Chapter Text

Stephen

Stephen waited inside the Sanctum’s foyer, a worn duffel bag sitting by his feet. It contained the bare minimum: a couple changes of clothes, his toiletries bag with the AAPD-endorsed electric shaver he’d be forced to rely on since he’d be unable to use magic to hold a razor, an empty journal and pen, his ruined watch he refused to throw away, wireless headphones, wired headphones, and his phone which he’d magically wiped of everything but his contact list and his music library.

He was grateful he’d slept. Whatever it had cost him in the beginning, the rest that eventually came under Wong’s watchful presence had restored his body and steadied his mind to levels he hadn't felt in months. He would need both going into this.

Stark may be an arrogant prick, but he wasn't an idiot. The Avenger would have home field advantage not to mention his team and his tech. Stephen was going in alone with his two greatest assets—his magic and his mind—more liabilities than advantages. Stephen knew if Stark grew suspicious of him, he'd pursue it. Pursue it and probably find something. 

And then there was Loki. If Loki was wherever Stephen was going, Stephen could only hope he was in a cage.

Natasha Romanoff announced her arrival with a terse knock on the Sanctum's door. Stephen picked up his bag and swung it over his shoulder with a simple spell. One last taste of the thing that had defined him before he had to lock it away. The feeling of loss—of threat and disorientation—was familiar. At least this time it was his choice. 

Stephen opened the Sanctum's door and slipped outside. He heard the click of the locks behind him. If Agent Romanoff was offended at not being invited in, she didn't show it.

“Ready to go, Dr. Strange?” she asked evenly.

“Yes,” said Stephen.

Romanoff eyed his bag. “That's all you're bringing?”

Stephen smiled. “It's everything I own.”

That wasn't entirely true. There was the Cloak and his robes. The robes he'd left hanging in his closet.

The Cloak had been a different issue entirely. It’d started zipping through the Sanctum's rooms like an anxious pet the moment Stephen had started packing. Stephen had spent a good thirty minutes of the hour he had to get ready, convincing the Cloak that he wasn't going on a magical adventure and so he wasn’t going to take it with him. Once it'd finally accepted that, it floated off to a corner of his room and folded itself into a tight square to pout.

He also had his sling ring but that was in his pocket. He was sure there would be body scans, maybe even pat-downs, when he got wherever he was going, but he decided he could explain the sling ring away as a meditation tool. 

“Ride’s over here,” said Romanoff.

Stephen followed Agent Romanoff silently, appreciating that she didn't try to make small talk as she led him to the roof of a nearby apartment building where Stark's jet was waiting.

They boarded and the jet rose into the sky.

The jet was self-piloting. That left Agent Romanoff in the cabin with Stephen. She took the seat opposite of him. An innocuous enough move if there hadn't been a whole private jet’s worth of empty seats she could have taken.

She pulled a tablet from a secure case and handed it to him.

“First,” she said, “there are some forms you need to sign. Waivers, NDAs, liability agreements—all on the pad. Then you can use it to review Thor’s files. Everything we have on his condition is on there. Medical imaging, neurological scans, lab notes, incident logs.”

Stephen nodded and began scrolling. His hands trembled slightly. He knew Romanoff noticed. He chose not to care. Stark knew he was retired, and he undoubtedly knew why.

He signed the forms with a loose grip on the stylus, wearing the clinical detachment of a man long accustomed to paperwork. It was a practiced lie. He was anything but detached.

Under normal circumstances, the laws of man held little power over his life. But these were not normal circumstances. If Stark had followed through on his threats regarding Stephen’s reentry, Stephen’s options would have been limited. Magic was possible—reality alterations, memory erasures, obfuscation spells—but magic always exacted a cost.

Here, that cost was exposure.

Asgardians were involved. Presumably, the android, Vision, was involved. The Order had centuries of precedent with humans—but less with Asgardians, and none at all with an artificial lifeform that possessed a mind, a soul, and an unknown relationship to magic. There was no guarantee a spell that worked on humans would work on either of them.

Magic was too great a risk.

The Order could not afford to clean this up—beyond whatever paper trail the Kans were already quietly laying.

Romanoff waited until he switched to the medical files before leaning back and speaking casually.

“So,” she said, “you were the world's leading neurosurgeon before that.” She nodded at his hands.

Stephen’s lips twitched faintly. “That's more a matter of opinion than you may realize.”

“Either way, you were high on the list.”

A well-placed hook. An invitation to brag. Romanoff clearly thought a stroke to his ego would get him to talk himself open.

He didn’t.

“I was competent,” Stephen said. “Sometimes exceptional.”

Romanoff hummed. “You loved it.”

“Yes,” Stephen admitted.

“You ever regret giving it up?”

Stephen didn’t flinch. “I didn’t give it up. I lost it.”

“Your accident,” she said. “I read the report. It sounded terrible.”

Stephen was in awe of her gentle, sympathetic tone. She would have been a great trauma surgeon. Half the job was saying I'm sorry there was nothing we could do, and making people feel like their loss meant something. Perfect bedside manner. He also knew she was fishing.

“Yes,” he said simply.

“And the religious group you're a part of,” she said, “they helped you recover?”

Every instinct in him hummed, proceed with caution. There’d been no mention of the Order in the Shield files that had been leaked to the public when the agency imploded, but that didn’t mean Shield hadn't known about them. The Ancient One had dismissed it. “Governments rise and fall. So do their intelligence apparatuses. And all the while we remain.”

Easy to say when the intelligence apparatuses were carrier pigeons and sex workers. Not so easy when you were up against super computers and satellites that could identify you by your gate alone. Still, Stephen saw no reason to panic. The true mission of the Masters of the Mystic Arts may have been a secret, but the Order wasn’t. To anyone outside of the Order they were just a sub-school under a branch of Taoism. They even had IRS exemption status thanks to Wong’s family.

Stephen met her gaze evenly. “They helped me learn the lesson I needed to learn to accept what had happened.”

“Which was?”

Stephen smiled. “It’s not about me.”

A beat passed. Then Romanoff asked, “What made you change your mind about helping Thor?”

Stephen looked out the window, watching clouds slide past the glass.

He didn’t know whether Romanoff was Stark’s attack dog or his bloodhound, but he was certain of one thing: Stark wouldn’t have brought her to the Sanctum—or sent her to collect him—if she couldn’t identify a threat. This wasn’t conversation. It was interrogation. He felt it in the careful modulation of her voice, in the way her gaze tracked him for tells his body might betray even when his words didn’t.

He could handle that. He knew how to lie. And he knew the best lies were built from truth.

“When I was trying to fix my hands,” he said, “I begged God—or the universe, or whatever was listening—that if I ever got them back, I’d never turn away another case just because it looked untreatable.”

Romanoff studied him. “Do you think Thor is untreatable?”

“I don’t know,” Stephen said without hesitation. “As I said, his case is outside of my expertise.”

“But you’re still willing to try?”

“Yes.”

She considered him. Stephen couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt so… studied. Maybe Mordo when he’d considered his sincerity—and desperation—in wanting to find a solution, any solution, to his damaged hands.

“Tony told you the place we’re going is classified. Completely off the grid and off the record. He didn’t tell you why, but I will.”

“By all means,” said Stephen.

“You’re not walking into a military base, Dr. Strange, you’re walking into a home. Our home. A place where people I care very much about go for refuge from threats and public scrutiny. We’ve worked hard to keep the location of the Avengers Compound a secret, not for the buildings, but for the people who live there. For their safety.”

“Loose lips sink ships,” said Stephen. “I got it.”

Romanoff grinned and it was threatening. “More like snitches get stitches.”

Stephen laughed despite himself. “Understood.”

Silence settled again, broken only by the hum of the engines.

The jet dipped.

Romanoff glanced at the console. “We’re starting our descent.”

Stephen closed the tablet gently and prepared himself to land.

Loki

Loki watched from the upper observation deck as the Quinjet cut through the clouds and descended towards the landing platform.

She had stationed herself there deliberately—above, unseen, but not entirely removed. A vantage point where she could look down on the world and pretend she still had the right to judge it. Pretend that she still had the right to judge anything or anyone.

The jet settled with a hydraulic hiss. The hatch lowered.

Natasha stepped out first, her athletic silhouette and precise movements unmistakable at any distance.

The mortal doctor followed. Stephen Strange: the man Tony was convinced could help Thor. The man Tony had all but said may be their last hope of helping Thor.

He was dressed simply—jeans and a worn coat—and he carried a single bag. He looked no more or less prodigious than any other mortal—certainly not someone who should inspire such confidence from Tony. 

He followed Natasha to the compound, his eyes trained ahead, when suddenly he paused and looked up at the observation deck. At Loki.

The distance was too far for mortal eyes to make out more than the shape of a person. Certainly, too far for him to make eye-contact, yet as Loki looked back at him she could not help but feel like he was seeing her. All of her. Even the parts too far away from him to see. Even the parts she kept hidden. His eyes—an intense blue-green—held her gaze frozen in place like a spell, though she felt no magic worked upon her.

Then he broke his stare, turned his attention back to what was in front of him, and followed Natasha into the compound.

Loki blinked then laughed. She needed to make a visit to the refugee settlement soon. She’d clearly been around mortals for too long if someone so pedestrian could shake her with nothing more than a penetrating stare and pair of pretty eyes.

Once again, she found herself questioning Tony’s tactics. And his optimism.

Thor’s condition had only deteriorated. Bit by bit. Day by day. Storm by storm.

Now, the only thing keeping him alive were Tony’s machines—feeding him, hydrating him, and breathing for him when his body forgot how.

A god, reduced to pissing in a bag. A humiliation the sagas never spoke of.

The thought of her brother—her brother—needing mortal machinery and medicine to keep his heart from stuttering into silence made Loki’s stomach twist painfully.

He was the Mighty Thor.
The Thunderer.
Odinson.
And now… 

She closed her eyes.

He will be again. He must.

Yes, Tony and his optimism. And the pitiable way she had come to rely on it—now there was a humiliation the sagas never spoke of—yet rely on it she did, for comfort, for courage, for sanity.

What had begun, she was certain, as an excuse to keep an eye on her—a gesture of distrust—Tony allowing her to remain with Thor at the Avengers Compound—had, over many sleepless nights, morphed into camaraderie. United in their cause to help Thor, Tony and Loki had become friends—though she would sooner cut out her own tongue than ever admit it.

But Tony’s stubborn optimism came with a price.

It had left Loki alone to think about the unthinkable. To wonder when the line was crossed—when hope became cruelty, when devotion became denial, when letting go became the last act of love she could offer. Tony was unwilling to even entertain a discussion of when enough was enough.

And Loki hated herself for having thought about it at all. Hated that she had imagined a world without Thor in it. Hated herself for the flicker of practicality that whispered you must be ready.

Guilt gnawed at her from all angles—for the battle, for the failure, for living while Thor hovered so close to death. For thinking of endings when Tony refused to let the idea live in his mind.

For knowing that if their situations were reversed, Thor would never consider letting her go.

“Loki.”

A disembodied voice spoke from somewhere on the observation deck.

“Yes, F.R.I.D.A.Y.?”

“Nat’s bringing the doctor to see Thor. Thought you’d want to know.”

Yes. She wanted to know.

“Thank you, F.R.I.D.A.Y..”

It was time to assess Tony’s last bet herself.

Loki descended through the quiet corridor and slipped back into the medical level.

Thor lay as he had before—pale, still, swathed in a static glow that flickered dangerously with every cycle of electrical discharge beneath his skin. Too quiet. Too much calm before the next storm.

Tony appeared, hands shoved into the pockets of his trousers. He swaggered up to her before leaning against the wall—a posture she had come to recognize as his anxious pose—false nonchalance with a touch of bravado.

“Nice skirt, Morticia,” he said, his question flashing through the subtext.

She exhaled slowly. “If I wish to avoid frightening the doctor, it seems prudent not to greet him in a form he may recognize.”

Tony pushed himself off the wall, then began pacing around. “So… are you planning to stay in this new skin until he leaves, or…?” Deflection.

Loki rolled her eyes. “My skin has not changed. This is merely the shape of it I am allowing you to see. No matter the form I take—female, male, neither, both—I am always me.”

Tony shrugged. “Right. God stuff. Got it.”

Loki was preparing to snipe back when the elevator chimed.

Footsteps approached from down the hall.

Natasha’s silhouette appeared first.

Stephen Strange followed, eyes scanning the space with clinical focus. He was taller up close and more solid. No Asgardian (or even Avenger), certainly, but he had the broadness that comes with age and functional use of one’s body. His brown hair was greying and there were delicate lines at the corners of his eyes and between his brows. His blue-green eyes were sharp. Searching.

They found Loki immediately.

Locked on.

It was only for a heartbeat, but it left Loki with the same unease as it had on the observation deck. A sensation of being seen—appraised, analyzed, not as an enemy but as an anomaly.

Tony, predictably, stepped forward first.

“Welcome to the party, doc,” said Tony extending a hand. Strange seemed to hesitate before taking it. “Sorry to cut into your mahjong time.”

“Mahjong?” said Stephen.

“Stamp collecting? World War II trivia? Whatever people do when they retire.”

“I retired from medicine, Stark. I have a job.”

“Right,” said Tony. “You’re Lurch at that freaky house.”

Natasha cleared her throat. Tony got the message. He shut up immediately.

Strange smiled. Tense. “Actually, I always fancied myself a Gomez.”

“What a coincidence. I know a Morticia,” said Tony. Apparently, even the threat of bodily harm at the hands of the Black Widow was not enough to keep Tony quiet. Pity. “Speaking of which,” Tony gestured at Loki, “this is—”

“Loftr,” said Loki, cutting him off.

“Yeah,” said Tony. “Loftr. Thor’s… sibling.”

Strange regarded her with an intensity she was unprepared for.

Admiration? Curiosity? She knew when a man’s gaze was one of desire or something else. This was not desire. But what it was, she could not parse out.

Stephen gave a small nod. “Dr. Stephen Strange,” he said simply.

He turned away from her and faced the observation window, looking down at Thor. His shoulders tightened almost imperceptibly.

“May I ask,” he said, eyes still on Thor, “what happened? It wasn’t included in the files.”

Loki stiffened. “Does it matter?”

Strange did not look at her. “Knowing the cause of trauma can help clarify the nature of the damage. It’s usually useful.”

Tony stepped in quickly. “It’s classified.”

Strange nodded. “Okay.”

Loki swallowed. “I can tell you he has been like this for—”

“Six months, two weeks, and five days,” Strange said quietly, almost as if he were speaking to himself.

Loki blinked.

Strange kept talking, voice steady, clinical, focused entirely on the window.

“Initial treatment included attempts to regulate his neural activity with high-sedation protocols. Instead of quieting the electrical storm, the storm burned through sedation. Dr. Carter’s recommendation to induce a coma was the right call, especially given his rate of deterioration, but the external stimulation attempts was a waste of time. A series of neurological suppressants were unsuccessful. Two misfired attempts at electro-cortical resets.” He paused. “Both of which could have made the condition worse, incidentally.”

Tony muttered a curse under his breath.

Strange continued with an evenness that bordered on eerie. “Dr. Malik should be stripped of his medical license for using tDCS. You can’t fight lightning with lightning. Dr. Hendrickson’s suggestion of an implanted regulator would have been catastrophic, for much the same reason—good thing you didn’t try that.” His brows pinched. “Your imaging tech is impressive. Whoever calibrated the neural map did excellent work. I probably would have started with decompression surgery but now…

ICP running in the 30s. Spiked at 55 during a seizure on November 2. Seizure lasted 16 minutes and 38.2 seconds. Plateau waves present indicate poor brain compliance… PbtO2 is at 12–16 mmHg, drops to under 10 during lightning episodes… Depressed skull fracture repaired with sutures, residual midline shift: 3–5 mm—small but persistent—diffuse axonal injury pattern…”

Strange paused and Loki couldn’t tell if it was because he was thinking or because there was simply nothing else about Thor’s condition to note.

Natasha finally spoke. “How do you know all that?”

Strange turned his head just enough to look at her over his shoulder.

“It’s in the files you gave me.”

Nothing self-important. Nothing boastful. Just facts.

Then he turned back to look at Thor—and then at Loki.

And something in his expression shifted. Subtle. Almost imperceptible. Something approximating wariness.

“May I go in?” he asked.

He was looking at Loki when he said it. As if she were the one who mattered. As if she held authority. As if he needed her permission.

She looked at Tony. Tony did not speak. Did not signal. Did not lead.

He gave the decision to her—silently, deliberately.

Loki nodded.

Strange inclined his head in acknowledgement then went to the door. He pushed it open and entered the room. Tony followed, the protective edge in his posture unmistakable.

Loki stayed in the corridor, watching the door close behind them before returning her attention to the window where she watched them from behind reinforced glass.

Strange did not approach Thor’s bed. Loki saw Tony’s mouth move and then Strange’s. All the while Thor lay motionless, massive and broken, a god reduced to trembling breaths and involuntary flickers of lightning beneath his skin.

Loki’s chest tightened—guilt clawing upward like a living thing.

You failed him. You always fail him. Even when you try not to. Especially when you try not to.

Finally, Strange stepped forward, eyes flicking over Thor’s form with the kind of appraisal he had performed on Loki. His expression did not change. No fear. No awe. Only… calculation.

Tony hovered at Strange’s shoulder, practically twitching with restless energy.

Strange was studying a monitor when Thor’s body stiffened, back arching off the bed. The monitors flickered as blue-white lightning exploded across his limbs.

Loki’s mind went blank. She rushed in. Strange forgotten. Tony scenery at best. Her only concern was Thor. Her brother whose own storms were ripping him apart.

She threw herself at his bedside and placed her hands on his shoulder. Lightning struck her again and again. She smelled her hair and her flesh burn.

Tony’s hospital room had been carefully designed to diffuse the lightning. Everything grounded. Coated in rubber or other nonconductive materials. It was the reason the lightning was not killing her, but it was not enough to keep her from injury so long as she was touching Thor without insulated gloves. She need only remove her hands and the pain would stop. She did not move. Would not move. Would not leave him.

“Brother,” Loki called.

“Fuck!” Tony cursed behind her. “Get back. You’re getting fried.”

“No!” Loki hissed, gripping Thor’s shoulder tighter in her trembling hands.

Lightning ripped across Thor’s torso.

The bed shook.

The machines screamed. Alarms wailed.

Tony said something harsh behind her.

Loki’s body burned. Her thoughts seemed to flicker with the storm. In and out. Gone too fast for her to hold on to. A cacophony of chaos and horror to rival any battlefield.

And then a voice, deep and calm, cut clean through the panic:

“Talk to him.”

Loki snapped her head towards Strange, eyes sharp as blades. “What?”

But Strange was not looking at her. He was watching the spikes on Thor’s neural monitor. “Talk to him,” he said again. Calmly. Too calmly. So calmly it almost sounded dismissive. She wanted to claw his face for his lack of concern.

“I am talking—”

“No,” Strange said quietly, eyes still glued to the monitor. “Tell him something. A story from your childhood. Something he would remember.”

Loki stared at him, fury burning through her exhaustion.

She wanted to strike him. She wanted to throw him out. She wanted to scream that no mortal could possibly understand what a god remembered.

But Thor was writhing, raging, storming. And she had nothing left to lose.

She turned back to her brother, voice cracking. “Brother, do you remember when we snuck into the palace cellars…?”

Thor’s muscles spasmed.

“We were angry because father said we were too young to share drink with the delegation from Vanaheim. So we stole two barrels of ale, one for each of us” she whispered. “We drank until we fell over ourselves acting out the sagas. And Mother—”

Loki swallowed hard. The memory of her mother as electrifying and painful as Thor’s lightning.

“Mother found us passed out on the floor, reeking of sweat and ale…”

Thor’s trembling lessened.

“She made us scrub the Great Hall’s floor. It took hours and we missed that night’s feast held in the gardens as the Vanir prefer.”

The lightning shifted. Softened. Muting slowly until it was little more than static and an occasional jolt.

“But we did not care. We made our own fun. We always did.”

Thor’s body eased, the seizure stuttering and then finally stopping. The alarms fell silent, leaving nothing but the sound of the monitor’s steady beeps and Loki’s breathing.

Strange approached without hesitation, stopping beside her to study the long printout of neural readings spit from a machine by Thor’s head. He scanned each line rapidly—hands steadier than they had been when he arrived.

Tony let out a low breath. “That was… not bad. They’ve been worse. A lot worse.”

“He hasn’t had an episode last less than sixteen minutes in over two weeks,” said Strange, still looking at the paper.

Loki uncurled her fingers from Thor’s hospital gown. “How did you know telling him a story would help?” she demanded.

Strange did not look at her. He had shifted his attention to one of the monitors. Loki felt her jaw tightening at the feeling of being ignored. Dismissed. Treated as an inconvenience if she was acknowledged at all. It was too familiar.

“The readings changed when you spoke. I wanted to see what would happen if you kept talking. Having you tell him a story was the best way to do it.”

Loki’s face burned. This mortal… this ruined doctor… this nobody… had manipulated her into sharing a story of her childhood as an experiment? So, he could watch how it affected Thor? Like Thor was nothing more than an interesting medical mystery for him to untangle and Loki just another instrument at his disposal? She stood, channeling all the regality of her royal upbringing, and prepared to cut this arrogant mortal down to size.

Strange finally met her gaze. She looked down her nose at him—she had inches to do it with. His eyes were clear and impossibly steady.

“It’s good you’re here,” he said simply. “He responds to you. Your presence seems to calm him. His heart rate dropped steadily but safely while you were speaking.”

Loki’s admonishment lodged in her throat.

Tony stepped around the bed. “Alright, doc. Thoughts about the lightning? Or… I don’t know, anything?”

“Traumatic epilepsy is well studied,” said Strange. “But the lightning… intuitively it makes sense, given who the patient is, but that doesn’t mean I understand it.” He turned to Loki. “Did he sustain any other injuries in the battle?”

Loki stiffened.

“No one said anything about a battle,” said Tony, crossing his arms over his chest.

Strange gestured towards Thor’s skull. “The trauma to the skull suggests external force. A blow. The fracture. The sutures. And, again, given who the patient is, a battle seems likely.”

Tony said nothing and Loki felt no need to volunteer the story.

Strange exhaled. “Look, I’m not asking for a play by play. I’m not even asking for why the fight happened or where. But I need to know if he sustained any other injuries that could be contributing to his condition. There wasn’t anything in the files. I can try to diagnose with piecemeal information, but given that I’m already dealing with a species I have no training to treat, I don’t know what datapoint will make the difference, so I’m asking for all of it. Or at least all of it you’ll give me.”

Strange’s logic was too sound. Even Tony looked convinced… or at least less suspicious.

Loki turned her face away. “Yes,” she whispered. “There was a battle. But I was not with him when he was injured. I found him like this...”

Strange nodded, looking resigned. “Okay.”

Tony asked a question, and he and Strange slipped into a steady conversation. Supplies Strange might need. Personnel changes he may want, if any. Equipment options… 

Their voices faded, distant, drowned beneath a roar of memory.

The Statesman aflame. The Black Order chopping her people down. Thor’s battle cries—louder than thunder.

A weight touched her shoulder.

She flinched. Thor’s form and room returned to sharp focus.

Tony stood beside her. “Come on, Reindeer Games. Let’s give the doc some space to work.”

Loki hated how grounding the familiar nickname was. She turned away from Thor slowly.

Her gaze brushed Stephen’s. 

For a moment—just a heartbeat—something in his expression shifted. Something intense and somehow both guarded and threatening.

She dropped her gaze first. Yielding. She was not as strong as she once was, and certainly not as intimidating. Not since she had dragged Thor’s body onto the Norwegian shore and begged Tony—his enemy—to help him. She had been hollowed out. A shell of a god.

Tony stepped back towards the door. “Nursing staff is briefed. If you need anything, F.R.I.D.A.Y. will help out.”

“Who’s Friday?” Stephen asked.

“That’d be me, doc,” a polished voice answered from the speakers.

Strange startled—mildly, subtly—then recovered. Loki grinned. So, he could be rattled? Good. She would have to test the extent of it sometime.

“Um… yeah…” Strange looked at the ceiling.

“Female Replacement Intelligent Digital Assistant Youth. Or F.R.I.D.A.Y.,” Tony said. “She pretty much runs the joint. You need anything or you need me, just ask her. In here or you know,” Tony twirled his hand around vaguely. “Pretty much anywhere on the compound.”

“And she can hear me?” said Strange.

“Yep.”

“And see me?”

“Yep.”

“From anywhere on the compound?”

Tony winked. “You have to activate her in your private quarters. Verbal activation. Don’t tell me you’re the kinda guy who signs stuff without reading it.”

Strange glared. “Form 19 D section 31: party hereby acknowledges and consents to continuous monitoring by Stark Industries’ integrated artificial intelligence systems while present on Stark-owned premises or utilizing Stark-provided equipment. Party understands that this monitoring may include, but is not limited to, audiovisual surveillance, biometric assessment, environmental tracking, and data analysis for purposes of safety, operational security, and compliance with facility protocols...” Strange looked at Tony intently. “I read your forms.”

Tony looked stunned. But he recovered. “Great!” he said. “Then we shouldn’t have a problem.”

Tony held the door for Loki and waved her out. She slipped past and he closed the door, leaving the doctor to his work.

Stephen

Stephen stood at the sink in the prep room off Thor’s suite, hands braced against the cool metal, listening to the steady cadence of the monitors through the open door. The seizure had passed, but the aftershocks lingered—neural tissue did not forget trauma simply because it had quieted.

He replayed the moment.

The spike.
The shift in rhythm.
The way the storm had bent—not stopped, but redirected.

It wasn’t a solution.

At best, a temporary stabilization. At worst, a coincidence masquerading as progress.

Stephen closed his eyes, forehead dipping toward the steel.

You’re in over your head—not with the lightning, not with the biology, but with the scale beneath it. Gods didn’t seize like this without consequence. Damage of this magnitude was never isolated; it radiated outward, touching everything around it.

And then there was her.

Loftr.

Stark had introduced her like a footnote. A sibling. A presence to be managed. But Stephen had seen the way she moved in the corridor, the way the air itself seemed to tighten around her attention, as if the space knew she mattered.

Stephen had watched the deferral—not of authority, but of instinct. Decisions offered, not taken. Whatever story they were telling the world, Tony Stark knew exactly who stood beside Thor’s bed.

Loki. God of mischief. Here—and not in a cage.

That alone was a problem. One Stephen didn’t yet know how to solve.

She seemed diminished—grief-worn, exhausted—but he knew better than to mistake pain for weakness. Gods didn’t lose their edge just because they suffered. They only became harder to predict.

Thor’s condition. Loki’s presence. The unanswered questions stacked neatly atop one another.

Where was Odin?
Why was Thor being treated here instead of Asgard?
Why were any of them here at all?

There was no reason for Asgardians to seek refuge on Earth unless there was no Odin.

Unless there was no Asgard.

Unless something apocalyptic had already happened—and Earth was what came next.

That’s what you’re here to find out, he reminded himself. Not to save a god. To protect your world.

Stephen straightened slowly, ribs protesting. He rinsed his hands and dried them with deliberate care, grounding himself in the ritual.

He didn’t know if he could heal Thor. He didn’t know if he could quiet the storms or halt the damage. He didn’t know how long this fragile balance could be held.

But what unsettled him wasn’t the uncertainty. It was the certainty beneath it. The certainty that if he could not save Thor, he would have to choose who was harmed—and make sure it wasn’t Earth.