "Sitting in the living room, drinking a cup of coffee and playing jeopardy along with the TV like some senescent seventy year old."

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"You mean, you would get bored and give up on your obsessively tailored appearance and unquenchable drive to be the center of attention? I don't know, sounds good to me." Christine shook her head, but her grip on her fork relaxed a little. Yeah, that was good enough.

"No, no, I would still insist on being the center of attention," he said, continuing to paint his best horror story for her. "I would constantly yell into the kitchen, 'Honey, it's a 'Who was the last emperor of China in World History for five hundred!' And then I would insist you came in and see that I had been right and I always would be and it could substitute for my much more interesting award parties that I had taken from me to make time for this curse of dull, boring bourgeoise domesticity."

"Dull, boring bourgeoise domesticity? That's what you think of spending time with your girlfriend?"

"I mean it's fine for ordinary people, -" He was going to say that they deserved better, he really was, but alas.

That had not been the right thing to say. The murder fork had been snapped back into her hand and she had raised her hand to their waiter and said, "Check please." The waiter scurried off before he got a full view of Stephen's glare.

"Don't bring the waiters into this," Stephen said. It was embarrassing, if nothing else, a total breach of decorum.

"Stephen, I just want to go home to my boring, bourgeoise domesticity."

"What because I said we deserve something more than ordinary people?"

"No!" Christine said, "Yes!"

"Well, which is it Christine, it was a yes or no question and I think the answer will effect the diagnosis."

"The diagnosis is that you're an asshole," Christine said, putting down her fork and gripping her purse. "And you think you're better than everyone else."

"I am better than anyone else," Stephen said. Well, "I mean, maybe not Trent and Hansen and sundry, but I'm better than this middle class retirement."

"God, you just think that things belong to you because you're smart. You know what, if you're bored, you can figure it out by yourself since you're clearly bored with me."

Christine stood up and was going to head for the door, so Stephen reached out and grabbed her wrist. "I'm not bored with you."

"Yeah, well, Stephen, sometimes it feels like we're only together because you think I'm the only person who's smart enough to understand how smart you are."

"Well, you are."

Christine wrenched free of his grip and dropped a twenty for her half of the meal. "God, Stephen."

"The world's a boring place without you," Stephen said as she turned to walk away. And she stopped and turned around and looked him dead in the eye.

It had been a good line before. But Stephen knew from her face. "You know, Stephen, if you want a puzzle to crack or a challenge, you should try to figure out how Ms. Wizard does whatever it is she does. But even magic probably can't make your world not revolve around you."

Stephen pursed his lips, his mind considering the possibility. Magic would be an interesting area of study. Ms. Wizard was notoriously closed mouth, of course, which indicated it might just be parlor tricks with advanced technology, but she could also be the real deal. Magic.

By the time he got out a, "Good idea" Christine had left and the waiter was coming with the check.

He would find out the next day that she had died from one of those "hard blows to the back of the head" in a car accident with some jackass who'd turned off his autopilot.