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Chapter Text

Gamora was waiting, when Ebony Maw returned from his audience with Thanos.

There was blood on his face, and a telltale shuffle that promised of injury more than she could see on the surface alone. A cracked rib, perhaps, or a leg that had been broken, and just as cruelly shoved back into alignment.

His pace paused, and his tense glare darkened in her direction the moment that he realized he was being watched.

Then he simply strode on, a little quicker than before, and Gamora returned to cleaning her knife to weaken the bite of perverse satisfaction.

"His judgment?"

Ebony Maw made a soft clicking sound with his tongue, dark magic flickering at the hems of his every step like a vase overflowing, a river swelled with too much rain. "I am to perform sorcerer's justice, on the failed one," he said tightly, his voice held with all the restraint and calm that she could feel his magic was not. He wanted something to burn. "As a reminder of what will happen to me, should I fail again."

"So he was merciful, then."

"Yes." The sorcerer came to a stop before the final room in the rough, lonely hallway, one of the darkest, perhaps, one of the hottest. It had been one of the coldest, until they'd realized it was not an Aesir, but a Frost Giant in their hands. It had been not been guarded- the door, not even locked- in a long while. "Then," Ebony Maw continued, a twisted magic trailing at his fingertips still, "you are to dispose of him, as you begin your next assignment. I shall remain, to make strides towards finding a suitable replacement."

Her next assignment. Xandar. The power orb.

My plan.

"...Yes," Gamora said slowly, trailing the sorcerer into the cell. Without the invasion of Terra as a smokescreen, this would be made more difficult... but it was not worth it to wait. A chance like this might never come again.

All she had to do was complete this one final task, and then, she would be free.

But she was not free yet, and Gamora leaned silently against the rough, scalding edge of the doorframe, observing over her knife as Ebony Maw shifted about the cell, preparing she didn't know what, and didn't care. The forgotten son of Asgard lay in between them still, with a peculiar tilt to his spread limbs that did not suggest consciousness: still, Gamora stayed safely across the room. He had fooled her that way more than once, and even in his weakened state, she had always paid dearly for it.

"What was it you did to him?" she asked, carefully dispassionate, carefully cold, giving one foot a very careful nudge. Still, nothing. Unconscious after all. "I thought you were meant to be preparing him for his final test."

"I was," Ebony Maw snarled, and there was another flicker of magic in the air. This one that edged against her like the edge of barbed wire, his teeth bared and his hands clenched. Gamora stayed very safely multiple steps back. "I thought him sufficiently corralled enough to obey, and thus mistakenly allowed him the opportunity to crack his own skull against my spell. You see?" He yanked, hard, pulling one limp head up by matted, long hair, forcing Loki's head to turn for her to see the damage for herself.

That- yes.

That was definitely a cracked skull.

Somewhere in there, underneath the mass of blood, hair, and bone fragments.

She was rather sure that was a bit of brain, too.

Yes, that was a cracked skull- even for an Asgardian.

"What's the problem, then?" she asked, refusing to avert her eyes until Ebony Maw had let the head drop back to the floor, this time with a scornful hiss under his breath. "He's healed himself from worse." Loki's face hit left, bruising and already warming red where it was pressed to the floor, and somehow, Gamora was sickeningly, selfishly grateful when his filthy hair fell to obscure his staring eyes.

"Not when it was a magical injury, foolish girl. He has cleaved his consciousness from his physical body through use of my power, and I alone do not have the ability to force him back. Even if I did, it hardly matters- he has proven to be untrustworthy, and unworthy." He cursed something under his breath, something foul, something magical, something in a language too ancient for the Allspeak to know, and then without any further delay, swung his cursed blade straight against Loki's right arm.

There was an awful, sickening crunch.

"There," Ebony Maw murmured, though it was perhaps closer to a sneer. His face twisted, the pain and humiliation of his punishment crawling out to inflict on the Asgardian instead, but it was with a smile as he dragged his knife down again, forcibly separating every inch of the limb from the socket for it flop downwards as a limp, fleshy slug. "Let this be a lesson, to anyone else who believes they have the will to defy Thanos." A second twisted, wicked burning of his dark magic, and the carved off limb was obscured, disintegrating, crumbling to ash until all that was left was Loki.

Bleeding, limp, and insensate, on the filthy floor.

Gamora bit the tip of her tongue, and kept silent.

A year's worth of work to mold the son of Asgard into a son of Thanos, all reduced to nothing, in that one single, decisive moment.

With another derisive scowl, Ebony Maw wiped the blood from his mouth, rising again in a dark flurry of seething magic about his feet. "You are to dispose of him in the Void- left the way that we found him." He laughed coldly, a whisper of a noise to again hid his own humiliation. "You know what to do, child of Thanos."

Then he was gone, and she was again left alone.

Alone, with the son of Asgard she has spent nearly every day of the last twelve months trying to break.

He was barely breathing.

Gamora returned her knife to her belt, after a few more moments of impossibly stale, frigid silence. She dropped to her knees by his side, glancing over the form that she knew was much, much heavier than it looked, and considering how best she was to pull his body with her to her ship. To kill him now; to kill him after.

He was thin, underneath her. Perhaps as thin as an Asgardian could get, as bruised as an Asgardian could get, dark smudges on his slack face and body scattered with ugly, old, crusted cuts, wounds left to rot against a natural healing that had exhausted itself. She knew it was worse, still, underneath what little he wore that had not been shredded.

The pool of blood underneath him, and his now truncated arm, was still spreading.

"You're lucky, you know," she told him quietly, giving one sweaty, flushed cheek a firm pat. Two half-lidded, glazed eyes did not flicker even once. "You told us that you had no father. That you were Loki No-son. You're lucky you got out, before that changed. ...knowing you, you'd probably agree."

She didn't even bother to say aloud that Thanos had never planned to make him one of his children. Oh, he'd dangled the possibility out for Loki, holding it up as a lofty prize, if he should be good enough- but Thanos had never been going to follow through. He'd known being scorned as lesser, as unworthy, even by his new master, would hurt far more to the prince that had already disowned two fathers and would have no conniption of disowning a third.

It didn't matter.

The truth of it was the same: he was lucky.

Lucky, she thought, even as her hands drew to his throat.

Would he have become like Nebula? A near fanatic, sworn to Thanos' gospel because it was just suffocating enough to block out the horrors around him, so far gone that she didn't want to be saved? A devout servant as Ebony Maw, strong enough to tear Thanos apart with his own magics in a heartbeat but down on his knees willingly instead, head bowed as the universe burned around him?

Perhaps, desperate enough to stake everything on the madman the Collector, just for the chance to escape to back to the cold stretches of space, because he had no home to return to?

Whatever he'd have turned out to be, Gamora knew, he was lucky to have grasped an early end now.

Gamora positioned her hands carefully against the hot, already bruised throat, closing exactly and just so. There was already some redness, already bruises in the shape of fingers, already some swelling, but it was all faint, underneath her hands. They had gone after and broken every bone in his body thrice over, but his neck, always, had been left alone. Thanos had warned them all from the beginning that Aesir and Jotunn could still die from a broken neck, and now she could feel it for herself, in the delicate pulse of his life in between her hands- weak, thready. Unwilling.

He'd thank her for it, she knew. Perhaps while spitting in her face, but still, a thank you. Had probably known exactly what he was doing, in fighting back against Ebony Maw's spell, and had faced his own death with open arms.

One last neck to break, and then, they'd both be free.

Gamora glared, straight back into two half-lidded, unseeing eyes. One of them dripped blood.

There was nothing behind those eyes. Even if his heart was still beating, Loki's body was as empty and vacant as a corpse.

A corpse that now stared past her, on little more than his last breath, as helpless in her arms as a child, and through all the guilt and death and mad, senseless suffering, demanded that she do something.

Help him the way that no one had been there to help her, when she'd been the helpless child, and Thanos had found her.

She couldn't save him, of course. He was still breathing underneath her, but there was nothing in his eyes, and even if it had somehow been in her power she knew it wasn't what he would've wanted. There was absolutely no help she had to give him- Gamora wasn't even capable of returning his dead body to his home. If there was even anyone there who it would matter to, which Loki talked as if there wasn't, if Asgard was even reachable by standard space travel, which it wasn't, it would not be worth the risk to herself.

None of this, at all, was worth the risk to herself. Loki was dying, and even if it was partially by her hand, no good would come of any help that she tried to give now. She had no reason to not simply snap his neck, leave him in the cold of space from where Thanos had found him, and head to Xandar for the infinity stone.

She certainly had no use for the information that, while Loki was dying, and Asgard itself was unreachable, it was known that the Aesir kept a particularly close eye on Terra.

That if one of their own got dropped down onto it, there was at least a chance that they'd see it.

Gamora groaned.

You know what to do, Ebony Maw had said.

And, she did.

"You're gonna get lucky twice today, Loki No-son," she said, one hand slipping up from his throat to give his still, pale face another pat. "Don't make me regret it."

Two days after his death sentence was handed down by Thanos, the body was dropped silently out of a stealth space-craft to land in a plume of snow, right out in the middle of the deserted Canadian tundra.

He still breathed.

Two minutes after he appeared, unmoving, silent, and on the edge between life and death, an orange portal began to circle open underneath him. It was as bright as the gleaming snow around him, and sparked like the sun.

Chapter Text

"Stephen?"

"Yuh-huh."

"Is it just me, and my non-medical degree holding self, or should this guy... really not be, uh..."

"Alive right now?"

"Uh, yeah."

Stephen sighed, pulling his hand back at last from his gentle search for the pulse point in the man's wrist, and shook his head.

"Nope," he said, folding his arms. "It's not just you."

Without the aid of medical scans, he suspected there was more damage to Earth's newcomer that he couldn't see. Even without the help, and even a solid decade plus out of his trauma rotation, there had been plenty to find. Multiple ribs badly broken, one in particular that he suspected would have been enough to kill any human. Lower leg, shattered, worse than his own hands had been- worse than nearly any injury he had ever seen. A human would never walk again. One arm actually missing entirely, all that was left a now bound wound in his shoulder, his side soaked with cold blood when they'd found him. His head, cracked open like an actual egg. They'd had to shave most of his hair, so Stephen could properly stitch it closed.

His temperature hovered around twenty-five degrees Fahrenheit, and his heart-rate averaged in at eleven BPM. The latter would've had him calling for a cardiac team. The former, time of death would've already been called several days prior.

By the state of his arm, he should've bled to death.

By the state of his ribs, should have suffocated.

By the state of his internal temperature, should have frozen.

By the state of his head injury, should've gone into cardiac arrest.

Really, Stephen could think of about a dozen separate different reasons for why the guy should, by all rights, be dead.

He also had no explanation as to how or why he was still breathing right in front of him.

Some days, he still missed being a doctor. Never would've believed it, but, being a world-renowned neurosurgeon had been so much less complicated than this.

"Any luck yet looking through the library, Wong?" he asked, narrowing his eyes to squint down still at the alien. "Any hits at all?"

Wong shook his head back with a sigh of his own. "There are a few mentions of humanoid extraterrestrials, but they're all centuries old and unconfirmed. Even if one or two are legitimate, they haven't been seen here since the Renaissance."

"And the incident in 2011."

"And the... yeah." Wong coughed, shifting about to press back against the nearest wall. "As you know, I was in Hong Kong during the New Mexico incident. We copied a few files from SHIELD on it, but this guy in particular, at least, wasn't there." He frowned again, giving an excruciatingly careful nudge to the alien's less damaged foot. "I wish the Ancient One were here... she probably saw half these aliens herself."

Stephen hummed under his breath, still frowning down at the figure half-dead on the bed, and said nothing. Yes, as usual, the Ancient One would have been a massive help. As usual, she wasn't here, because she was dead. Bemoaning the lack of their nine-hundred year old well of infinite wisdom wasn't going to help anyone.

"What about your research?" Wong asked next, then gave the figure another suspicious look, as if he felt uneasy, somehow. Stephen shared the feeling. The cloak shared the feeling. "Anything yet?"

"I told you, just because I still have friends at the hospital don't mean it's all that simple to just pass them off a vial of alien blood to test for me," he said, though, actually, it pretty much had been. A comment from Christine about his cult non-withstanding. "It'll take time for results. Besides, the tests really won't help as much as you think. We don't have a machine that spits out patient is an alien from planet X. All it'll really confirm is that he's not human- and we already know that much."

No matter how weirdly much he looked like one.

It had been three days, now, since their wards had been alerted, warning them of a non-human, powerful energy signature's arrival. Their policy was to watch but not intervene, not unless absolutely necessary, but he and Wong hidden against their own snowdrift, they had very quickly realized that it was necessary. They had been utterly alone out there, just the two of them and a dark, unmoving figure collapsed in a pile of snow that was already dyed red.

Not only had there been no delegation waiting for the alien in Canada, if they'd stayed back and refused to act, he would've died.

Well, that had been the belief at the time, anyway.

After what he'd seen of the alien so far, Stephen now suspected that he'd still be lying there face-first in a Canadian snowdrift, bleeding slowly into the ground, and, somehow, breathing.

Together, they'd brought him back to the New York Sanctum. Stephen and considered just dropping the alien on SHIELD's doorstep, but, ultimately, SHIELD and HYDRA were governing bodies that the Ancient One had not trusted and now, neither did he. In the end, Stephen had decided, and Wong had agreed, it was safest here.

The sanctums were shielded by some of the very strongest protections guided by the Mystic Arts. This alien, even half-dead, gave off a magical signature so strong that to the right eyes, screamed as loudly as a lighthouse in the middle of the night. It was muffled, here, muted so thoroughly Stephen couldn't sense even a whisper from outside, but the moment he left the sanctum, his magic would be screaming for attention all over again.

And something told him that whoever had done this to him hadn't intended for him to get dumped on Earth.

If left unshielded, then whoever had done this to him might just have come back looking to collect.

Right now, the sanctum was the safest place for them all to be.

As they... kept on floundering, with no idea for just what on earth they were supposed to do.

"And he still wasn't woken up, then?" Wong asked, a little quieter, now. "Not once?"

Stephen shook his head. "Not as far as I've seen, anyway." He clicked his tongue against his cheek, pressing a hand closing to feel his infuriatingly slow pulse. "I don't think he's going to, unless one of his alien powers ends up being supernatural healing. He shows every sign of being in a vegetative state."

He didn't mention that, since he was breathing on his own, there was at least some brain activity, vegetative state or no.

Brain activity even of that level should've been impossible, given the hole in his head.

Clearly, his medical training wasn't going to be all that helpful when the patient in his hands was not human.

Not about to accept that lying down, of course, Stephen had still given it as much of a stab as he could. Which was actually not much, when he was flying blind, and Christine was the only one of his old friends it was even safe to talk to, considering he was a doctor without a license and nearly committing a felony. On an alien. A portal into his old hospital's ICU, two AM, and he'd been able to set the guy up with an oxygen mask, which had improved his O2 sat, and after a few moments of consideration had stabilized his head and spine with a neck brace. With no way to X-Ray him, head injury meant possible neck injury meant keep the patient's neck immobile until further notice. If he'd been human, which he wasn't, but his anatomy seemed human, at least, so that was all Stephen had to go off of.

After several more minutes of consideration, and another trip to his old hospital to steal a microscope and run a test, he'd set up an IV as well, just for fluids. It had been a risk, not knowing the alien's blood chemistry, but if the guy was going to be here for a while (and it looked like he was), then... hell, it was worth a shot.

Once again, he missed the Ancient One.

"Uh, Stephen?"

"What?" He blinked, looking up, then started. A corner of his cloak was hovering again, prodding and nudging, first at a foot, then floating over a knee. It curled up and back like it was raising its hackles, all but hissing until he whacked at it, like he would a disobedient dog, and the cloak slacked back down against his side, rebuked and sullen. "Yeah, the cloak's been doing that, recently," he sighed, rubbing at his hair. "He's wary of him. Thinks he's dangerous."

"Yeah? I agree with the cloak. His energy is messed up, Stephen. Like a-" Wong gestured vaguely about, fingers wriggling like he was tying an invisible pretzel until he quirked an eyebrow; then the librarian just groaned, hands lifting in defeat. "You know it is! You feel it, too, Stephen!"

"No, I don't. Feel what? What do you feel?"

"You don't-" Wong stopped, brow furrowing, only for his face to suddenly clear and brighten in a way he alltogether did not like, and the sorcerer gave him such a knowing smile it made him feel like he'd shrunk on the spot. "You've been slacking on your reading, again."

Stephen scowled, and this time, back on his side, his cloak ruffled with him. "Oh, I'm sorry," he murmured, drawing his focus back down to the alien, "being Sorcerer Supreme- busy and all, you understand-"

"That may be so, Master Strange, but you are still young, and you still have much to learn." With that same sly, unbearably amused smile, he opened a quick portal of his own, plunging a hand through right over the sickbed, and then another, dragging out two books thick enough to make his mouth run dry. "Parallel Astral Projection Techniques, by Zhang Jue, and Examinations on Involuntary Projection, by the Ancient One herself. Time to brush up on your ancient Chinese."

"Hm." He scowled again, giving the books a once over. Wong was right. He hadn't been reading, as much as he should have, lately- was still scrambling to play a bit of catch-up, battling with a not even five years of experience next to sorcerers who had two decades. Still- and the cloak did seem to agree- the comments were just rude. Somehow. "Pretty sure that qualifies as insubordination," he muttered, portaling the books to his room for that night. "And what happened to it not being allowed to open portals in the library, Beyonce?"

"Oh, it's allowed," Wong said, a twinkle in his eye. "You're just not a high enough level yet."

"Mmhm." And once again, he scowled.

So far, their tenuous situation had managed to hold, fragile but still unchanging. Which concerned Stephen, just a little. Who, exactly, had done all of this to the alien? Trauma had never been his speciality, but to his eye, this could not have been an accident. The injuries were not from him falling a hundred feet into a snowdrift. They did not match the pattern of an accident- were too organized, too violent. The damage done to his body would take a fully staffed OR and twenty hours to even start to correct; it reminded him of his hands, but instead of just the hands it was all over.

It was too deliberate.

Someone had purposefully done all of this.

Someone had used the alien like a voodoo doll- and then, just thrown him away like a forgotten toy?

Maybe, he thought.

Or maybe, whatever being had been strong enough to do all of this had sent him to Earth for a reason, and they were running out of time to figure out what.

He chewed again down on his lip, and found his shaky fingers curling in the silence.

Even the cloak was wary.

And if he'd learned anything, in the past months, it was to trust the damn cloak.

"I'm going to try something," he announced, giving his cloak a nod. It fluttered off him quickly, hovering and flaring out behind him, ready to catch him, even though he could already tell it wanted to poke at the alien one more time. "Physically waking him up is beyond medical science. But I don't know if we can wait- if he'll ever wake up at all, in the first place. I think we have to try," he said, seating himself on the edge of the bed and tugging off a glove with only a small sigh of exasperation. He wasn't quite as skilled at the Ancient One yet, to be able to do this with anything but his bare hands.

"You're going to try and force him into an astral form? Are you sure?" Wong drew closer himself, mouth twitching. He looked skeptical at the very least, which would've stung more if it wasn't entirely earned. "What if it doesn't work on his species? Her species, even. We don't even know that this is a man at all. Which is a piece of evidence, Stephen, that I think suggests this is a really bad idea."

"Maybe it is, but, but given our current circumstances, we don't have much of a choice. I can hardly make his condition worse." He tried to flex his fingers once, then gritted his teeth to swallow the slight hiss. They still hurt. A bone-deep, screaming ache, one that only faded when his hands were overtaken by numbness, instead. Would always hurt, barring an unforeseen advancement in medicine that he estimated was still decades away yet.

Which was a serious problem, for a technique he had not yet fully studied or mastered, and relied very heavily on the use of his hands.

"Uhh..." Wong coughed again, clearing his throat. "I still think this is not the wisest idea, for the record. But, if we're going through with it, maybe it'd be a little more wise to let me handle this one." He raised a hand, not physically intervening quite yet, but at least his smile was a little more serious, this time, as he tilted his head. "At least until you've read those books I got you."

He gritted his teeth again, forcing his hand still. Embarrassing, he wanted to say, and in a way, it was. But this also wasn't about him.

Stephen glanced back at his waiting cloak, and gave another nod.

Then, swallowing at the faint rise of heat in his face, he stood back, allowing for Wong to take his place on the bed, cloak floating expectantly, just in case, and waited.

Wong, very calmly, with the air of a complete and total expert, did the thing.

Nothing happened.

This time, it was Stephen's turn to be skeptical. And try not to smirk.

"So," he said, settling back in his chair. "I believe now it's my turn to ask, are you sure you know what you're doing?"

Behind Wong, the cloak gave a doubtful shake of its collar, and Wong frowned as he shrugged it back, pushing his sleeves back and face creasing in consternation. "Yes, I am." There was a faint pulse of power, rippling throughout the room, and the librarian rested the palm of his hand against his chest, frowning deeper. "The problem is not in me. It's him. I- I felt him, but he... resisted." He looked back at him sharply, hand flexing over the barely rising chest. "I thought he was asleep."

"Vegetative state. There's a difference." And now, I'm triply curious as to just who the hell this alien is. Stephen inched a few careful steps closer, feeling for what he could of the man's signature, trying to search for consciousness, but there simply was none. No awareness, no wakefulness, no consciousness at all.

And yet, somehow, still awake enough to resist their attempts to speak to his astral form.

Interesting.

Very, very interesting.

"Try again," he said quietly, and focused.

Wong gave him another wary look, clearly even more on edge than before. Shaking his head, Stephen reached a hand out again, curling his fingers through the pain to press them against one icy wrist, feeling the slow but steady beat of his heart. "I've got him," he assured, and waited again.

This time, touching the alien, he felt it, when Wong prodded him hard right in the center of his chest. He felt the spiritual shuddering, the skip of the heartbeat in his wrist, the thick thump in the air around them as if something insubstantial had rammed face-first into a brick wall.

Oh, yeah.

In defiance of just about his every last drop of his medical training, somehow, somewhere in there, a piece of the guy was awake.

And magically trained.

"He keeps slipping away," Wong was muttering, "I can feel him- come on, you're almost there, alien-" He pulled his hand back with a deeper frown, leaning farther over the prone form- "Come out!" he commanded, and shoved his hand back right into his chest.

And this time, it worked.

Somewhat.

There was a violent flurry; lights flickering, glass on the walls cracking, a vase that was approximately seven hundred years old tumbling and an entire shelf of books vibrated halfway to the floor. The alien jerked as violently as he could, limbs stiffened straight, a choked gasp wrenched in-

And with a screeching whine, his spirit ripped free.

Together, Stephen and Wong followed.

A struggling, flailing form yanked into the open air, long-limbed and thin and absolutely the alien before them. It was a pale silver-green that came out, not the ghostly grey that was normal, gleaming, distinct, yet terrified as he tried to gasp once, twice, three times. He stared at them, huge, panicking eyes in a stricken face, mouth open and shut like he was choking on something, his own terror, and an attempt at a breath later he scrambled backwards until he could scramble backwards no more. Pressed back and breathless against the magical barriers of the sanctum, worming himself into the corner of the spells as tightly as he could get, and all the while staring at them both with those same huge, frightened eyes.

Stephen exchanged another wary look with Wong.

Success?

Maybe?

"Y-you-" the alien gasped, his voice high-pitched and cracked. He pressed even tighter back, squirming desperately to get away. "No- you do not have the power to do this to me- no! You can not!" He wrenched backwards harder, still making those odd choking noises over and over again, like he was strangled even with nothing physical in his throat to stumble on. "Get away from me or I swear I'll do it, I swear upon all of Yggdrasil I will end my life this moment- do not touch- get away from me! GET AWAY FROM ME NOW!"

Stephen exchanged a second look with his fellow sorcerer, and then, again, back to the alien.

Theory that the guy had been tortured past the brink was looking better and better.

"I don't know who you think we are," he said carefully, spreading his hands. It was only like this, in his astral form, that it didn't hurt. "But you're mistaken. We aren't the ones who did this to you." After the wreck the guy had already made of his room, even just in his astral form, he didn't dare try to approach, but when the stricken, gasping silence only inched longer, dripping into the space between them, he did risk minutely lowering his hands. "I'm Doctor Stephen Strange."

"I did not ask your name, child of Thanos," the alien gasped back, voice still wretched and weaving and broken again. His eyes wide and face twisted, he looked a cross between feral, violent, and positively terrified. "You can not force me to do your bidding. I will not do it! I will not allow it, do you understand me?! You can break me, and curse me; you can split me apart again and-" his speech contorted, twisting into a language that Stephen had never heard before, the words ugly and broken sounds that were not English, not human, "-but the all of us will die before I bow my head to you!"

...all right, then.

Thanos.

Note to scour the archives for any mention of that name the moment this was done.

"Ooooo...kay," Stephen said, excruciatingly slowly. Maybe they really should have waited a little bit longer, before attempting to talk to the spitfire like this. Spitfire who was still, currently, losing his mind, panting in the corner with those same stricken eyes, that same terrified face. This was not going well. "So. Try two. We're not-" He glanced at Wong, searching to see if he recognized the name he was about to say, but it was clear the librarian was just as uncertain as he was. "-children of Thanos. Or, related to Thanos in any capacity. We're not going to hurt you."

The alien gasped out a breathless, hysterical laugh, still wide-eyed and scrambling, still pressed back against the corner as desperately as he could. "Mercenaries, then?" he spat, and was shaking, "Warlocks he hired, to do the magic that he couldn't? It matters not! Your power is not stronger than mine! Y-your-" He flinched backwards again, so badly that his physical body rocked, and Stephen exchanged another increasingly worried glance with Wong as he returned to his own body, mid-rant. The alien seemed no worse off than before, still breathing, heart still beating, but that was almost more concerning than the alternative. He was obviously terrified, and that should've show in his physical responses. It wasn't.

Which begged the question: alien biology, or alien magic?

Whichever it was, Stephen didn't particularly think it was a great idea to let the guy continue freaking out until something broke.

By the way the delicate, priceless artifacts about the room were beginning to shake again, the something that broke would only possibly be himself.

"-member of the council of nine, the elite, you can not best me, you will not touch me-"

"All right, Mr. Alien," Stephen sighed, upon returning to his astral form to find him still at it. Wild eyes flicked back onto him, panicked and scared, and he pushed on, because sitting there in silence to let him wear himself out clearly wasn't going to work. "Once again, we're not the people who did this to you. We weren't hired by them, either- we found you."

"Found me?" he snarled, again rather like a wild animal, an abused beast. He dragged a hand through his hair, his only hand, then clutched it at his right shoulder to pant and spit. "You can not think to- to trick me, to-"

"We found you here on Earth, and lucky we did, by the way, because without us you'd probably be dead right now. You're welcome. I'm Doctor Stephen Strange, this is Wong, and like I said, we're only trying to help. But-"

"Earth?" the alien quoted back, face contorting. "Midgard? You liar, you sniveling liar, Midgard does not have sorcerers- t-this is another trick, another lie- a lie, it's always a lie-"

"Um..."

The unsteady ranting continued on, through hazed eyes and a still twisted face, panic bloomed across it like a spreading flower. "God of lies," he was whispering, "there's always a lie, liegen..." Slowly, like a yoyo spinning on a string, he begun to curl, legs brought up underneath him. His spirit pulled into a small ball in midair, cocooned still safely back against the corner, rocking and whispering back and forth. "You're not real, liegen, I know none of you are real..."

And Stephen was left to sit back, utterly helpless, and simply watch as the insensate alien descended into whatever the astral plane equivalent was for a panic attack.

"Stephen?" Wong ventured, hovering back carefully himself. He floated halfway back to his body, cradled upright by the cloak, watching him with pained eyes that somehow made him feel even more worse than he already did. "I don't see this going anywhere positive. I think I need to return him to his body so we can talk about what to do next."

"Just- just let me think, a moment," he said, gritting his teeth; it felt almost as if he was drowning, in that continued rush of mutters from the corner. The panic that he had caused, by handling this so badly. He'd always been chastised for his bedside manner, as a physician, and somehow it seemed to have only gotten worse and not better.

They had gleaned frighteningly little, from this so far. A few names to try and research, to try and find the alien's origin, but as to the urgent matters at hand they were still just as lost as before.

If they didn't get those answers, here and now, the alien might very well not even last the night. He could die while they were sitting here, searching for the answers that he could give them so easily, if he'd just open his mouth and say it. It wasn't even just the possible threats to Earth; Stephen needed information from the man on how best to help him.

And unfortunately, it was beginning to look like even if he had the best bedside manner in the world, there'd still be nothing he could do to get the answers out of the alien, currently trapped in spirit form and mumbling nonsense to himself in the corner.

Clearly, he had botched this up badly enough that there was nothing for it but to try again later.

"All right," he said tiredly, closing his eyes for a breath and pinching his nose. He tried to will back the impatience, but in its place was only a deep sense of failure and guilt. "Let me get back into my body first. I want to be ready to act in case it destabilizes his condition."

Wong nodded back, some of that knife's edge of tension fading at last, perhaps just because now he knew that unsteady, stricken mumbling was about to come to a close. His astral form began to turn back to his body; in response, the cloak flared again, helping to push his physical form up higher and closer, still ready to catch him if anything went wrong.

It was Stephen's cue, to return to his own body.

Except for one problem:

It had also been the cue to get the alien to stop talking.

A new, breathless silence flooded the room. Stephen stared at Wong, and Wong stared at him, both wide-eyed, both frozen. For a moment, staring firmly at his librarian, suddenly unable to turn back to his patient, he feared that the man was dead. That in so rashly attempting this now they- he- had pushed the alien farther than he'd been able to bear and his heart had stopped, and he'd killed him.

Then, they turned together, only to find something entirely different.

The alien was staring at Wong. Still curled and glassy-eyed, his thin face sharp in all the wrong ways, and state of mind remained precariously up in the air and falling, but- staring at... Wong? No, not Wong, but his physical body. His ghostly features flickered again, unreadable but torment etched as deep as a scar.

"The wings of animus," he said, finally. A shocked stutter of air, and his glazed eyes shuttered shut, then open again.

Stephen followed his gaze there and back again, again holding deathly still, not daring to move so much as an inch. But all the while, his mind was racing. Wings of animus. Animus. High-school latin clicked in his head; animus, spirit. The wings of spirit? He searched the alien's vacant face again, then followed his gaze back to-

"The Cloak of Levitation," he breathed, reeling. At last. A breakthrough, no matter how minor. "You recognize it?"

But the alien paid him no mind. He didn't seem to be able to decide if he wanted out of the corner or not, flitting this way, drifting that way, hand reaching out only to jerk back every time, but he was still staring at the cloak, and his eyes were the most alert that they'd seen from him yet. "The wings of animus," he muttered under his breath again, then something else too fast in that foreign tongue, the one that was no language that he recognized and would be willing to bet the Cauldron of the Cosmos wasn't one of Earth at all.

Then, those piercing, stricken eyes switched back onto him. His body, not his astral form.

They widened a second time.

"The Time Stone," he murmured, then made an odd, frantic choking noise; Stephen nearly returned to the physical world then and there, just to make sure the guy wasn't suffocating for real. "The Time Stone," he said again, the hand clutched desperately around himself shaking towards his head, grasping at his own hair. "Artifacts of Midgard, the sorceress... but..." He murmured something else foreign, shaking his head. Stephen heard Thanos again, the name coming out low and weak, and he sunk further into himself, intangible head buried to his intangible knees.

Whatever it was that he had realized, he clearly was not in any sort of shape to share it.

"Stephen!"

He started, hard. Called back not by his friend's spirit, but by his body; where Wong had already returned, and was now waiting for him to do the same. For a moment, he almost shook his head, because there was progress, now, perhaps the alien was willing to listen, perhaps they would be able to talk-

But, even as he hoped for it, he could see that it wasn't true.

The alien was just as shaken as before. Huddled around himself and mumbling, his wild eyes darting back and forth unseeing. He wasn't as scared as before, but he was clearly out of it, and sometimes the only thing for something like that was sleep.

Closing his eyes, and still tasting something like regret that bordered on apology, he returned to his own body.

"About time," Wong grumbled, increasingly impatient, giving his sleeve another push back.

Stephen would have muttered something back, but back in the physical world, he could see it, too. The alien was panting, now, shallow, wet wheezes that fogged the breathing mask far too quickly for comfort, and his hand was trying to tremble, too. A little periodic spasm through it as if he was shivering; Wong was right- if the alien had been human, then the stress of this alone would've been enough to catapult him even sicker.

This time, however, he could say that it was worth it.

With a calm, almost business-like air, Wong dug two fingers deep against his chest, a sharp prod that made the alien gasp just a little deeper, but that was it. He felt the pulse hammering under his fingers skip a beat, and a few of the artifacts about the room gave another ominous shudder, but other than that, there was nothing. His spirit was back in his body, he was still breathing, and everything was again calm.

There was another uncomfortable, unsettled silence.

Then, one hand still firmly about the alien's wrist, feeling the continued beat of the heart under his scarred fingers, Stephen started to smile.

"He called us Midgard, didn't he?" he asked, glancing out of the corner of his eye at Wong. Didn't need to ask; could remember every single word the alien had said. Spoken aloud helped to categorize them, to focus on the ones of significance, file away the ones that weren't. And that was one of the most significant words he had spoken, intended or not: Midgard. "We said we were from Earth, but he said we were from this Midgard."

"...Yes," Wong said at length, narrowing his eyes. Slowly, almost tentatively, he removed his own hands from the alien's chest. "Does that mean anything to you?"

Stephen smiled slightly again. Not for the first time, since an alien had turned up on their doorstep, he found himself curious, again- hungry for knowledge that he could taste waiting just beyond the veil of the alien's mind.

Yes, he had what he needed, now.

"Not just yet," he returned, sliding a finger over his sling ring. Running the math in his head. "But I think I've got three books to read tonight instead of two."

The cloak snapped snugly about his shoulders, and underneath his hand, his patient's heart continued to beat.

Chapter Text

The second time they attempted to speak with the alien, they came prepared.

It only took Wong two tries, this time, to pull his astral form out. This time, Stephen listened for and felt the resistance- felt the way it crumbled with the gentlest prodding, giving way like a well-oiled door instead of a wall.

Then, with a ripple, the spirit pulled free.

Pale, silvery green, just like last time.

But this time, he did not fight them.

This time, instead of panicked, terrified rambling, there was silence.

Just silence, and the startled, injured alien, staring between the two of them with such brazen distrust and suspicion that it was as if they'd struck him. He fell straight back into the same corner as yesterday, nestling against the interwoven corners of the spells, curled and huddled and cold. For several moments, he said nothing at all, just stared at them, and while it was not as bad as yesterday, it was just bad enough that he feared they were just going to have to try again tomorrow.

Then, he murmured, "Midgardians," and sagged with such relief that he could taste it in the air, like pain.

"That's us, isn't it?" Stephen prompted carefully, when the man did not go on. "We're on Earth. And that's your word for Earth."

It wasn't a question.

He already knew the answer.

It took the man a few more moments to gather his wits; even as he did so, still clinging to the safety of the corner, still skittish and wary like a trapped animal. "You... have my gratitude," he murmured, in perhaps as close to a rasp as his astral form could make it. Still wouldn't quite look at him or Wong. Still curled. Still frightened. "For allowing me the opportunity to speak with you again. I apologize for being intractable, last. I was... uninformed."

Stephen nodded once, allowing himself a minute degree of relaxation. So, he was at least willing to listen to them, today. That was something. He could work with that.

Hopefully.

He glanced once at Wong, sharing a nod: be careful.

"Let me stop you there," he said, raising a hand. There was a shot of phantom pain down his wrist, but he kept it up anyway, spreading his scarred fingers; wanting the alien to see them, somehow. Perhaps just to say you're not alone in being hurt, to him, when he was clearly very, very hurt, and very scared because of it. "We can't hold you in your astral form forever. A human in your condition, it wouldn't be safe to talk even this long. We'll be keeping an eye on your body, and when you start to show ill affects, we'll have to stop and continue another time."

"Which means don't waste time on small talk, Mr. Alien," Wong added, which was entirely correct, but somehow, despite the words, came out entirely polite. It was uncanny, or would've been, if Stephen wasn't already used to Wong just being like that. "Anything you think we have to know now, we're listening."

The alien's pale eyes flickered, again. Tense one moment, brushing against fear the next.

At first, he said nothing at all.

"An astral form," he murmured, finally. He stared down at himself, raising his transparent hand between them, utterly expressionless and flat. "That is what you think this is."

"...yeah. It is." Stephen narrowed his eyes, frowning, first to Wong, then back to the alien. So, he knows something about the astral realm. "Do you call it something different?"

The alien stared back, guarded and eyes flat. He looked at them in a way that made it seem like he thought them very, very stupid, but for a breath that was too long he was just silent, "Yes," he said flatly. And then, "There is no cause for concern. After our last conversation, I lifted the block that was standing against my natural healing. My physical condition will begin to improve very soon, and I will inform you if the projection becomes too taxing."

A year deep into the Mystic Arts, and still, no matter how he'd tried to take the Ancient One's first lesson to heart- and some shit could still surprise him.

An alien dropped from the sky, telling him that he had the power to will himself healed from shattered limbs and a severe skull fracture, right out of a vegetative state, definitely qualified as some shit.

In fact, he was already cataloging an essay's worth of questions to ply him with the second he got the chance, and might very well write an article on it. One that could never be published on Earth, but in this case, it wasn't the publication that mattered, but the fact that he could get to write on a real-life, genuine alien. And, wow.

Later. Soon.

When the alien wasn't currently still half-dead in front of them.

"Well, that's incredible, and vey helpful to know- Mr. Alien," he said, even as nonsensical as the title felt on his tongue; hopefully, it'd finally prompt the guy into giving them a name. And, for the third time, he said, "I'm Doctor Stephen Strange. This is Wong."

There was another unsettled silence. Still, just being stared it, with those same pale, skittish eyes.

"I am Loki," he said, finally. Then stopped.

Once again, Stephen turned unsurely to Wong.

"...All right," Wong returned. "Mr. Loki. Last name?"

A dark wave of green light emanated from him, a sudden solidifying in the lines of his form and a flickering glimmer in his pale eyes, a glimmer that was dark and mad and hostile. "And that is a matter of yours, how?" he hissed, flinched closer with bared teeth like an animal. "I've no fathers that would claim me, and none that I would claim in return, Lord Wong."

Well... okay, then.

Got it, Mr. Loki No-Last-Name.

Outwardly, Stephen merely raised an eyebrow. He shared another uncertain glance with Wong, then faced Loki again. "It's master, actually."

Loki turned on him next, which was somewhat a curious sight; snarling and hostile, instantly aggressive, but still clung to his corner as tightly as a burr. "Master? Of what, parlor tricks? It takes centuries of study, of practice- you, you are mere children, you-" Something twitched on his face, silencing his tongue, and he abruptly turned away as quickly as he'd turned to him.

There was that fear, again. The fear that had overrun, yesterday- simmering now, just under the surface.

"I apologize," he murmured, after several long moments. His voice came out small and stiff, nearly vanishing into the space between them. "I do not mean to begrudge upon your hospitality."

Somehow, Stephen doubted the apology was all that genuine.

"...Sooooo," he drawled, just to break the silence. Because as messed up as this all was, the silence had to be broken. This was going nowhere really fast, and Stephen did not have the patience or the time to wait to gently coax Loki out of his angry, hurt shell. "Again- urgency, on a schedule here, all of that. Loki, you need to tell us what exactly we have to worry about, so we can prepare our defenses as best we can. We're trying to help you, we really are, but we can't do that without some answers."

Loki shivered again, ducking his ghostly head. He seemed unable to hold eye contact for more than a second at a time, just the same way he was unable to leave his corner; curling into his scars and bruises as if to crawl into himself, to hide. "I... I do not know. I can not-" He stopped, voice wavering, then made a small sound that was almost a whimper, face buried into his hand. "I do not know how I came to be here. I'm meant to be dead, not- you said you found me?" Loki pulled backwards a little more intensely, a faint green light wavering about his hands that felt like curiosity, smelled like fear; the lights in the room flickered again.

Definitely a magical being.

Definitely a ridiculously strong magical being.

Strong enough that Stephen was now beginning to seriously worry about Earth, because whatever it was that they were preparing for now, had been strong enough to defeat that.

Wong spoke up again, and by the tense set of his face, had come to exactly the same conclusion as him. "Your appearance set off our wards, and when we reached your location we found you abandoned just like this. No sign of how you'd gotten there, and so far, no sign of anyone who's come looking for you."

"But that... no. No, this can not be. I-" He groaned something, murmuring under his breath, a few foreign words caught again as his fingers tangled back against his collar. "Why would he...? And- and you say none has come searching for me?"

"That is correct." Careful again not to get close and risk setting him off, Stephen pulled nearer to the close knit of spells about the room, the sanctum itself, drawing a hand over the shell of protection that it was clear Loki could feel just as poignantly as him and Wong. "We're shielding you as best we can, and it seems to be working so far. But if-"

Loki made a broken, coughing scoff, a smile that was vicious uncurling across his face like blood spilled from a wound "You can not hide from the titan. You mere children, you think to be stronger than him? He will crush you where you stand. He is coming for Midgard, some day he will come, and you. You will crumble- Thanos will come and you will bow to him, you will kneel, you will beg for his mercy before the end, you-"

God, he did not have the patience or time for this. "All right, sir, you make yourself comfortable in your fatalist doom and gloom scenario. Meanwhile, it's been four days, and he still hasn't found us, so it's looking like whatever's going on, we're your best chance at getting through this alive. So unless you want to, um, kneel," he said, gesturing, and Loki blanched, "then you're going to answer our questions, because right now, Loki? We're the only ones in your corner."

"I don't KNOW!"

The lights flickered again, and yet another fragile artifact- this one, Stephen's phone- tumbled to the floor.

Loki's body was panting, and Stephen had little doubt that if he returned to it to feel his heartbeat, it'd be racing, too.

"I don't- I don't know," he cried, burying his face against his hand. His fingers scratched and dragged violently, passing only against his insubstantial form now but if he'd been solid, surely would've drawn blood. "I tried to kill myself only to wake up here; I've no idea how, I've no idea why- I know even less than you! Who are you?! Midgard does not have sorcerers; where are you from?! Why am I not dead, and why did the Black Order drop me here to be found?! Why am I not- not de-" And his voice tapered off into a shattered sob.

It broke between misery and rage, like he was stuck between lashing out at them ad withdrawing into himself. Soon, rocking back and forth, trembling, Loki seemed to decide to split the difference; with another despairing moan he curled back even tighter to shrink back down to his real head. "I'm sorry. I'm- I'm sorry. Just. I need a moment. To think. I'm sorry."

If Loki had been tangibly real, his body something more than a broken heap of bone fragments comatose before him, then Stephen might've known what to do. How to fix this. Not because he was good at it, but because he'd been trying to learn- because he'd been trying to be better than what he'd been so content as before. Because Christine had coddled him for months with her bedside manner, because Wong was good at it, because the dammed cloak could be better at it than he was- assuming the person in question did not scream at being comforted by an animated cape. So Stephen had been trying, lately. He'd been learning. Even if it felt like he was trying to emulate his own cloak at times, he'd been trying.

But Loki was not a patient that he could touch. Well, he could, but it wouldn't do any good. Loki, quite obviously, had a ton of problems in that cracked skull of his, way more than they had anticipated.

Loki was very, very screwed up, easily far beyond his ability as a surgeon and a sorcerer to fix.

Damn, but he really missed the Ancient One.

"I apologize," Loki said roughly, at last. Still faintly rocking, wrapped around himself and sunk down to linger next to his real body's head, unable to meet either of their eyes. "I think my time grows short."

A glance at the newly stolen heart monitor, brought just for this purpose, showed that Loki was likely correct. His heart rate had increased and was still increasing. It wasn't in range of tachycardia yet, for a human- hell, it was barely in range of normal, for a human.

But Loki was not human, and in his current condition, Stephen did not want to push it.

"We can try again tomorrow," Stephen promised, trying to sound secure. Another habit, learned as a surgeon, or at least in recent months, from listening to Christine. Either be confident or fake it, because the last thing a patient wanted to hear as that their caretaker didn't know what they were doing. "We already have plenty for-"

Loki whipped his head back and forth violently, pale eyes still flickering away from them both. "No. N-no, I-" He sucked in another breath through clenched teeth, and between them, his body gave another minute jerk of distress. "I must explain this now."

Stephen hesitated. Again, his old life and his new, colliding like two ships to wreck against each other and sink in the night. As a doctor he knew he would've ended this interview straight away, for any multitude of reasons. He wanted to end it now. For Loki's own well-being, for their own peace of mind- because Loki was still half-rocking with glazed eyes, and no matter what he'd said, he clearly wasn't up to this.

And then. On the other hand.

They were dealing with what was beginning to sound like an extremely powerful, dangerous extraterrestrial, a magical force that had its eyes directed on Earth, and so far had literally nothing to go off other than the name Thanos.

Sorry, Loki, he sighed mentally, biting the inside of his cheek. But I think I'm gonna have to weigh the lives of everyone on Earth over your comfort, at this point.

"Thanos wants Midgard," Loki said finally. He squeezed his eyes shut tight but his face held calm, or perhaps just disturbingly blank, instead, because looking closer, he really did not seem calm. "Earth. Wait." He tugged at his face again, whining through clenched teeth. "No, the Space Stone. He knows it's on Earth, and he's coming for it. H-he, he wants them all, but the Time Stone, he doesn't- I tried to keep it from him, but they- they were in my head, they're still..."

"I'm sorry," he whispered, falling limp. "I don't know if he knows it's here. I don't know if I kept it from him. I tried. I'm sorry."

He rocked once again, twice, again, his eyes blinking and unseeing. "He wants all the stones," Loki went on, voice still unsteady as a boat against rocks, but it forged on anyway, a rower so stubborn he kept fighting even as he drowned. "He was going to send me to get them. It. I said no. I said I didn't want his bargain." And if Stephen flinched at the word choice, Loki didn't notice, lost deep in his own little world, even as Wong's sharp eyes caught his. "I wasn't to be given a choice. I realized I'd run out of options, that I was running out of time, and in the last chance I'd have I managed to turn their magic against them. He was in my head and I, I stopped- I broke it, I, I-"

"Loki," Wong said quietly.

Because Stephen was frozen helpless and listening at the same time, drowning in the implications, swimming so deeply he couldn't see what was right in front of his eyes. And Loki was still blinking and dazed, in a trance, like the words needed to come out so he was saying them, but all the important things that made whoever Loki was, Loki, had drifted far away. The alien blinked again, his stuttering broken off by Wong's interruption, then shook his head roughly, pouring back in with renewed vigor. "It was psykose, the spell, it was-" He waved his hand, back and forth, back and forth, "-I don't know your word for it- I separated my awareness from my mind. I knew they didn't have magic that could bridge the split, I knew I was tying their hands. They were meant to, to kill me- I do not understand how they did not- how-"

Stephen narrowed his eyes, again searching underneath to find meaning against the words that bordered on incoherency. And Loki was getting upset again, his words losing focus, so he interrupted without pause, hoping to give something to ground them all. "Do you mean you put yourself in a coma? Do you mean- Loki, look at me- do you mean that your magic can bring you out of it?"

The alien gulped again, gasping as a fish on dry land, shaking his head again, not in denial but trying to sort the chaos. He looked as if he was about to be sick- would have been, if he wasn't still safely in his sickly astral form. "I- I can," he assured, but did not look assured himself at all. "But it's not safe. I told you, they left things in my head, they, they are inside me- they can't manipulate me now, but if I'm awake-" Loki hit silence again, his voice slamming off hit against a solid wall. Slowly, it seemed, with a massive, almost herculean effort, his darting gaze finally locked back with his. "I'm not familiar with your discipline. Do you have the ability to clear my mind of foreign spells?"

He nodded, relieved to finally be able to give a solid, reliable answer. "Yes. We'll need to look at the spells involved but we can- we will try, at least. Wong-?"

Wong nodded as well, beginning to pull back. "I'll contact Master Hamir. This is his area of expertise. We'll begin the necessary examination and research immediately."

Loki sagged, just a little. Not relieved, not safe by any measure, but perhaps he was getting there- perhaps he believed safety might be possible, now. He continued to cling to his corner, arm about his transparent knees, face vacant and unsettled, but he was calmer than before, and Stephen knew they had to capitalize on that while they still could.

"All right," he announced, drawing himself up to his full height. His full, ghostly, transparent height, a height which made no difference, when any one of them could float higher with no effort at all. "Game plan: we'll research everything and get to work as fast as we can. Loki, we'll talk to you again soon- at least before we try doing anything to you. Tomorrow night at the latest, promise. Okay? That work for everyone here?"

He met nothing but silent agreement, the three of them tense but determined for the first time, and Stephen relieved with it. Nothing like actually having a plan of action to help calm a guy down. Though, Loki still did not look very calm, but considering the circumstances, Stephen looked at the currently not losing his mind alien, and took it as a step forward for himself. Bedside manner level: no longer so atrocious it brought harm to the patient. Success.

"Okay, then." Clapping his ghostly hands together, Stephen began to lower himself back down, sights set only on his own body. The astral projection had gone on for so long, even he was beginning to feel the strain of it- he could've gone on for longer, could've perhaps managed an hour before it got too dangerous, and Wong could manage longer, but it remained up in the air how their alien friend was managing this at all. When this was all over, he definitely wanted to have a good, long talk about Loki's magic, and what disciplines they practiced where he was from.

Ah!

Speaking of which...

"One last thing!" he said, quick and sharp, waving a hand against Wong's frown and Loki's curious glance, the half-second it met his eyes before it dropped down again, eyelids flickering and face drawn. He'd have to make this quick, then. "Listen," he said, "we're going to do everything we can, for you, Loki. We're on your side, and you're in good hands, here. But in the meantime- is there anyone we can try and find for you?"

Loki blinked.

For several long, very quiet seconds, he floated there, unmoving and unflinching, his face still that exact same unsure, wary mask that it had been this entire time.

Then, he blinked upwards to meet Stephen's gaze back, and with a voice as vacant as his body's eyes, he said, "I beg your pardon?"

"...You know." Stephen waved a hand again, gesturing as if that might somehow make the concept clearer, to him. "Friends? Family?" Again, Loki continued to stare so blankly he might as well have slipped into a foreign language without realizing it, and he sighed. Maybe they didn't have the concept of friends or family, where he was from. How was he to know? This was his first alien. "Anyone who might be able to help us with this, or just help you. We can try and get them here. Well-" He bit the inside of his cheek, walking it back. "You'd have to help us get through, first. We've never been able to surveil anything on Asgard, before. That's where you're from, right? Asgard?"

In an instant, Loki went very, very still.

His face shuttered sickeningly blank, in the same breath as the warning on the heart monitor tripped, alerting them that Loki's heart beat had just reached the danger zone.

Bedside manner level: back down to rock bottom.

"Stephen-" Wong started, already falling back to his own body, urgency stamping out whatever patience there had been there before.

This time, it was Loki himself that stopped him.

"I've told you," he snarled, past bared teeth and blazing eyes, "I have no one that would claim me as family, and none that I would claim in return. Not on Midgard, not anywhere in Yggdrasil- and most certainly, not on Asgard." For the very first time, the pale green spirit flitted out of the corner to advance against them both, curled over his body protective and growling, a watchdog guarding his own bones with a core of green light solidifying inside him, warm, wary, and dangerous. The vibrating was back, lighter objects rumbling, the air shaking, and Loki's lips pulled to reveal bared teeth and panting breaths so hot an angry the very walls shook. "You will not speak to me again unless it is a matter of urgency. Good luck to you, Master Strange."

Then, before either one of them could so much as try to say a single word, Loki's shimmering green spirit swirled back upwards, and a wave so violent he and Wong were sent stumbling backwards, slammed straight into his body all on its own. The heart monitor blipped beside him, his shattered body shuddered once- and then it was over.

Stephen, stunned, stared at Wong. Wong, stunned, stared back.

Official, now: this had gone as far south as Australia.

Together, Wong only a second after him, they both returned to the physical world. It hit with a rush of cold air, this time, Stephen blinking hard, his hands aching, feeling like he'd just been thrown on a bed of pins and needles in the aftereffects of Loki's angry spark of magic. Even the cloak was unhappy, flaring out over Loki's body as if to keep him down, the edges spreading over limbs and the collar meeting at his throat.

A cough caught in his throat, awkward and apologetic, all in one. Swallowing hard, Stephen rolled back his sleeves again, turning to feel Loki's heartbeat for himself; the ice-cold that was perhaps a fever, the rhythmic breaths that always felt too fast.

He'd messed up.

Again.

A few moments passed in a less than comfortable silence, Stephen glaring downwards only, feeling the heartbeat continue assuredly underneath his half-numb hands. The alarm continued from the monitor, high-pitched and monotonous, and after only a second more of it he muted it with little more than an annoyed scowl, pulling off the leads in the next beat. "He's fine," he said, perhaps to himself just as much as Wong. "Already coming back to his really messed up baseline."

The librarian nodded wordlessly, eying Loki and his new companion of the cloak with as much wariness as would befit a wild bear. "Then I shall go and contact Master Hamir. We need to move quickly." He rose to his feet and moved soundlessly to the door; the cloak fluttered at his withdrawal, yet remained curled over Loki. "...Stephen?"

"You go ahead." His hand was starting to hurt, holding up Loki's strangely heavy army just enough to feel his heart, so he pulled his hands back to himself, warming them in his lap. "I think I'm going to stay. Make sure his condition stays stable."

"...A wise proposition." There was a hidden smile in Wong's voice, his ruse fooling absolutely no one, but calling him out on it wasn't the librarian's way, and his words stayed perfectly calm as he withdrew again towards the door and creaked it open.

Then, just on the threshold, he paused.

"He reminds me of you, you know," Wong said. And this time, the slight smile wasn't hidden. "From when you first came pawing at the Ancient One's door."

With a wave of his hand, Stephen poked the door shut right back in Wong's face.

Uncalled for, much?

And-

He didn't want to think, about how apt those words really were. Staring still at the motionless, fragile form before him, left helpless in his questionable care, his mind shattered twice more than his body.

No, he did not want to think about how Wong might just have been exactly correct.

Another few moments passed. Loki breathed on, his bruised, skeletal face eerily still. Somehow, looking at him now, Stephen didn't know how he'd missed it before- he did not look peaceful. Truly comatose patients did.

Loki didn't.

Because he wasn't.

He wasn't peaceful at all.

His mouth twitched again, unease making his hands itch and his skin crawl.

Then, settling back as heavily into his chair as he could, Stephen retrieved his phone from where it had halfway slid under Loki's bed, wondered if he could make the guy fix the crack in the case, and sent off a quick text.

His answer came almost immediately, a warm, reassuring buzz against the constant ache of his hands. Somehow, that buzz alone was enough to make a fraction of the tension collected in his chest begin to unfurl, and somehow, he managed a weak smile.

Not busy. What's up?

Nothing, really

By which you mean, you're busy doing cult activities you're not allowed to tell me about

...yep. Sorry.

Someday, I am going to get you to tell me how on earth Stephen Strange got wrapped up into a cult.

There was a brief pause, a smile tugging its way to his face. Then, a second message came to follow her first.

You need a distraction?

So he was still that transparent, then.

It had been over a year, now, but sometimes, it felt like he was still trying to learn the Ancient One's very first lesson: humility.

Stephen took a deep breath, shutting his eyes for just a moment to try and concentrate on the budding stress and guilt, to muffle it, then smother it as low as he could get. He slid a hand forward, again, cushioning it gently against Loki's wrist so he could feel his heartbeat and be comfortable at the same time.

Yes, please, he texted back, face warm, and sat back just as a corner of the cloak curled against his foot.

Then, smirking a little himself, he started typing again, on top of the message that Christine was already composing for him. Or next thing we steal will be the good break room's coffee maker.

Chapter Text

For the third time in as many days, the masters of the Mystic Arts gathered around Loki.

It was to be easier, this time. More controlled and stringently planned, with every step of the way already settled and ready to go. They all arrived together early in the evening, Stephen leading the way with Wong and Hamir, nodding away the student they'd left keeping an eye on Loki. Hamir brought the books needed, carried firmly under one arm, while Wong brought the supplies; something he might've derided as scam holy water a few years ago, but now was going to have to put as much faith in as he did his sling ring. Ordinarily, they'd have all rested another night, given Loki another night to heal, before convening in the morning, but this was no ordinary set of circumstances.

If this Thanos really was coming for Earth, Stephen knew he'd feel a lot better having supernaturally strong magician Loki on their side.

Together, they maneuvered the bed to the middle of the room. Or, rather, Wong did, with an assist from the cloak, while Stephen clenched his useless hands and kept an eye on Loki's heart-rate. It was a little faster than the day before, and looking closer at his face, the color seemed better; the bruises, already fading- fading way faster than would've been possible for a human. He felt his forehead, curiosity arisen, but whatever miraculous healing he was employing had done nothing for his temperature.

Maybe Asgardians just simply were ice-cold.

Another bullet point to add to his nonexistent holy shit, we have alien neighbors and they are AMAZING article.

"We're going to go as thoroughly as we can, not as fast as we can," Hamir warned, as Stephen helped Wong grapple with Loki, balancing him upright to get a trickle of the ritual water down his throat. "We've likely never dealt with this sort of magic before, so it's going to take us a lot longer than he can hold a projection- whenever he needs a break, just pass it on. We're probably going to need a lot of them."

Privately, Stephen actually wasn't so sure, about that. Loki had already shown an astounding capability for being able to tolerate his astral form, likely because of his own magical training, but even then it was really just beyond anything a human could've done. Stephen wouldn't be surprised if it turned out that Loki could hold it without strain for hours.

If Loki didn't end up needing a break, then Stephen was just going to have to tap out at some point himself.

Once again, Stephen got settled; this time the cloak stayed with him, clasped about his shoulders and supporting him from behind, just in case he fell. He glanced up once, ensuring that Wong and Hamir were ready.

Then, with one last deep inhale of preparation, he re-entered the astral plane.

Only a few moments later, Wong sent Loki to follow him.

Loki swirled upwards into the air, ghostly green and pale. This time, it seemed, Loki had been waiting for it. The Asgardian formed with quick eyes and this time without even a single ripple of angry energy through the room, silent and contained over his physical form.

Almost immediately, he flitted back to press to his familiar corner.

"Evening," Stephen said first, raising a hand in greeting. Hoping that if he spoke first, if he ignored what had been said the day before, then his previous misstep about Asgard would be allowed to be forgotten. "How're you doing?"

Loki sniffed disparagingly, returning to his usual small curl in midair. "You were told not to disturb me unless it was absolutely necessary."

Well, so much for the small talk.

"Yeah. I remember. Hey-" Stephen dared a little bit closer, abruptly on edge by that hard, telling glint in his eye. "Take it easy this time, okay? No trying to throw stuff off the walls. They're gonna be doing some really delicate work inside your head, and if you mess it up there's no telling how bad it could be."

"Some really delicate-" Loki glowered, that same dangerous, threatening glower, but his piercing eyes swept from Stephen to the others and with it he stiffened ramrod straight. "Who are they, and what exactly do they think they're doing to me?"

Stephen breathed deeply, forcing himself to remain calm, and more than that, biting his tongue to curb impatience. It made sense, that Loki was reacting like that. He still didn't really have a clue what had happened to the guy, but he doubted it was something that made him happy to have people rooting about in his head without him knowing anything about it.

But, informed consent was just one of those things that kind of slid by the wayside, when he'd hung up his medical degree for the cloak.

"This is Master Hamir. Remember, we mentioned him yesterday? He and Wong are going to help you- we think we've got a way to help give you a good, old-fashioned, magical detox. Make you good as new, trust me. They'll be busy with you; meanwhile, we'll keep out of their way over here."

Loki's eyes flashed again, pale and eerie in the low light of the astral realm. His gaze lingered on the two sorcerers, distrust evident with every last taut line of his curled form.

Once again, Stephen had to take a moment, to ensure his voice was kept steady, and chose his words very carefully before continuing on.

"If you feel something going wrong, speak up, Loki, and I'll stop them. Got it?" Venturing closer was probably a bad idea, so he merely pulled to the side instead, trying to allow Loki a better look at all that was about to happen. "We're going to go as carefully as we can, but we've never dealt with magic like this before. Seriously, if anything at all feels off, speak up. We want to help, you'll know better than us if we're not."

"Oh. Terrific," Loki drawled, the word syrupy-sweet and sticky, face twitching again in what was becoming a very familiar sneer. "You always inspire the utmost confidence, Master Strange. I shall be sure to let you know if I think your friends are about to send my brain leaking out of my ear."

So he was going to be a prickly, snarky patient, then? All right. Stephen could handle that. Had had his own fair share of them, on the operating table. "Please do," he returned, winking back, and was treated to, again, Loki bristling like a cat. "Remember, if at any time you think you're more capable than us, you are more than welcome to scrub in. Any time at all, Loki... you're welcome."

This time, the look on his face was rather like he'd just taken a bite out of a rotten egg, and Stephen, once again, was the one to grin.

At this point, Stephen wasn't really sure on how he was supposed to proceed. He hadn't been in this position, standing by to assist in the surgery, in ten years. He hadn't been in the position of casually conversing with the patient during said procedure ever.

And, suffice it to say, he had also never been in the position to chat with an Asgardian before, either.

Loki settled in his corner, hovering cross-legged in the air, seemingly just because he could. Maybe he hovered in the physical world, as well, when he wasn't torn to hell and back. Another question for his unwritten article on Asgardians. His face had that curious calm, again, the mask on his ghostly face that shuttered everything else away beneath it, and in a way, he looked no more settled than he had on day one.

"What are they doing to me?" Loki asked after several moments, his voice faint. He splayed a hand over his transparent chest, fingers long and searching. "They have given me... something."

Another note for the article: Asgardians had an impressive connection with their physical body, even from the astral plane. Or perhaps that was just Loki. Needed a sample size greater than one. "It's just a locator spell- nothing dangerous," he said, nodding to the nearby basin of ritual water. "It's latching around every foreign enchantment inside you. So that we'll know what to focus on."

"...Ah."

"That's... it? Ah?"

Loki smirked a little, but it looked bitter, somehow. "You could have just asked," he murmured, waving a hand. His only hand. "The spell is not going to help you."

"I thought you didn't know anything abut our magic. What, you really think we're that bad-"

"No," Loki said, and pointed. "I think it's worthless, because it is."

And then, as if on cue, his physical body began to glow like a lightbulb.

At first, Stephen didn't quite get it. That was what was supposed to happen, after all; they'd tested it to be sure, and that was exactly it. The locator spell would latch onto anything foreign, and it would begin to glow, and it would glow until the foreign invasion had been dealt with and eradicated to dust. So, parts of Loki were meant to glow. That meant the spell was working as designed.

He hadn't realized it would be just so... much.

Loki had been set off glowing from head to toe. Not every inch of him, but in a way that reminded him of car accident patients, bruised black and blue, crushed all over so thoroughly that they looked like a lost cause as soon as they were rolled in on his table. Like Loki had been systematically shredded apart and then, literal thread by thread, stitched back together like a patchwork doll- god, there was just so much it was easier to list the spots that were left dark and untouched; Loki's neck, his hand, the area right around his heart...

It was a precious few blemishes against the glow of the entire rest of his body. Like shadows on an X-Ray- but this time, the shadows were good. The shadows were what they wanted.

And there was barely an inch of them to be seen on the Asgardian's entire body.

"...Jesus Christ," he whispered.

Loki looked back at him sharply, back to hostile and prickly again. It was simply disturbing, because he was the only one in the room to be at ease; even Wong and Hamir were staring in shock. "It's not as bad as it looks," the Asgardian drawled, slinking back to his corner. "They used cursed blades, often. To help anchor already existing spells. But they will be very easy enchantments to unravel, even for sorcerers of your caliber."

This time, Stephen knew Loki well enough to not bother rising to the bait.

Still couldn't get himself to stop staring at his body, the light's show beneath its skin, and the story that it told.

Rather bizarrely, it came to him that Loki really ought to be scarred from head to toe. Cursed blades, he'd said- by the looks of it, there shouldn't have been an unscarred inch of him left. Was it alien biology or Loki's own magic, that had prevented it? Or was the scarring there, and they just couldn't see it; didn't know what scars looked like on Asgardian skin? Or Loki's magic was hiding it?

Just another question for the article, he thought ridiculously, and dragged a shaking hand through his hair.

Slowly, into the new silence that settled between them, thick and uncomfortable as molasses, Loki drifted forward again.

He avoided Stephen's side of the room, and avoided Wong and Hamir, as well. Tried to avoid them all, his crossed legs pulling up a little closer to his chest. Stephen knew by now it wasn't worth the risk towards trying to move himself, so he merely kept his peace in his own half of the room, and watched as Loki pulled back closer to his own body.

There was a new light in his eyes, now- something unreadable, something heavy- and Stephen did not want to try and make a guess at what that meant.

"...what else is it that you have done to me?" Loki ventured at last, his voice quiet. A hesitant glance in Stephen's direction, then jerked quickly back down to his own body. A ghostly hand trailed against the needle in his arm; the collar at his neck. "You did this?"

Slowly, carefully, Stephen allowed himself to nod. "Yes. To help you." He hesitated a moment, unsure if approaching was really the wisest idea... but these explanations, at least, he knew he could do. And they would serve as a distraction, if nothing else.

Right now, that was something they could both use.

So Stephen drew closer as well, taking care to avoid Wong and Hamir's work and not get too close to Loki himself. "This is an IV," he said, nodding down to his arm. "Intravenous. We're giving you fluids and nutrients, with it."

Loki scoffed quietly, once. "I should like it removed. I require neither."

"You require neither? What, you don't have to eat?"

"Not as mortals do," Loki said airily, with an evasive wave of his hand that warned there was much more to that question than a simple no. He glanced back up at Stephen, his eyes searching him again; for once, not hostile. "And this?" he asked, astral fingers trailing the collar at his throat.

"Cervical collar. We use it to immobilize the head and neck, in case of a spinal injury. In humans, at least, that's very important, and can-

Loki sniffed again, this time even more derisive than before. "I can heal from having my spine snapped in half. I can- I have, actually. You shall remove this immediately, too." His fingers searched along it again and he rolled his eyes, a look on his face that he could tell was designed exactly to needle and bait. "Midgardian medicine is so... primitive."

"Yeah?" Sensing it was safe to do so, now, Stephen drew a little closer, still keeping to his side of the room, but now at least it felt less like he was trying to talk across the room at the guy. "Well, I think we do all right, for a species that can't heal ourselves out of a brain injury, snapped spine, or coma."

"Yes. Just as I said. Primitive." The Asgardian continued trailing his hand over his body, giving Wong a somewhat nasty look as he had to pull back to avoid passing straight through him. Still wary and unsettled, but- it was better than a flinch. "And, this?"

Stephen sighed. "Oxygen mask," he replied, placing a hand over his own mouth, as if Loki needed a second demonstration. "It provides purified oxygen to patients who, for some reason, require it. Your oxygen saturation was running low, which isn't uncommon, for someone in your condition- but, let me guess. You don't actually need oxygen, either."

Loki smiled, slippery and small. "That is correct, Master Strange."

Once again, Stephen rolled his eyes and did not bother to argue. Somehow, just somehow, he doubted that. If Asgardians didn't need oxygen, then Loki's oxygen saturation should've been riding a zero, and not the extremely worrisome ninety-one that it had been. If they didn't need nourishment, then his color wouldn't have improved, mere hours after they'd started giving him fluids. If injuries were of such little consequence to them, then he already would've healed, instead of lying there looking like his face had met a bulldozer.

Maybe all those things were less important to Loki than they were to a human, but he still needed them.

But it was clearly important to him to pretend that he didn't, and considering the circumstances, he figured he could allow him at least that.

There was another pause, after that. Loki seemed to have exhausted his questions, nothing left to pry into on his body save for bandages- maybe they did, at least, have those on Asgard. He settled down floating by his head, probably because Wong and Hamir seemed to have decided to start near his feet, seeming content to settle back into silence so long as he could watch what was being done.

Or would have been content, if his gaze wasn't lingering at his right shoulder.

The arm that had been cut off, when Stephen and Wong had found him.

The look on his face was nothing short of despair, and it made something twist inside him like one of Dormammu's rusted blades.

"That wasn't us," Stephen put forth at last, anther venture into the almost devastating silence. The look on the Asgardian's face was a man on death row. "You already had that wound when we found you."

He doubted the words would be welcome, but all the same, he just had to say them. The wound was recent, Loki was clearly missing some stretch of time- he didn't want the Asgardian to think that they were responsible.

But Loki only gave him another shallow smile, one that plastered over the underlying despair. "If you had, we would not be speaking now. I know it wasn't you. I... remember.'

"...Oh." He fidgeted, a little. Biting his lip to breathe, deep in, deep out, forcing himself to be calm and to calm his curiosity. "So, I guess Asgardians can't grow new limbs, then."

Loki's pale eyes lingered again. "No," he said. "We can not." Utterly expressionless, his gaze shifted back to his arm, or lack thereof.

For several moments, he said nothing at all.

Then, the story came.

"It is called sorcerer's justice. A ritual in certain parts of the galaxy, for specific types of mages, that have been- disgraced, in a certain way." The words were flat and cold, unfeeling as a corpse, but when his gaze scattered back down to the injury, there was a shadow in there that was indescribable in its pain. "You cut off the mage's dominant arm and seal it. Destroy it. With it, you destroy their ability as a sorcerer."

Stephen hesitated.

His own aching hands suddenly felt cold, and for a breath, he had no idea what to say.

"I've seen you do magic, though," he prodded at last, because he did have to say something. "Hell, you're in a coma, or the magical equivalent, but you've-"

"Internal spells," Loki said, with a dismissive wave of his hand. His face was careless, but his voice was dull, and the light in his eyes was that same vacant, unsettling gleam."My actual magic, the core of my power, was not harmed- what was harmed was my ability to use it. I can work certain enchantments inside myself without difficulty. But my hand was my conduit, for how my power would interact with the outside world, and with the way it was destroyed it has left a permanent scar. I will never be able to use magic the same way again."

Then, he fell silent.

There were several things, Stephen could've said then. Perhaps the question of prosthetics- Stark Industries was making advancements in the field, and that was on Earth; he could only imagine what Asgard had. Or the question of the scars Loki spoke of, being healed themselves; magical scars to be healed by a magical means. If this ritual was so widely known of and practiced, then that had to mean that there were known ways to correct or at least mitigate its effects.

Hell, uh, why don't you just use your left arm? was so obvious it was criminal.

And Stephen was still painfully curious, but in the end, he could already tell that it'd be a waste of time. For whatever reason those solutions wouldn't actually work, if the answer was that simple, then Loki would already know it himself.

Maybe he'd still give him an interrogation on it later, to satisfy his own curiosity. But it was painfully clear that now was not the time.

Loki's astral form still hovered, just next to his physical form's head. Carefully cross-legged and calm, left arm settled limply in his lap and gaze still that unsettlingly dull, lifeless stare. As lifeless as his real body's, in fact, his real body which actually was, currently, lifeless. Which was, currently...

Crying.

His physical body, not his astral form; Loki himself still looked vacant and dull again, as if ambivalent about this entire affair or at least was trying to pretend to be, but his physical body still lay between them, utterly motionless, and crying. A wet, silver gleam against trailing against his temple to disappear into his shorn hair.

A physical reaction, nothing more. The same way he breathed quicker, when they startled him; the same way his heartbeat went faster when provoked. That was all. Loki, in fact, did not seem to even notice it.

In a way that once again felt like being stabbed by one of Dormammu's rusted blades, because Stephen remembered exactly how that felt. Those slim few nights in the hospital, when Christine hadn't been there, and he'd managed to lower his desperate pride just enough to look at his hands and admit that they weren't coming back.

For several moments again, there was uncertain quiet again. Wong and Hamir moved together, one up to a knee, the other to a thigh, the lower half of his body slowly clearly of the glowing, insidious infection.

Stephen's eyes brightened.

"You could look into our discipline. You know, when you're not a vegetable." He pulled a little bit closer to Hamir, hoping to draw Loki's attention to his truncated wrist, but rather entirely unsurprised when it did not work. "I don't know how your magic works, but for ours? You don't need hands."

"Your magic is a children's parlor trick," Loki snarled, swirling back with ghostly trails to turn his back. Ignoring, apparently, that said children's parlor trick was painstakingly taking him apart and knitting him back together, inch by inch, bone by bone. "Your power is in manipulating the energies around you, you have no power, not of your own- my power, mine, comes from inside me! I have no interest in your paltry replacement, your tricks, your-" Loki cut off with another snarl, a white-glimmer of rage burning in his core just like the day before.

"I want none of it," he said at last, ice-cold and final, and went silent.

Once again, the bitter rage was more familiar than not.

Wong signaled them, a few minutes in, and a welcome distraction if Stephen had ever seen one. They were taking a brea,; all four of them, to re-engage in a few minutes. Between the four of them, Loki was probably the most well off- and for once, not just his astral form. At last, his physical form was starting to look well; almost his entire lower half was free, and his condition was stable. In fact, Stephen thought this was the best the Asgardian had looked since they'd met.

They just didn't get the time to admire it, because Loki, without a single word, slammed back into his body with a rush of air, and left him and Wong alone.

So much for that, then.

Stephen returned gratefully to his own body; he'd already been starting to feel the strain of it, and the loss of weightlessness in trade for solid ground under his feet was absolutely more than worth it. He staggered once, shuddering in his seat, but the colors and heat bled back in instantly, so heavy he was shivering, and a distant part of him hoped Loki was, too.

"Are you all right?" Wong asked, though he did not look so all right himself. The librarian settled heavily across from him, wiping sweat from his brow. "Loki?"

He shook his head once, still trying to catch his breath. "Is an asshole," he answered raggedly, then rubbed at his own face. He'd never held a projection for this long, before... and their work wasn't even half done, yet. Damn.

Wong smirked a little. "Like I said, he reminds me of you."

Stephen shot him an irritated look and remained silent, still frowning at Loki. This is a mess, he wanted to say; this is hopeless.

The cloak left his shoulders, again, quickly flitting towards where they had left the tea, in the corner. With just a bit of honey, because that was how the Ancient One had first met them all. It returned to him as soon as the tea was safe on the floor, curling protectively, and Stephen patted it back with his hand. The wings of animus, Loki had called them. They'd never found out why.

"What are we going to do, when this is all over?" Wong prompted, another minute into the quiet. He warmed both his hands on his cup, holding it close to his face and not yet drinking. "Any ideas?"

"Well, firstly, I'd like to defend Earth from this Thanos fellow. After that, we'll see." He passed his tea between his own hands, focusing on the fit of his scars against the warmth of the cup. Found himself wondering if Asgard might have something to ease the pain, where modern medicine and the Mystic Arts had both failed. "I offered to teach Loki."

Next sip, Wong nearly coughed out, all over the floor.

Stephen expected it to be for the giving of their secrets away to others, but then Wong was smiling again, shaking his head the way he tended to do. "You?" he asked, eyebrow raised. "I thought you were delaying accepting apprentices, until you were more confident yourself." He stopped for a breath, tilting his head. "And I'm not sure what the Ancient One would have to say about the acceptance of an alien."

"Hey, it was only a thought. The guy said no, anyway." Stephen frowned to himself, eying the scars along his hands, then, the still glowing ones, etched deeply into what was left of Loki to disinfect.

It probably had been rash, to make the offer so prematurely. He might have become Sorcerer Supreme, but he wasn't ready for the ultimate authority the Ancient One had had and he knew it. He'd have to consult with the other masters- and that was even if Loki was interested at all. He'd pretty explicitly said no.

And so had Stephen, when he'd first found Kamar Taj.

They finished the rest of their tea in a tired, worn silence. Wong and Hamir, resigned to the difficult task that lay before them, and Stephen to the possibly equally difficult task of Dealing with Loki solo for hours on end. They were all already tired, but looking at the Asgardian's body, they were not even halfway done. Most of the harder spells seemed entangled around his head, and they hadn't even gotten there yet.

This was going to be a very long night.

When they returned to task again, Stephen already shivering at the renewed strain of his astral form, Loki was already there, brought out by Wong. "Round two," Stephen said to him, trying to crack a smile.

The Asgardian merely pulled back into his corner, lofty and stone-faced, and turned away.

And because there really was no sense in sitting in dead silence for another stretch of possibly hours, Stephen just started talking.

"The Mystic Arts aren't the only brand of magic I know. They're the second, actually," he said, waiting for the sulking Asgardian to scowl at him out of the corner of his eye to continue. "I just lost the ability to use my first."

Loki continued to scowl, glaring downwards at his hand and stuck closely to his corner. But he didn't cut him off, and he figured that, with Loki, that meant I'm listening.

So, he kept going.

"I used to be a surgeon. A doctor. Healer- whatever word you use on Asgard. I was so good that people called me a miracle-worker. They weren't miracles, not any more than what I can do now, but people talked like they were anyway." And he hadn't discouraged it. It had annoyed him, to have his hard work and years of study discounted off of him, thanked to a god or angel instead of his own two hands, but still, Stephen had not discouraged it.

Now, here he was- capable of feats of healing so impressive they were miracles, by medical science- and he couldn't have felt farther from a god if he'd tried.

Loki, still, was quiet.

"I had an accident, a few years ago. My hands got hurt, and I burned all my money and just about every bridge failing to get them fixed." He held them up for Loki to see, turning them over, revealing the scars. They didn't hurt in the astral realm, and the gnarled scars were hard to see, but he could see on the Asgardian's stony face that the message had been received. "It's how I ended up here, a sorcerer. I was trying to fix my hands, and when medicine let me down I turned to real magic, instead."

"Hm." Loki swirled tighter, the pale green lines of his form seeming to blur, fading. He pulled in on himself, shrinking smaller than would have been physically possible, if still in his Asgardian form. "And is this the part where you prove to me that I don't need my hand to use my magic? That if you could do it, you, a mere mortal, then of course I could as well?"

Mortal. There was that word, again. Did that mean Loki was immortal? It would certainly explain how the hell he was still alive. Another question, for the eventual article. "If only it were that simple," he said back, smirking. "I don't know anything about what you need. All I know is that I found the Mystic Arts trying to heal my hands, to get back the life I'd lost, but it wasn't until I finally gave that up that I could become something more."

"You lacked conviction. You lacked it then and you lack it now, and yet you try and twist it into a parable fit for a child." Loki swirled a little lower, this time, drawing closer to the floor so he could settle neater into the corner. But despite the words, his voice was mild, almost, as if the insult was not even intended. "Do you even have any conception of who it is you are trying to help? You think me a hapless victim- you have no idea, do you? Of what I would do to Midgard, given the provocation? Of who I am- what I have already done?"

Stephen raised an eyebrow back. Actually, he had somewhat of an idea of what Loki had already done. Had spent an entire evening reading Norse mythology, which, by virtue of being mythology, wasn't entirely trustworthy, but stories all about Thor and Loki- and Loki was certainly no angel.

He also really didn't know what Loki was playing at, flirting around the topic now.

"I know that you've been trying to help us so far," he said after a moment, shrugging. If Loki wanted to be disconcerting and confusing, well, good for him- Stephen wasn't about to play along. "I know that if you try and attack Earth from here, you won't get past the courtyard before we drop you into a volcano." He paused, fingers interlacing tightly in his lap; Loki was still watching him with that half clever smirk, half expectant smile. "I know I'm a lot more concerned about Thanos than you, anyway."

Loki bristled again, shoulders raised and lips pulled back like a cat. As if it was a matter of pride, and Stephen had just poked at it, and the so-called immortal had been wounded more by that than every scar in his shattered body. "Do not misunderstand," he hissed, spitting the words past clenched teeth. "I've helped you because it helps me. If handing Midgard to Thanos would've benefited me then your planet would already have fallen," he growled, scowling and tensed with a spark of seething in his eyes. "I've watched a world burn before by my hand and have no question, charlatan. The only reason I'm not watching yours burn too is because your world isn't a worthy enough sacrifice to bargain for my life with."

"Is there a reason you're trying to- what? Tempt us to leave you to rot?" Stephen wasn't really sure what Loki was up to, but he didn't believe it was a genuine threat. The words themselves might have been honest, but the look on his face was not, the Asgardian lashing out just because he could. That, at least, Stephen could handle. "If you want us to stop; sorry, we'd rather you help us out with Thanos, first. If he's after the Time Stone, he's headed here anyway, and something tells me you don't want to meet back up with him. After that?" He shrugged carelessly again, spreading his hands. "Then we'll drop you off into that volcano if you cause trouble, and be on our merry way."

Loki growled again under his breath but with it he pulled out of his little corner, turning finally back to face him with that spark in his eyes and a green glimmer in his hands. "You," he said, pointing one long finger at him. "I do not like you."

"I tended not to like most of my patients, and after meeting me, they tended not to like me either. Somehow the affront doesn't bother me so much, as I save your life."

"Ah, yes, with medicines and magic that are the most delightfully primitive." Loki shook his head again, and, as Stephen watched carefully, the green glow of his form, the pulsation of his core, seemed to calm down, a little. Like a racing anger, cooling to a steady heartbeat.

It wasn't much progress, but it was still progress.

"What happened to the sorceress, then?" Loki muttered after another pause, glancing at him out of the corner of his eye. "The last master of the Time Stone. Our writings tell of evasive and powerful sorceress- so powerful she stymied our greatest warriors when they came for the stone. Now I come and see but an impudent child."

An attack on the Time Stone... and by Asgardians...

"The attack in 1573," he started, blinking in disbelief. "That was you?"

Loki hummed back. "I don't mind the years on a Midgardian scale. Some five centuries ago, yes. Well- us in the collective sense; I myself was not present. I was not considered old enough," he murmured, the corner of his mouth tightening in a derisive twist, but Stephen was too busy thinking back to even properly react to the whole he's actually five hundred years old bit.

While he still had a massive amount of readings necessary to get through, the history of the Time Stone was not one. It had been one of the first manuscripts he'd borrowed into, because as the new protector of the stone, it had been his sole, most important duty to know its past and who he had to guard it from. The Ancient One had guarded it well, so well it was all but secret, and as a secret, there had been little to defend it from at all.

The last attack on it had been in 1573. By whom she had recorded to be humanoid extraterrestrials, extraordinarily durable, extraordinarily strong, armed with sword and shield, arriving in a blaze of rainbow light and marching on the sanctum like the conquistadors at that time sailing for the Americas.

Now that he better understood the Ancient One's dry, restrained humor, reading that manuscript, he was pretty sure she'd toyed with the first force the way she'd toyed with him, when he'd first came knocking.

Except about ten times more the brutally.

"The Ancient One- died. Recently," Stephen said, swallowing hard against the low sting in his gut. He wasn't sure that sting would ever truly fade, even if he lived as long as she had. "I took her role as Sorcerer Supreme."

"She died? A shame. I would have liked to meet her." Loki paused for a moment, floating and impassive. By meet her, the look on his face suggested he meant something closer to fight her. "Our soldiers were so thoroughly thrashed they failed to give so much as a description, and our own strongest sorceress returned claiming she was unable to find the enemy or the stone at all. I proposed wiping out the entire country..." He trailed off for a moment, mouth twitching again. This time, into the distinctive pout of a child, and then, the haughty huff of a put out teenager. "Unfortunately, the council overruled m."

For an apparently thousand year old pseudo-god, it was one of the funniest things Stephen had seen all week.

He would have, in fact, probably been laughing aloud, if something else Loki had said hadn't snagged against the Ancient One's own account.

"Really?" he needed, allowing a slight smile of his own. "Because the Ancient One's writings say that after she repelled Asgard's warriors, their queen came herself. Apparently, they had tea together."

"What?" Loki huffed, sharp and glowering all over again. "That is not possible. Our histories say-"

"But history is written by the victor, isn't it? And-" Stephen turned away himself, returning back to where his body had been carefully settled against the wall. And with it, the Time Stone, waiting and protected around his neck. "Since we have the stone..."

Loki stared back at him with a look on his face that suggested nothing less than sheer disgust, and it took nearly everything Stephen had not to laugh back.

"She must have lied," Loki mused darkly, his now sour eyes drifting away to glaze over and turn distant with memory. "She thought the stone would be safest here, or put to best use, and lied to the council to protect it. She lied... my moth-"

Loki went rigid, and stopped mid-word.

"...what is it?" Stephen turned back worriedly, searching over to Wong and Hamir and the monitors, but nothing appeared amiss. Loki's heart rate was steady, and they still hadn't even reached the most difficult of the spells, yet. "Your-" He stared back at Loki, searching his suddenly frozen face for answer. "Your mother?"

The Asgardian flinched hard, a shadow shuttering over his face that was almost an impenetrable wall. "No," he hissed, flat and expressionless. "The Allmother." There was another icy silence, and in it, Loki refused to so much as look at him. "It is hardly a surprise. She has... has lied about matters of great import before."

And, once again, Stephen's mind was racing.

He hadn't had the time, to read much into Norse mythology. And again, on account of it being unsubstantiated myth, he had no clue how much of it was wholly true, but suspected the answer was not that much. The Ancient One's account of Frigga of Asgard was far more trustworthy, but it was only one meeting, and had not mentioned Loki in any regard.

The mythology was that Frigga, Allmother of Asgard, was mother to Thor and Loki, God of Thunder, God of Mischief. The latter; the whole actual, literal gods part, Stephen held in very little regard at all. Even less so now that he'd wound up with the actual so-called God of Mischief in his hands, and was currently still piecing him back together bit by bit, after he'd been completely taken apart.

The Ancient One's own writings confirmed that Frigga was some sort of leader, on Asgard. Allmother wasn't the term she had used, but Stephen himself had never even heard the term before he'd started researching last night. The Ancient One had also said nothing about Thor and Loki, specifically, but had mentioned two sons...

There was much that Stephen didn't know. Much that he had simply no way to find out, not without being able to ask Loki or the Ancient One herself. Neither were options. He could not ask the Ancient One, not anymore, and no matter how hard it was to stamp out his natural curiosity to stop himself from asking Loki, he had to do it.

It could not have been clearer that that question wouldn't end well.

Already, all he could remember of any coherence was that violent, savage gleam in Loki's eyes, prowling up like a startled beast to swear that he had no family, and that Asgard was not his home.

That apparently, while every piece of evidence that Stephen had suggested otherwise, this Frigga was not his mother.

Stephen still wasn't sure what was going on here- could not be sure at all. Had nothing at all beyond the wildest of wild guesses until he had more information to work off of.

But he thought he could understand a little better now, whatever had happened to separate the Asgardian from his home, and could also understand that prying deeper now wasn't gong to help.

No matter how desperately curious he was to find out.

So he did all he could do, and changed the topic to distraction instead.

"It's a shame your people didn't let you tag along, when they came after the Ancient One," he said. Didn't really try for a smile; it wouldn't have been genuine, and Loki didn't seem like the type of patient to appreciate smiles, anyway. "You would've been so annoyed with her that you'd be down on your-" He inhaled quickly, remembering Loki's odd reaction before to the word kneel, and switched lines of approach. "-you'd have been thrilled to wind up with me instead."

Sure enough, his fumbled deflection had worked to disarm Loki, at least softening that angry, hostile edge to something just bitter instead. "Hmm?" he drawled, tilting his head. "What, was she even more insufferable than you?"

"She abandoned me on top of a freezing mountain," he said, and this time, found that he couldn't help a smile. It had been the first time in his life he'd actually failed, to learn something- and in the way he did pretty much everything, he had failed so stubbornly he'd required desperate measures to at last jolt him out of that rut. Stephen smiled slightly to Loki again, feeling almost like he was trying to coax a skittish kitten out of his shell. (And, no, actually- he had never been a cat person.) "She taught me I didn't need my hands with that lesson. Also nearly killed me, and I was shivering for four hours when I crash landed back in Kamar Taj."

"Oh? So that's why you still rely on your servants to complete spellwork that requires hands, then? Still traumatized from your trial into the snow?"

What- oh. Wow. Oh. Stephen spluttered once, and if he'd been in his own body his face would've warmed at the way Loki was smugly watching him alone. "Servants-" he repeated, still spluttering, then cleared his throat and shook himself, making an attempt to scowl back in return. "Says you, who's all doom and gloom despite still having a functioning hand." He held up his own, and astral form or not, the nerve-deep, twisted scars were still on display. "I apologize if it's difficult to conduct energy through, um, these. Since us lowly mortals can't reconstruct nerves as flawlessly as you gods, apparently..."

"And yet, you are just the one trying to lecture me on how it was done." With a derisive shake of his head, Loki swept to his feet, or as close as he could manage, gliding back with a an assuredly purposeful dramatic flair to hover again beside his own body. The lines of his body remained ghostly and indistinct, but his face was sharp as he turned back to face Stephen, holding out his own hand to demonstrate. "It is the exact same concept as to how any of your spells work- this just allows less room for error, both energetically and spatially. Observe." He mimicked the motion at his own body's chest several times, a swift, precise jab straight into and through the space between his ribs, one ghostly finger sailing through him in perfect and neat order. "The physical gesture is, ultimately, unnecessary, you- come, Master Strange, watch-"

The Asgardian stopped, refusing to go on past that with impatience glimmering in his eye until Stephen joined him. "You must be precise," he said, demonstrating once again, "but relying on your hands to do so is exactly limited as is befitting a mortal. All it takes is a strong enough dislodging, right here, at my core. Your discipline's power is in manipulating the energies outside of you, not in your hands-"

"I know what the Mystic Arts rely on; weren't you the one just recently convinced us Midgardians had no magic at all? Why, exactly, do you now think you know more about it than us?"

"Just because I have never seen your exact brand of primitive tricks doesn't mean I haven't seen a hundred just like it. Have not-"

"What are you doing? Let me-"

"I'm showing you how it's done! Like this, you would-be, second-rate-"

"And which of one us, again, is saving whose skin-"

"Like, this, Strange," Loki growled, and apparently done waiting for him to act on his own, grabbed his hand for himself and completed the motion for him.

Like this, in their astral forms, there was no pain or inherent weakness, and for the first time he was able to complete the spell form all the way through. It wasn't the exact same way that Wong did it, or the Ancient One- he could feel the alien in it, that Loki was not human, that Loki was not from Earth and had not been raised here and his magic was not theirs, but it was familiar all the same. The Mystic Arts relied upon the code of the universe, and that code was the same here as it was on Asgard.

No matter how explicitly different Loki was from them, and his magic from theirs, they were still linked by that same commonality. And, broken hands or not, through an unwilling, hurt pseudo-god or not, he could feel it.

Just like when he'd been abandoned on Everest, he finally felt that same evasive click, when the power flowed through his veins and this time, finally did it right.

Stephen practiced the motion a few more times himself, trying to feel exactly as Loki was. He felt the core he was meant to disturb; he felt, again, what the Ancient One had tried to teach him so long ago- how the energy flowed through outside and through him, not his broken hands, how the energy existed outside of him in its flowing stream and he was only its guide.

How Loki had said his own magic was the exact opposite, of that.

And how it would feel to have that taken away.

That he didn't have to wonder, because he'd already gone through it himself.

"...I think I've got it," he murmured, his fifth practice attempt at the spell. He wasn't trying it for real, not here, but even so it still felt more real than any attempt he'd made in the physical world yet. "Almost... yes. That's it. Loki?"

Stephen tried it a sixth time, this one to confirm it to himself, to really grasp the feel of it and be secure this was right. Yes. That's it! He sailed through the motion a seventh time, a grin, and arrogant or not, he didn't care, pushed back around to face Loki.

To stop dead.

"What-" he started, then stopped, reeling in shock. He was frozen for only a moment, staring at the fallen alien, then flew, breathless, to his side. "Loki!"

Loki shuddered hard, flinching when his hand touched his shoulder and flinching even harder when he tried to turn his huddled form over. The Asgardian was paralyzed, curled in on himself with a hand clutching his hair, and his face- "Loki!" Stephen demanded again, desperately trying to unfurl him, "Loki, what is it?! What's happening?!"

"I... aahhh... aaahhhhh-"

Stephen swore, one hand left on Loki's stiff shoulder as he twisted back to face the others. Wong and Hamir had moved higher, the spells entangled from Loki's lower half entirely and were now at his chest, near his head. The spells were the worst there, would be buried deeper, clawed into him viciously and painful and alive. There, they would fight to be removed.

They were fighting, being removed.

Fighting Loki himself.

"Loki!" He flew to his other side, swirling around to try and meet his stricken eyes. Loki wasn't looking at him, was shuddering violently, violent spasms of pseudo-breath rocking him back and forth, violent even with Stephen tried to still him calm. "Tell me what you need. Do you need them to stop?!"

The Asgardian sucked in another great, moaning wheeze of a breath, rocking over and over. ""N-nnnoooo-" he groaned, and Stephen couldn't even tell if it was an answer to him or a protest to what was being done to him. "No- not-"

"Then what? What is it, Loki- talk to me! Tell me-"

"My body-" Loki gasped, then flinched away. "My- my body... I must- return-"

He didn't manage any more than that, still coughing and hacking, trembling, but Stephen had heard enough. Loki was obviously in pain, and a mere glance back at the others showed that his body was in distress. The monitors confirmed that his heart rate was rising, and if this continued the way it was, something was going to break.

If the alien magician said he had to go back to his body, then Stephen wasn't going to question it.

He swirled back across the room to his own body, slamming into it with a violence that made his head spin. Feeling and substance rushed back in around him, the world tilting under his feet and his vision dizzy, but already the warmth of the cloak was holding him upright and before he could even see, before he could even feel, he'd let it stagger and slump him forwards to Loki's side.

"Stephen?! What's-"

Stephen hauled his glove off, ignoring Wong's protest to breathe in the lesson he had just been given. He forced focus and clarity, the same state of mind he'd cultivated as a surgeon, the laser-sharp attention that bled through every inch of his hands and mind, and splayed one aching hand over Loki's heaving chest.

One breath later, a new confidence rammed against an instant urgency, for the very first time, he performed the spell.

It was a rapid, vehement jab right into the center of Loki's chest. It hurt, the flow of energy undisrupted but the shattered nerves and torn muscles screeching in protest, but even beyond his own pain was the angry vibration through the air. A pulsating wave as Loki's body shook again, and he felt it as surely as he felt his own heart beat, when Loki's spirit returned to where it belong.

Somehow, when the rasped, ragged panting continued, his heart screeching between them, and a bead of sweat trailing ice-cold down the side of his ice-cold face, the victory rang hollow.

"He said he had to," Stephen ground out, wiping his forehead. The strain of holding his own astral form for so long was already hitting him; it was going to be hours, before he felt right again. He wiped his forehead again, panting, and it was only with the cloak steadily supporting him from behind that he managed to bring his pulsing, dizzy vision up to Wong. "He said he- I'm not sure why, just he had to get back to his body. You need to hurry up, both of you. I'm not sure how much longer he can do this."

The monitors told the same story; Loki was stable but precarious, his condition no longer a sure thing, and now that he knew better how to feel for it, Loki's consciousness told the same story. He was in turmoil, face twitching in a way that would've been impossible if he was still in a coma, he was clearly in pain, his lips colorless and skin almost grey, he-

Was about to throw up.

Stephen ripped the oxygen mask off just in time, trying to haul the alien onto his side, but good god, he was heavy. Heavier than was humanly possible for someone of his size, heavier than someone twice his size, and it took Wong joining him and the both of them lifting with their backs to just tilt Loki enough onto his side for him to retch onto the floor.

"God- Stephen!"

"You're going to have to deal with it, Wong," he snapped tersely, still fully occupied with just propping the insanely heavy alien upright. He wasn't strong enough to do it alone; Loki was so heavy even the rapid-fire supports he spelled into existence were barely enough, and he made a mental note to get the guy on a damn scale as soon as this was over. "Come on, Loki, that's it," he muttered to himself, settling a hand on a shuddering shoulder. "Work with us, here..."

"Stephen!" Wong snapped again, twice as urgent as before, then, "Paging Dr. Strange? Potential health crisis over here?"

Cursing under his breath, Stephen pushed around to Loki's other side, looking after just what had Wong so concerned. Then, he cursed again.

"Well?" Wong pressed. "Emergency or no?"

"...No," Stephen managed, but it was only after a breath of staring in stricken shock. Loki shuddered again, and this time, he saw it for himself: the Asgardian rocking inwards violently, throwing up something black and slimy and thick all over the floor, like tar. He nudged Wong back with one hand, the other kept on Loki's shoulder.

"No," he said again, then swallowed. "That's not human, that's all I can tell you. Keep going, both of you- and hurry." Perhaps it was more unknown alien biology- perhaps it was Loki's own powerful magic, rejecting the same spells that Wong and Hamir were attempting to exorcise, and his body was trying to help them in its own way.

All he did know was that stopping now would leave that inside him.

To keep going was the only way they had.

Wong and Hamir continued, muttering to each other and now at Loki's head, the entire rest of his body dormant and dark while the fibers of remaining curses and hexes remained alight like the sun inside his skull. Stephen lent them his power when he couldn't bring his expertise, their magics mingling into the very air was hot and vibrating and heavy.

Between them, Loki threw up a third time.

The spells between them now were the most stubbornly tangled, entrenched in Loki as deep as his spine, his heart; this was going to be the hardest part of today, and all three of them could already see it. Stephen kept the Asgardian turned on his side, but after a fourth horrible heave jumped to unlatch the hooks of the neck brace and drop it to the floor, allowing him to turn his head as needed himself. He still seemed to be in a vegetative state, but that was in human terms, and Loki was not human.

Loki was alive, and that was all Stephen could guarantee.

The minutes dragged on, insufferable and painful. It was his first time in a decade sitting on the sidelines and all he could do was watch Loki's vitals, ensure that ridiculously stubborn heart kept beating, and he hated it. He hated feeling so helpless, hated being helpless, left to sit there as Loki threw up more and more magical refuse, icy-cold under his hands while Wong and Hamir got pushed closer and closer to their limits. Stephen tried desperately to join them, to pour even more of his own power into theirs, to excise the spells in him that he could sense and isolate those that were too much for him to clear, but even then he feared that it was not enough.

He hated that the Ancient One would've already saved Loki's life hours ago, but here he was, as her chosen successor, and he couldn't do anything more but sit by and assist.

Ten minutes passed. Fifteen. Stephen moved his hand from Loki's shoulder to his shaved head, already scattering again with tiny dark hairs, pressing it near the nasty crack at the base of his skull that he could already see was halfway healed. That alone was a medical marvel, but Stephen was long past the days when he would've credited it a miracle.

"Come on, Loki," he muttered again, running a knuckle against the back of his neck. "Stay with us. Just a little more."

In the end, it was not a little more; it was not that at all. In the end both Wong and Hamir were struggling under the strain, flushed and sweating as they battled against a magic that felt ancient and perverse and wrong, and invasive sense of filthy violation whenever Stephen tried to so much as probe it, and the clock ticked onwards. Loki was shivering and exhausted between them, slack under Stephen's hands, on the edge and one more push just a little too hard would've surely been enough to send him toppling irrecoverably over it.

But in the end, they won, all the same.

The end was gentle, instead of violent. A final hiss and exhalation, the extinguishing of the final glow in Loki's head like a candle snuffed to darkness. It was the very last remnant of foreign magic inside of him- Stephen tore up and down, pulling clothes out of the way, not even the smallest stone left unturned, but it was true. Loki was clean, now: well and truly his own.

And as Wong and Hamir sagged together, as one, Stephen finally lunged to action.

"Loki," he implored, grabbing tighter at the back of his neck. He pushed back around to his other side, kneeling heedless of the foul, tar-like substance on the floor as he knelt before the pseudo-god, shaking him again. His face was slack and pale underneath the flush, utterly still against the exertion that had Stephen's two strongest masters panting behind him. "Loki," he tried again. "Can you hear me? Loki!"

Gritting his teeth, Stephen pulled back, splaying his free hand over the Asgardian's still shuddering chest. Was Loki even capable of waking up? Loki had said he was keeping himself in stasis until the foreign spells were clear- was he in his coma still, even now? Did he even know he was safe?

Well, if you don't already, Stephen promised grimly, you're about to. He pushed his sleeve back decisively, rising up to his feet and pulling his arm back with his strained to the breaking point focus narrowed down right onto Loki's core.

If the Asgardian was not awake, then he'd wake him up.

The way he'd finally just learned how.

Just as he'd started to drag his hand back downwards, Loki burst to life.

Two green, startled eyes burst open, huge and staring and panicked in the hollows of his face, blinking wildly and alive. He gasped desperately once, then twice, two huge, gulping breaths, only to sag back downwards with a single desperate sob.

Stephen's mistake was not lowering his hand while he still could.

Loki's eyes flashed, violent and gleaming, in the low light. Focus spiraled through them chased on its heels by a sick, rabid terror, angry fear contorted past all realms of sanity. His mouth pulled backwards in a breathless snarl, and Stephen, too takenaback to have any idea what or how to react, held still as a sitting duck, for Loki's one hand to throw upwards and grab away at his own.

His vision whited out.

Loki growled, Loki squeezed, a wordless warning that was then not so wordless; "Don't touch me, you foul beast," and Stpehen fell to his knees, right there in the mess on the floor.

"L- Loki-" he gasped, choking. It felt like his hand was collapsing inwards, bones splintering all over again, shattering apart; it hurt, it hurt- "Loki, s-stop... you're- okay-"

It hurt so badly he couldn't see until the pressure vanished and when it did, there was nothing left beyond that but the pulsing agony in the core of his hand. Stephen gasped and cried out, sagged from his knees to his ass, cradling his hand to his chest for him to double over around it in pain. He could feel the cloak behind him snapping to life, supporting him warm and safe at the shoulders, a corner pulled around to wrap gently at his wrist, brushing at the trembling that he couldn't stop.

It was almost beyond him to so much as whimper a grateful thank you, past gritted teeth and the panic tightening his throat.

Fuck, fuck, that hurt!

Slowly, the ebb and flow of the pain eased.

Slowly, the world began to bleed back in around him.

Sensation beyond pain; feeling beyond the bone-crushing, desperate agony.

Stephen coughed, spat, and tried not to choke.

Then he spat again, his head spinning, and if it hadn't been for the cloak, would've sagged to his back and been grateful for it.

"...Strange...?"

He blinked several times, gritting his teeth against another wave of agony. Who...? Not Wong. Not Hamir. The voice was unfamiliar and harsh, barely beyond a guttural rasp, and for a moment he had no idea what to think.

Then, it hit him.

He looked up.

Loki, for the first time, was looking back at him.

The Asgardian looked no better than Stephen felt. He looked exhausted. He looked like he was in pain. He still looked like he was on the brink, and it had been now five days since he had hauled him back from it.

He opened and shut his mouth several times, cracked lips moving like he wanted to speak, but all that came out was unsteady breaths and what looked like an apologetic glimmer in his bloodshot eyes. After a few aborted attempts he just shook his head, sagging back bonelessly to the bed with a face so exhausted he looked like he was about to fall asleep right then and there.

In lieu of words, he raised his one pale, trembling hand, and, very stiffly, curled it into a thumbs up.

"Not bad," he croaked, cracking a half, crooked smile. "For a charlatan."

Then his hand collapsed back down, and Stephen, exhausted inside and out and still shaking, just a little, with the pain, followed suit.

An exhausted silence settled throughout the room, thick and for Stephen, still painful; hand still shaking, still hurting, still clutched to his chest. The cloak squeezed his shoulders reassuring, then fluttered off, sensing what he wanted to do but was currently unable to as it flew to Loki's back. The Asgardian stiffened, a little, staring at it in wordless surprise, but did not resist as he was helped upright, just enough for him to cough and hack and desperately clear this throat to breathe.

Stephen wiped his face again with his not-currently-miserable hand, still wavering, and somehow managed an exhausted smile.

They were like that for several, finally peaceful minutes, before the heavy door behind them was creaked open.

Stephen, his teeth still gritted and jaw still tight, turned just enough to glimpse one of Wong's apprentices, standing just at the threshold, hands wrung together and eyes strained. "Masters?" she prompted hesitantly, gaze lingering for a breath on the mess on the floor.

She- oh, what was her name- he knew it, but his head still felt jumbled, like he'd been shaken up like a can of soda and left dizzy and reeling on the floor. Stephen shook his own head, trying to clear it, then just gave up on sorting through the spilled disaster in his head. "We're fine," he said, waving his good hand at the mess, "we're- yeah. We're good. Speak."

"It's-" She took a small step back, now staring at Loki instead, her eyes wide. "It's the wards, Master Strange. They went off again... same place as last time. You know- where we found him."

Beside him, Loki went very, very still.

The new peace froze, fractured, and then, just like that, shattered, all over the floor.

Shit.

"You're sure?" Stephen grabbed for his gloves, magically pulling one on in substitute of using his injured hand, forcing up to his feet on shaking legs. He pushed Loki back, telling him to stay put, but his heart was pounding and his mind was racing. "What's happened? Have they found the sanctum? Is it-" He stopped, stomach twisting, and glanced back and the still frozen, stricken Loki out of the corner of his eye. "Is it Thanos?"

But the apprentice only shook her head, reluctant and uncertain in all the ways befitting confusion, calm and steady in no way that would've befitted an attack. "No," she said, and once again, looked towards Loki instead of him. "It's the one from the 2011 incident. It's- it's Thor."

Stephen blinked.

Down and beside him, Loki threw up again.

Chapter Text

The mirror that yielded into Canadian tundra revealed a very, very puzzling scene that Stephen was not sure what to do with.

It was, in fact, Thor. The very same Thor from the 2011 incident, in all his ridiculous blond hair, muscles, and viking glory; the very same Thor who, in his battle with an alien robot, had utterly wrecked a New Mexican town, and currently sat on their possible threat to Earth list, under hostility unknown.

He wasn't wrecking anything, now.

Hadn't wrecked anything even when SHIELD's quinjets had started to fly in, alerted, not by a disturbance in their wards, but by the ridiculous lightning storm the guy had called up upon landing, screeching out his appearance to anybody who was listening.

Next to him, Loki remained stone-still, chalky-pale, and absolutely silent.

It had taken the combined efforts of Stephen, Wong, and the cloak to get Loki out of bed at all, and then even more so to keep him standing. Mostly the cloak. Still, he stood wavering on one leg, his broken one dangling precariously and his hand trembling badly around Stephen's shoulder. A human would have been on the floor, writhing in agony, no question.

Loki, meanwhile, had yet to make so much as a single sound, since he'd convinced him to help him out here with them.

"What is he doing?" Stephen muttered, glancing, first to Wong, then back to the glassy mirror, their view into the potential catastrophe slowly unfolding up north. "Loki?"

The Asgardian only shook his head, pale and thin, and with such a stricken look in his eyes that Stephen wasn't sure he was even capable of words at all.

Thanos, before, had terrified him, but this...

He didn't even know how to describe the blank horror that had drained across his face now.

"You have taken something of mine," Thor rumbled, a single man and one hammer facing off what was amounting to an army's worth of body-armor and guns. He stood there with eyes blazing in the snow, that strange, electrifying hammer waiting by his side and the already black storm clouds only continuing to thicken overhead, swollen and shuddering with a roll of thunder. "Your people have taken something that belongs to me and to Asgard, something that was present in this spot not five days ago. And you will return it now."

Another dark roll of thunder shook the very tundra itself.

Somehow, against the best equipped and most covert army the entire Earth had to offer, Stephen found himself putting money on the guy with the hammer.

"NOW!" Thor bellowed, and lightning struck.

Situation: bad, to much, much worse.

"Thor and SHIELD are going to kill each other," he muttered under his breath, unease squirming in his throat. It wasn't really his business, what SHIELD got up to, but it was his business if that was getting Earth mixed up in a war with Asgard, and if unless they stopped this... "God damn it- Loki, Loki, is your brother-"

With a single, choked whimper, Loki fell.

The Asgardian hit the floor beside them like the very life had gone out of him. Too heavy and sudden for Stephen to catch, and the instant he hit the floor he was scrabbling backwards, pushing along the wood until he hit the wall and then huddling there in wide-eyed, breathless terror. He gasped for breath, a high, panicked whine, then clutched from his chest to his empty sleeve like he was trying to hide from the world itself. It was like it was three days ago all over again, Loki trying to crawl away from what he thought was danger and pain and an enemy, but this time it wasn't from Thanos, and it wasn't from the unknown.

It was from his brother.

Or... Stephen hesitated, remembering Loki's reaction to Asgard's queen, just a few hours previously, and his stomach knotted. Or, his not-brother.

"Loki," he entreated, his voice tight. He dropped to his knees himself, following after the cloak as the Asgardian pressed himself to the far wall, breaths broken and halfway to the hysteria. "Is Thor working with Thanos? Is he here for the stones?"

But Loki only just kept shaking his head, not in answer but in denial. He choked and gasped, stammering, "N-no- no-" through chattering teeth, "no- no-"

Could Asgardians have panic attacks? Stephen didn't know, but Loki sure looked like he was about to.

The cloak wrapped tighter around Loki, giving a shake of his collar at Stephen; Loki just continued gasping. "C'mon, Loki, focus, breathe, you're safe here... are we safe here? Listen to me, we can protect this place, but we have to know, is Thor coming here?"

"N- nnnno- n-" He gasped wetly, starting to rock again, rock the way he had in his astral form but now it was twice as violent, twice as terrified. "No, nnnno. He. He wants me. Not you. Midgard is safe, the s-stones are, he, h-he just wants- wants-"

His voice cracked, and he clutched at his head with one shaking, desperate hand.

That was okay. Stephen could deal with that.

What he couldn't deal with was the green light that was starting to ripple outwards underneath him, or that the floor had cracked with his voice.

It was like Loki's astral form- violently green and glowing and containing such a mad, powerful energy it would've been enough to bowl Stephen over if he wasn't already on his knees. It wasn't magic, because magic was intentional, magic had a purpose; this-

He can't control it.

It was Loki's magic. The inner power that he had, that they did not.

And, Stephen realized with a dawning horror, he couldn't control it.

He was glowing again, but this time a translucent green from the inside out. His eyes shone like stars, his hand and nails almost white in the intensity, little waves rippling outwards around him that cracked the floor and shook the walls. It was his magic; that was exactly what it was.

Because that was what Loki had told them.

This sorcerer's justice hadn't affected his actual magic, at all.

It had just destroyed his ability to control it.

And now Loki's set on destroying the room because of it.

"Loki," he managed, then just stopped, helpless and with no idea what to say. He stared back as the Asgardian fought to get himself under control, clearly at least aware of what was happening and trying to stop it, but by the look on his wet face the fact that he couldn't control it was devastating enough that it was making it even harder. He was mumbling something under his breath, still rocking- even the cloak seemed unsure of what to do.

Well, if he didn't know how to calm Loki down, then he could at least be sure to keep him safe.

"Send word to the other sanctums," he ordered, pushing up to his feet. Wong looked just as uneasy as him, staring down at the distraught Asgardian with wide eyes, but Stephen spoke on without regard. "We need to be on high alert in case Thor is able to find us. Our priority is staying hidden, not intervening between them and SHIELD."

"Y-you- you can't- you can't-"

"He can't find us here, Loki. You said yourself, Asgard has no idea we exist, and we intend to keep it that way. You're safe."

"No-" He shook his head desperately, voice breaking against another half-sob. "No, Thor always- he always finds me-"

"Well, he's not finding you here. Earth is under my protection, and right now, that includes you."

"No!" Loki spat again, starting to rise like a snarling beast only to be taken by another spasm, doubling over and crying out against the ebb and flow of his uncontrolled magic. "You do not understand! He's found me here once already, don't you see... he- he found me, with- Thanos said... I called for his help, and, Th-Thanos, Thanos said he heard me, he, he said Asgard didn't- didn't- but now he's here- I can't stay here, Strange. I can't." He swayed to his knees, unbalanced with one arm and hit the wall hard, gasping as he struggled to his feet only to collapse back into the cloak again. "He'll take me back to Asgard, he'll- h-he'll-"

Stephen dropped to his knees with a sigh, returning back to Loki's side as close as he could get without risking provoking him even worse. "Breathe, Loki," he murmured. "I might be able to piece you back together, but I'm not so sure I can do the same for the building."

His breaths hitched against another sob, shoulders shaking even as his head tilted in a frantic nod, and the rippling, angry magic started to slow. Turned muted, somehow, like it was muffled under cotton. He wiped his face against his knee, smudging away tears and blood; the breath he took in was so deep and shaking it seemed to crack him to his core.

"Listen," Stephen said, when he felt that Loki actually could. "You're safer here than anywhere else. You're hidden behind our wards here, but the second you step out the door we can't protect you. if he knows you were in Canada, he'll be able to find you."

But Loki shook his head again, his breaths stuttering and teeth chattering. The panic attack had stopped, at least, but the terror was still there, simmering just underneath the light in his wild, reddened eyes. "I can hide myself now. Th-that's- that is still within my power. I can hide from Asgard's sight. But you must, Strange, you must let me run-"

"Run where?! Thor's already on the planet- and if Thanos is trying to find you, Loki, you'll just bring him straight back to Earth! He might be headed our way anyway, because of the stones- Loki, the sanctum is safe, believe us, just-"

With another ragged breath, Loki pulled back even further, pressing himself back against the wall in what seemed to be the only way he had to feel safe. He wiped his face on the heel of his hand and curled tighter; the cloak, after another uncertain shuffle in Stephen's direction, obliged with his unspoken agreement, and wrapped tighter around him, too.

"A ship," Loki gasped finally, face still buried into his hand. "I can... there's a nearby system- it sends spacecraft for anyone un, unlucky e-enough, to get marooned here. I can give you the frequency. I'll get off planet. You'll be safe, I'll be safe, it's-" He made a small choking sound again, all but wheezing into his hand.

"I have to run," he whispered, a terrified croak and nothing more.

In it was nothing but honesty, and Stephen knew that if he did not help him do it, then he was going to end up watching Loki run right out the door anyway, broken leg or no.

Stephen rubbed his shaky hand against his hair, a cold sweat broken out against the back of his neck, and thought.

If Loki was telling the truth, then space travel actually would be safest. Not just for him, but for them all. If he could hide his own magical signature even in this state, then there was surely nowhere safer to hide than the endless depths of space. Thor would search after his brother, letting Earth be. Thanos... they still didn't know Thanos' reasons, for abandoning Loki on Earth- perhaps Thanos would still come for the stones, perhaps not, but sending Loki off to parts unknown was surely safer than just leaving him a sitting duck right where Thanos had left him.

If Loki said that he could keep himself safe in space from both Thor and Thanos, then Stephen could not, in good conscience, keep him stuck in this sanctum. He would have to let him run.

Or-

Would have, anyway.

If Loki still wasn't held together by a few precarious lines of stitches and bone fragments, unable to stand on his own, and was not currently shivering on the floor after his own uncontrolled magic had nearly blown them all sky high.

"Okay. Okay, Loki, let's just- talk about this." Stephen settled carefully across from him, trying to will his pounding heart slower. If he himself was already this tense, he couldn't even imagine what the Asgardian felt like. "If what you say is true, we can get you that ship. But you're in no condition to be setting off on your own, and I can't, in good conscience, allow you to do it."

"You will not allow me?" Loki breathed, his eyes flashing. "You will not-" His voice ducked lower, another traitorous crack splintered through, and his face contorted as if he had just been struck. "I am not yours to command, Master Strange-"

"It's doctor, in this circumstance, and I mean it, Loki. Super-alien healing or not, you're still barely alive at all. If we let you go off alone right now, then what?! You can't walk; will you be able to eat?" Green eyes flashed again, another simmer of rage and Stephen pressed harder, trying to pry a crack into that already crumbling, stony mask. "Will you even be able to pilot the ship, Loki, or would you just sit wherever we left you, helpless? What if you fell? What if something broke and you weren't able to fix it? You've said yourself you can't use your magic; what if you're-"

"Send someone with me, then! I don't care, Strange, if you are so insistent upon this then do send me alone, but I will not stay! Do you hear me?! I will not!"

And at that desperate scream, at last-

Stephen paused.

That... could work.

That actually could work.

They could send someone to accompany Loki off the planet. Not even permanently; if Loki was not lying, about his own healing, then perhaps just for a few months- perhaps not even that. Like a day-nurse, but instead of day, it was 24/7 in an alien spaceship, and instead of a nurse, it was someone who could be trusted to look after and deal with a horrifically injured, terrifically powerful pseudo-god.

And once Loki had healed, he could just swing back by Earth, drop the friendly secret back off, and be back on his merry way.

That, at last, was not that half-bad a plan.

Minus the gaping hole, of course.

Or-

Who the hell could they possibly send on that mission?

Several blank moments passed in complete, dumb silence.

Slowly, blinking, Stephen glanced up at Wong.

Wong shook his head. "Not on your life, Stephen."

"What-" He blinked again, then groaned, dropping his head against his elbow. "I didn't mean me. No- none of the sorcerers can go, not if we need to be arming ourselves against Thanos." He cast another worried look in Loki's direction, gaze searching to the cloak still waiting cautiously around his shoulders. "That includes you."

Loki's brow furrowed, only to smooth away into a very faint irritation as the cloak ruffled to agreement immediately, swirling off of him to snap back around Stephen. He pulled its familiar weight back tighter with a sigh, taking reassurance back from its steady warmth, and again tried to think.

As he'd said to Wong, no sorcerers. They were going to need all hands on deck against the possible threats to come, and as much as Stephen sometimes still did not like it, that definitely included himself. He was the one who'd be best suited to help Loki, and he was also absolutely the one who could not go. Neither could any of the other masters; nor could he justify sending an untrained apprentice out on what could very possibly be a life-or-death space adventure.

Friends from his old life? Stephen almost laughed aloud, muffling it into a choked smile against his sleeve. Christine was still the only one who even knew what he was. He could not think of asking any one of them to uproot their entire lives, drop them on a spaceship with an alien god on a mission that could quite possibly get them killed, and send them on their way with nothing more than a yeah, that's right, aliens exist, my friend; welcome to crazy town.

No. No, this would have to be someone strong. More than that, someone who had volunteered or would be willing to make such a sacrifice. A soldier. Someone who Stephen could send out alongside Loki to keep him safe while Loki was still unable to do it himself; be able to at least stand between him and Thanos, or Thor, or whoever it was out there that had hurt Loki so badly.

It had to be someone strong, and willing to make a sacrifice for a person he didn't even know. It had to be someone who would agree to this mission- who had so little tying them to Earth that they would not mind leaving it.

Something clicked.

And then, at last, Stephen started to smile.

"I need to make a call," he said.

Then, abruptly had to fight back a splutter, as the cloak warmly patted his cheek, scratching his face with the sentiment of I missed you, and please don't leave me alone with that psycho again.

When the time at last came for Loki's plan to go into motion, he found himself hot, humiliated, and very, very uncomfortable.

He hated Midgard.

He lay, flat on his back, on a floating stretcher. The disorientation and helplessness alone was more than enough to twist his stomach, but there was nothing to be done. He could not walk unaided. He could not sit, on this precarious, primitive stretcher. He could do nothing but lie there, one clammy hand clutching desperately to the edge, and allow himself, through gritted teeth, to be taken care of.

He really, really hated Midgard.

The sorcerers had led the way through some sort of doorway from their sanctum, carrying him through to a vast expanse of burning sands and burning sun. Loki had started sweating the instant the white glare of the sun had blazed into his eyes, scorching him as hot as a blazing bonfire.

He hadn't mentioned, to Strange, that he was Jotunn.

"Come on," Strange said quietly, his voice hushed. "Let's get you going." And, as simple as that, he led the way just into the blessedly dark, waiting exterior of what was going to be Loki's new home.

It wasn't much. It was small and barebones, capable of getting them off this rock of a planet and little beyond it. They would have to refuel often, and if found by anyone wishing them ill will, their options would be next to none: the ship had no combat capabilities, would take a crushingly long time to reach lightspeed, and could only handle travel through the smallest of regulated portals.

It was, in fact, possibly the worst vessel that Loki would have ever had to his name.

It was also his, and would be his first belonging that neither Thor nor Thanos could strip away.

Loki swallowed the wavering lump in his throat, and tried very hard to will the mes he could feel battling for dominance straight off his face.

"Well," Strange said again, when they came to a stop. "I suppose this is it, then. ...Loki? You with us?"

Loki nodded himself, not quite trusting himself to respond. His face still felt warm, even away from the desert heat and sun, and unable to take it anymore, he began to push his way upwards to sitting.

His right side, unbearably light and empty, made his stomach twist so violently again he wanted to throw up.

He glared defiantly upwards instead, refusing to give his humiliation even an inch of the ground it would gain if he scrambled to cover his injury with the blanket. It was his weakness, his shame, but he was more than this. He- he had to be.

He would not hide.

"I'm listening," he croaked.

From next to Strange, another human stepped forward.

Tall. Built strong. A boyish, noble face, all neat golden hair and calm blue eyes, with a visage as professional and restrained as a marble statute. The uniform of a soldier, even if the colors were- certainly... interesting... and yet, the only armament of battle that Loki could see was a large, round shield, strapped securely to his back.

The human reminded him instantly of Thor.

Loki, in that breath, hated him.

"Loki," Strange spoke up, gesturing inbetween them. "This is Captain America. He's going to be traveling with you until you're well enough to travel on your own."

The soldier's smooth face twitched, a little, the corners of his mouth pulling downwards in a very faint frown. "Steve Rogers, please." He stared down at Loki, expressionless, silently contemplative. Then, he held out his left hand with a tentative smile. "Captain Steve Rogers."

Loki's face, again, felt warm.

For a moment, left sitting there injured and humiliated, Strange on one side and now this new, Thor-like creature just calmly holding out his hand, his left hand, watching him in silence-

Loki wanted to scream.

"Captain," he greeted tightly, nodding with gritted teeth, and summoned up every last scrap of his lacerated will and pride to shake his hand.

There was another unbearable moment of quiet. It dripped between them like syrup, so thick and uncomfortable that it made Loki's skin crawl.

"I'm going to speak with the dealer," Rogers said at last, hands resting on his belt. "He said he'd explain to me how to operate the ship. Loki. Dr. Strange." He nodded to them both, and then, with a quiet, cool discipline neat on his every step, they were again left alone.

Loki fidgeted, swallowed hard again.

His face was still burning.

Strange dropped quietly down to his knee, coming down so they could be at eye-level. He watched him, for a moment, and his face was a whole mess of things that Loki just flat out did not like.

Familiarity. Sympathy. Reluctance. Concern.

All from a paltry Midgardian second-rate sorcerer who had met him not even a week ago.

You're pathetic, he heard, whispered in his mind, and even though Strange and Wong had cleaned every last scrap of the Black Order's magic out of his skull, he could feel Thanos' hand, resting gently on the back of his head.

Strange cleared his throat, finally, looking to him with a faint and crooked smile. "I can't really say it's been a pleasure to meet you, Loki, but- under the circumstances, I suppose. Remember, you'll always have allies on Earth, if you need us." He offered his own left hand, trembling, slightly, a faint intrinsic shaking where Rogers' had been so steady. "I hope you feel better."

The back of Loki's neck crawled, this time with a slimy disgust that felt akin to self-loathing, and for a splitsecond he wanted to tear Strange and his dammed pity straight in half.

In his current state, Loki miserably doubted if he'd even be capable of it at all.

Instead, he breathed in deeply through his nose, willing himself calm, and met Strange's eyes head on.

He was no longer a prince. He had no family name, his magic had been disgraced and destroyed, and he had been devastated so thoroughly inside and out that this meager human sorcerer and his friends, had had to save him.

He may've still had his pride, but, really, he didn't have anything left to be proud of.

"Thank you," he admitted, finally, but instead of stiff, his voice just came out hollow, instead. "For your hospitality. I shall keep your offer in mind, Strange." He hesitated, gaze resting on his outstretched hand.

He remembered crushing that scarred, shaking hand. Without even meaning to- the thought of it had not even crossed his mind- but he'd grabbed for it, pushing him away, and in through his red haze, had filtered in a whimpered, choked off scream of anguish, Strange down on his knees, and in agony before him.

I could break you, he thought, gazing levelly at Strange. The thought filled him with warmth and despair in equal parts, but he clung to it for a breath, all the same. I could break you.

In the end, it sounded a little like I am not helpless.

He reached out with his left hand again, carefully curling lightly, just around the tips of his fingers, and gave a very small shake. There was relief in Strange's eyes, a quiet release of apprehension that he tried to hide, but Loki heard it all the same, and he smirked rather than allow himself to feel old regret.

And then, before he had any idea what was happening, something was being passed from Strange's hand to his.

"What-"

"Don't tell Wong," Strange said, with a warm smirk of his own. He patted Loki's hand which now bore something like a brass knuckle, but smaller and only clasped around two fingers; then, with a little flicker of his orange magic, a text portaled out between them to drop into Loki's lap. "A sling ring," he continued, nodding to his hand, "and something here, to get you started. It's just the basics, so don't get too excited. If it interests you, I'll even let you borrow some more, perhaps- if you ask very politely."

Then, he pushed to his feet, and turned his back to leave the ship.

The cloak gave him a friendly wave, behind Strange's back. Loki stared in further disbelief.

What-

Why-

No?

He did not want the so-called sling ring. He did not want the book. He did not want to go; did not want to stay. Didn't want to accept these second-rate gifts that screamed in his face your seidr is no longer yours, that screamed your seidr was the last thing you had of your mother and you ruined that, too. Now you have nothing. Now you are nothing. He did not want to crawl away to lick his wounds into space like little more than an abused dog. He did not want any of this.

He had nothing left to him, and nowhere left to go.

He didn't want to exist at all.

"Loki?" Rogers called back, from the cockpit. Almost immediately, the captain returned to view, the Kree trader trailing behind him and thumping his way outside of the ship while Rogers strode for him. "We're about to take off," he said, reaching out to try and rig the wall's harness about him. Loki, snarling through clenched teeth, smacked his hand down. "Are you ready?"

Loki closed his eyes, breathing deeply, and clung back to calm.

I am Loki.

I will not die here.

I am Loki.

"Yes," he rasped, and with his one arm, hugged the book and the clasps of the harness to his chest in one. "I'm ready, Captain."

And thus, they took off together into the overcast skies.