A Night at the Museum

by drewbug

Rogers frowns as he looks Stephen over. He could be a magazine model in that tuxedo; Stephen feels like he's just finished a twelve hour shift in the ER.

A Night at the Museum

N. Clevenger (August 2017)

Notes: First, a big thank you to everybody who welcomed me into this fandom on the last fic. (Here's hoping this one rings as true.) If you know my other stories, you know I don't really need an excuse to give any of my poor fictional boys a wicked headache. But when the prompt showed up on my new hurt/comfort bingo card, what was I supposed to do?

Tag, Stephen. You're it.

MarvelMovie canon. I make no money, because they don't belong to me.

---

He's exhausted when he steps through the portal into the Sanctum, but he supposes that twelve hours hopping around Indiana in pursuit of a giant cosmic crab will do that to a person. The thing had apparently slipped through some kind of interdimensional rift, wreaking havoc just by virtue of its size. Slow moving, but disappearing every time he got close to appear again in the next county over; when he'd finally caught up with it in the middle of a huge corn field, he'd seen more of the state than he'd ever expected to.

All he wants now is a shower, sleep. Maybe not in that order. His feet lag as he passes his bed, the silence of the Sanctum settling like another layer of fatigue. The quiet subconsciously coaxes relaxation while making him all the more aware of the various complaints of his body: the shoulder-slumping lethargy, the steady beat pulsing behind his left eyebrow. His throbbing right wrist which, in the absence of too much obvious swelling, he's still hoping is old trauma versus new. He'd landed on it awkwardly, diving out of the way of a tractor sent tumbling toward him by a gargantuan claw.

Plus he thinks his nose might be sunburned.

All in all, it's been a long day. Still he decides that he will take a shower; he'd left this morning without one. He's just stepping into the bathroom when the heavy knocker bangs against the door downstairs. Stephen freezes, debates ignoring it. It's not like whoever it is knows he's here; if they'd arrived ten minutes ago, he wouldn't have been. But the knocking continues, echoing and persistent, and the Cloak gives a tug that way. He sighs, turns around.

The sound stops as he's crossing the foyer, and he hopes that his visitor's given up and gone away. His scowl shifts to surprise when he pulls open the door to find Christine standing on his front step in a strapless black dress. Admittedly stunning, but Stephen's mind is having trouble coming up with a reason for her presence. She looks at him expectantly; instead of answers, there's only a thick blank confusion.

"Isn't it tonight?" she asks.

"Isn't what tonight?" There's a bite to it; he's irritated, off-balance with the way she's staring at him like he should already know.

"The party? The one I switched shifts and bought a new dress for?" She sounds annoyed too. It might have something to do with the dumbfounded slope to his jaw.

Suddenly the pieces click into place. The Met. The benefit. That's tonight. "Fuck," Stephen grumbles, dragging a shaking hand over his face.

"Look," Christine says, her sigh sweeping an abrupt change through her tone, "we don't have to go. It's not that big of a deal."

He drops his hand. Disappointment battles with concern in her eyes. "No… no, of course we're going." He looks over at the ancient clock across the room as he steps aside to let her in; it's nearly seven. Still early enough to get a shower then. One of the benefits of transport by portal is not having to factor in travel time.

"Are you sure?" she asks, brushing past him trailing an unfamiliar tantalizing perfume. "You look terrible."

"That's no way to talk to your date." It's difficult to pull his gaze from the smooth skin bared by her upswept hair. His brain feels fuzzy, slow. "I'm just tired. Busy day."

She hums speculatively. "Exhausted, and bleeding from at least two lacerations that I can see. What happened to your nose?" She peers up at him. "Is that a sunburn?"

He keeps himself from reaching up to touch the hot skin stretching over his nose, the drying blood he'd forgotten about by his ear. "I'm going to grab a quick shower," Stephen says, escorting her into the parlor off the foyer. He glances about the space, trying to pinpoint any obvious magical dangers laying in wait for the uninformed. "I suggest you don't touch anything. Or at least don't try and read anything aloud." Her eyes widen comically, but he doesn't bother to clarify. "Other than that, make yourself at home. I'll be ready in a few minutes."

"Stephen…" she starts.

"We're going," he says over his shoulder, ending the discussion by leaving the room.

Because Rogers had been insistent when he'd called a few weeks ago, Fury's middle man bearing orders flimsily disguised as request. As if it were somehow Stephen's fault that the Avengers were immersed in their current PR nightmare; he hadn't even been there when that last mission had taken out almost an entire city block. But the deputy mayor is apparently a fan of his, has been ever since Stephen performed surgery on his daughter years ago – successfully, one would assume; Stephen doesn't remember – and the man had let it be known that he wanted Doctor Strange on the list of high-profile attendees. Instead of clearly and colorfully explaining to Rogers who exactly he doesn't answer to before slamming down the phone, Stephen had taken a breath and told the captain he'd get back to him.

Which he'd intended to do, just as soon as he came up with an excuse. But he'd made the mistake of mentioning the gala to Christine. Her enthusiasm for the idea had been irrepressible, and caught up in her shining eyes he'd asked her to go. And then promptly forgot all about it.

Stephen's groan bounces around the small bathroom as he studies the sorry state of himself in the mirror. His eyes look glassy, heavy; his nose is an angry red. There's a raw abrasion at his left temple over a glossy cut, maybe the start of a bruise under the hair on his jaw. More blood on his neck, smeared just above his collar. Underneath it all, his skin is a sickly pale.

Christine's right. He does look terrible.

The Cloak flutters at his shoulders; Stephen shakes his head, turns away from the mirror. He removes his boots, undresses somnolently with eyes mostly closed. His right wrist protests when he carelessly yanks it out of the sleeve, and he stops what he's doing to give it a cursory examination. Maybe a little swollen, but no blatant deformity. Probably simple aggravation rather than a sprain. His hand trembles erratically, sending sparks up his arm; he tries to curl his fingers into a fist, but only manages a grotesque claw.

Stephen drops his arm. Finishes getting undressed.

Though he uses his left hand, there's a familiar cramping complaint as damaged tendons are coerced into the coordination required to turn on the shower. Tonight it's worse than normal, and Stephen can't suppress a pained grunt as the whole thing seizes up completely after only one twist of the knob. Pulling in air in short bursts through his nose, he cradles the useless appendage against his chest. He vacantly watches the water trickle from the faucet as he waits for the agonizing tension to ease.

Get moving. Christine's waiting downstairs.

He reaches reluctantly for the knob with his right hand, but before he gets to it the Cloak slips a corner past him to perform the action itself. Stephen ducks his head in gratitude, concession, and steps into the shower. The hot water feels wonderful, melting away some of the tightness in his hands and shoulders, eventually softening the pounding in his skull. He'd happily stand here like this all night, the warm spray a liquid massage; he has no idea how long he's been enjoying it when the Cloak rustles the other side of the shower curtain. A sure sign that's it's been long enough.

He looks a little better when he clears the condensation from the mirror; his nose is a darker red, but the heat of the shower has also put some color back into the rest of his face. His beard's a bit scraggly though – another thing neglected this morning – so Stephen grabs his electric razor, sets about neatening up the crisp edges. As always, it's a frustratingly slow exercise. As usual, he only gets about a quarter of the way through before the mounting unsteadiness in his grip on the razor forces him to give up.

It's a quick cheat to conjure a mystical blade to finish the process. He keeps his focus on the lines and angles so he doesn't have to meet his own eyes in the mirror.

Stephen longer owns a tuxedo, doesn't have much clothing at all besides the blue that's somehow become a uniform. He picks up the trousers from the pile on the bathroom floor, dubiously looking over a multitude of dirty patches. The magic to clean them triggers an unexpected wash of vertigo, and his hand flails instinctively for the counter when he sways. He misses, but the Cloak presses against his naked back, keeping him steady while he finds his balance. His headache murmurs that it hasn't yet gone away.

His growl ricochets off the damp tiles.

He takes the precaution of leaning a bare hip against the counter before freshening up the tunic, but when the dizziness comes again he tells himself that the second time wasn't as bad. He might be lying. He's definitely lying as he tries to convince himself the headache's not getting worse. Stephen gets dressed, practices a couple of feeble smiles in the fogging mirror before opening the door and leaving the steamy bathroom. In the cooler air of the bedroom, the Cloak gives a full-body shimmy before settling itself on his shoulders.

Christine's waiting in the room where he left her, perched rigidly on the edge of a chair like she's afraid that to even breathe will bring down the unspoken consequences of Stephen's vague parting warning. She smiles when she sees him, stands. "You look better."

"You look beautiful."

"I… Uh, thank you?"

He wonders how he could have been so careless as to have engendered that wary skepticism underlying the pleasure in her voice. Wonders yet again why she would possibly want to stick around anymore. "Really. You're gorgeous. Enough to make me almost actually want to go to this thing."

Her smile dips into a frown, and he understands belatedly that he should've cut off the honesty somewhere before that last sentence. "Stephen, if we're only going on my account –"

They're not, but he wants to see her smile again. "What would be wrong with that?" he asks, achieving his goal. Over her head, the clock reads seven-thirty. He silently chastises himself for lingering so long in the shower, for making her wait. "Ready?"

She picks up her small purse from the end table, turns toward the door; Stephen hooks a long arm around her shoulders, turns her back around. He opens a portal in front of them. Though he hasn't had the time to visit the museum in a while, what he can see of his favorite wing seems unchanged through the circular window. Christine's captivated by the view and its frame of sparks. Stephen's grateful, because he's certain that the surprising amount of effort it's taking to maintain the thing has to be clear on his face. This headache certainly isn't helping with his focus.

"Just step through," he says, fighting to keep the strain from his tone. "I'll be right behind you."

She glances over at him and Stephen forces his lips into a smile; the expression crumbles the second she turns back to the portal. He raises a hand to her exposed shoulder, exerts the tiniest bit of pressure – not quite a push – to urge her through. Taking the cue, Christine walks out of the Sanctum and into the museum. Stephen immediately follows, the aperture slamming closed with a nip at his heels.

He's got to be imagining what feels like a backlash of energy when the portal disappears, but it still leaves him reeling. The room rocks violently and he staggers. For a moment there's only white noise, the thudding of his heart in his head and a distant tingling in his fingertips. Christine's hand on his arm. He stares at it for too long before he can identify it.

She says his name, and it doesn't feel like the first time. He isn't sure if it's her or the Cloak that guides him to sit on the nearby stone bench, but he lets her lift his chin, struggling to focus his eyes to meet her critical gaze. "What was that?" she demands. "What just happened?"

"Nothing." Already tired of being scrutinized, Stephen jerks his chin away from her fingers; they slide down to his carotid instead. He's relieved to find that the two of them are alone when he looks around.

"Right. That's why you've suddenly gone so pale and tachy. And your nose is inexplicably bleeding."

Now that she's mentioned it, he's hyperaware of the weight of the blood leaking from his left nostril, of the itch as it crawls into the hair covering his upper lip. "Allergies," he lies curtly. She won't believe him, but maybe she'll interpret the hint and drop it.

She stops him as he's about to dab at the blood with his sleeve, retrieving a compact package of Kleenex from her purse and handing them over. "You and I definitely went to different med schools. Talk to me about this earlier head trauma. Any loss of consciousness?"

"Thought you got out of working tonight." He presses a wad of tissues to his nose with a trembling hand, admiring the arc of her feet in her heels rather than look at her.

"Apparently not."

Stephen scowls, answers the question. "No, I didn't lose consciousness. I'm fine. Doctor too, remember?" He pulls the Kleenex away from his face to examine it. "Look, it's already stopped."

She's watching him; he makes himself turn that way, hoping he doesn't have blood smeared across his face. "And you're not worried about why it started in the first place?" she asks.

"No. Let's go to the party." He stands, fighting to keep his face blank as the change in position increases the intensity of his headache. He cups the crumpled tissues in his hand, offers Christine his other arm.

She joins him, curls a wrist around his bent elbow. The thin silver bracelet she's wearing glints in the low lights. "We should just go. You look like you need to be in bed."

This blankness is an expressionless mask he's perfected with years of delivering bad news – I'm very sorry, but your daughter son husband wife experienced complications during the procedure – and it serves to keep him from cringing. He'd hoped she wouldn't suggest it. He doesn't want to admit that he probably can't open another portal right now, that even the thought of trying makes him nauseous. "Christine, I'm fine. Trust me. Besides, we're already here. I want the chance to show you off."

"You think you're so clever, trying to distract me with your flattery."

They pass his favorite Degas on the way out of the silent room; Stephen barely spares it a glance. If he chooses, he can simply close his eyes and see it in detail. "I know I'm clever. And I wasn't trying to distract you." Not entirely, anyway.

There's a men's room just around the corner, and he leaves her to duck inside. There's only one other occupant, a guy standing at the urinals; Stephen ignores him as he throws away the dirty tissues, washes his hands. There's a reddish smudge under his nose, nearly missed due to the Rudolph impression. He wets a paper towel and wipes at the blood, wondering if it's worth it to ask Christine if she has any makeup to tone down the glare.

Probably not. He'd never hear the end of it.

He's examining the damage at his temple when he realizes that the other man's now standing at the far end of the row of sinks staring at him. Whether it's his outfit, his reputation, or simply the battered state of him that's caught the guy's interest, Stephen doesn't know. And he really, really doesn't care. The lights in here are excessively bright, adding a narrowed gaze to his unwelcoming expression as he meets the guy's eyes, gives him a steely nod. The man immediately turns back to the sink.

So much for being good PR.

He runs a hand through his hair – pretending not to notice the darting glances he's getting in the mirror – and exits the restroom to meet Christine out in the hall. "How do I look?" he asks her.

"Like you're about to fall over," she says.

Stephen frowns. "That's not very flattering. Or useful."

"It was honest. Are you sure you want to do this?"

He sighs and rubs at the bridge of his nose with his fingertips, mindful of the edge of the sunburn. "Oh I'm very sure that I don't. But we're here, so we might as well put in an appearance." Dropping his hand and flashing her a grin that's way too big to be sincere, he offers her his arm again. "Come on. If you're nice I'll introduce you to Captain America."

They hear the party before they see it, a hum of blurry conversation glittering with clinking glassware and a faintly tinkling piano. It's quite a crowd filing the Great Hall, but Stephen's tall enough to see over a lot of heads; he spots Tony Stark almost immediately, holding court over a pocket of people in one corner. As predicted, Rogers is also among the guests. He stands slightly behind Stark, just apart from the group. His body language says uncomfortable, awkward.

Stephen starts to lead Christine that way, but before they make it more than a couple of steps they're stopped for the first of many handshakes. It's a struggle to hold the tight line of his lips quirked up into a smile as they creep across the room, to force a somewhat cordial tone into his clipped responses. He's not interested in knowing any of these carbon-copy people; they bubble and gush without substance, only wanting to claim the questionable badge of having met him. And if he has to hear one more variation on the line "Looks like you got some sun," he might punch someone in the face.

Or get Christine to do it. His right wrist is definitely swollen now, unhappy with all of this jostling, and he doubts he can actually curl the hand into a decent fist. He grinds his back teeth together as the bald man in front of him rattles his entire arm in overenthusiastic greeting; his metacarpals protest loudly as they're compressed in the double-handed grip. He extricates himself from it as quickly as possible.

"Are you alright?" Christine asks, when the man finally moves on to his next social conquest. The question's barely audible under all this background noise.

"Fantastic," Stephen snaps, wincing as he tries to flex his aching fingers. He hadn't really enjoyed these things before the accident, unless of course they were in his honor. Now though, they're so much worse. If he's not being accosted for his current disputable fame, it's someone who knew him as a doctor. The repetitive reminder of his former life stings.

"When we read about your accident, we were so very concerned," an elderly woman tells him now. She'd said he'd saved her sister's life; she might look familiar if this damn headache wasn't so distracting. Her husband stands stooped and silent beside her, stealing glances toward Stephen's hands where they hang hidden in the folds of the Cloak.

"Thank you," he grits out, as graciously as he can manage. "You're very kind."

She rests a hand on his wrist, and it's all he can do not to yank the arm away. The joint throbs under the light pressure, every twitch of his fingers sending a fresh jolt up to his elbow. "She'll be so happy to hear that you were here tonight with your beautiful wife, looking so very well."

Stephen thinks somebody might need glasses. "Oh, I'm not –" Christine starts, a champagne flute halted on its way to her lips.

"She'll be so happy," the woman repeats. Stephen pulls in air through his nose as she gives his wrist a faint squeeze.

"Give her my best." He wonders if it sounds as hollow to her as it does to him.

But she's all smiles as they walk away. Stephen's corded shoulders sag, the incessant noise in here a physical pressure encircling his head. "I'm surprised people don't already know that the great Doctor Strange is resolutely single," Christine says. There's a teasing smile on her lips as she takes a sip of the champagne; he's not sure if he's imagining the hint of bitterness underneath it.

He reaches for her glass with his fluttering left hand. "An easy mistake. We look so good together." The sparkling liquid splashes against his upper lip as he drinks, does precisely nothing to quench his thirst. There's an unpleasant dryness coating his mouth, his tongue, as he hands it back to her.

He brushes at the moisture in his mustache with the side of his hand, cracking the bottom of his nose with a knuckle when his fingers give an unexpected jerk. Working to pull his mouth out of its entrenched scowl, he pretends to be interested in the crowd. It's annoyingly warm in here with all this combined body heat, and he's not thrilled with the way his eyesight's beginning to get a bit indistinct at its edges.

"You look like you could use some fresh air," Christine observes from beside him.

"I need a drink," he corrects in a hushed snarl, upset that it's apparently so easy for her to read his mind.

She doesn't flinch. "Water?"

"Scotch."

They stare each other down for a minute, the party swirling around them, before she shrugs. "Fine. I'll see what I can do." Her eyes flick to something behind him. "I think you're about to make more new friends. Try to play nice."

He watches her slip between mingling bodies on her way to the bar, not wanting to turn and face whoever's coming. Maybe, if he doesn't look over there, they won't bother him. But now there's a tap on his shoulder; his eyes close for a brief moment before he takes a breath and turns around.

The room continues moving even after he's stopped. The Cloak stiffens a little at his shoulders in support.

"Hi! I'm Mandy! You're an Avenger, right?" The girl's young, blonde, and her pupils are dramatically dilated. This is about all Stephen has time to process before she's pressed up against him snapping pictures of them with her phone.

She gets two or three before his sluggish mind catches up and he thinks to pull away. "Actually, I'm not."

"Then what?" she pouts at him, her lips a glossy pink. "You're, like, just some weird dude who likes to wear a cape?"

"You look like an Avenger," says the nearly identical friend Stephen's only noticing now. As if her insistence might somehow change his answer.

"Well I'm not." They look impossibly young, like two little kids playing dress-up. He wonders if maybe he's just getting old.

Without warning, Mandy reaches a hand toward his chest; the Cloak – figuring out what's happening well before Stephen does – shifts away from her, sliding off of his shoulder to hang down his back. Her eyes go wide.

"It moved! It totally moved! Make it move again!"

Her tone is shrill and entitled, and it's doing nothing for his headache. It feels like his skull's cracking slowly apart from the inside. "Maybe it moved. Maybe you're just so high you're hallucinating. What're you on tonight, Mandy?"

Those wide eyes turn for a second onto him before her face twists into an ugly glare. "Asshole," she spits, grabbing her friend's arm and stalking away.

Stephen rolls his eyes, winces when even this simple motion exacerbates the pain. He'd swear it's getting warmer in here. He looks for Christine, can't find her in the crowd. He does his best to avoid making eye contact with anyone, lest they mistake it for an invitation to come over.

Though he hasn't eaten anything since his interrupted breakfast this morning, he declines the appetizers on the tray of a passing server. The room tilts sickeningly when he shakes his head, his body telling him that he really should know better. But his headache's drumming out his heartbeat down the length of his knotted neck, and the thought of trying to eat anything splashes his skin in a clammy sweat. Stephen glances around for somewhere to sit down.

Most of the scattered tall tables are without chairs, and the few he can see are already taken. As are the benches by the wall. A shriek of a female laugh from somewhere to his left drives a spike through his forehead, and he decides that what he really wants is to be out of the Hall entirely. Unfortunate that there's so many people between him and the nearest exit.

His gait feels too much like shuffling, requires a disturbing amount of his concentration. It's difficult to keep from running into people, especially when there's so many of them so close together. When they continue to step into his path like they're doing it on purpose. He steadies an intoxicated woman who backs directly into his chest; her heel comes down hard on his boot as she splashes most of her drink onto his sleeve. She twists her neck to beam up at him with a lopsided smile. It's all he can do to keep the growl lodged in his throat as he hands her back over to her date.

The museum beyond the archway looks dark and quiet, peaceful. He keeps his focus on that rather than the roar buffeting him from all sides. He's starting to feel shaky, maybe presyncopal, but he's almost there. Surely a break from this noise will at least help.

"Please tell me you're not trying to leave already," says a male voice near his ear.

The silence beckons, but he can't really just keep walking. Though he does think about it. "Wouldn't dream of it," Stephen sighs, turning to face Captain Rogers.

Rogers frowns as he looks Stephen over. He could be a magazine model in that tuxedo; Stephen feels like he's just finished a twelve hour shift in the ER. "You were pretty late getting here. Anything we need to know about?"

"I took care of it." Everything's vibrating, the air substantial and moving. Dissolving. Stephen blinks, trying to widen his eyes from their squint, to keep them open. He refuses to pass out here. The headache throbs a discordant song, mocking his intentions.

"And you're not going to tell me –"

He struggles to pull his fractured attention away from the impeccable black knot in the captain's bow tie. "Giant crab. Not coming back."

Rogers is still frowning. "We're all on the same side, Strange. You can call us if you need help with anything."

"Well clearly I didn't." His tongue feels fat, clumsy, and it's a challenge to keep the words from running together. "Shouldn't you be babysitting Stark or something?"

The frown slides in and out of a scowl, quickly enough that it might never have happened. "Maybe you've had enough to drink," Rogers leans in close to murmur.

Just as Christine finally arrives with his scotch. Her eyes jump between the two of them like she can sense the tension.

"Captain Rogers, Doctor Christine Palmer," Stephen grunts as introduction, grabbing the glass and taking a defiant swig. The liquor burns a trail down his esophagus, pools nauseatingly in his empty stomach. He tries to keep the regret out of his expression.

"It's a pleasure to meet you," Rogers says, turning the full force of that famous wholesome charm on Christine.

She looks to be basking in it, leaving Stephen free to tune out most of their superficial conversation. His gaze drifts idly about the room. Now that he's got the alcohol he doesn't want it, and he wishes there was somewhere nearby to set the drink down. It might be a convenient social prop for most people, but the obvious sloshing of the liquid in the glass only serves to emphasize how badly his hands shake. To obscure this, he holds the glass from the top by his side. His hand's already beginning to cramp in this forced grip.

The noise in here beats at his head, disrupts his thoughts; he's vaguely trying to figure out what it is about that blind guy over there with the glasses and cane that feels so familiar when the room suddenly wavers, tips. It seems like all the air in the Hall has condensed itself to press down on his skull, and his knees feel dangerously unstable.

"I'll be back," Stephen mumbles, swallowing against the sickening vertigo. "See someone I know." He doesn't wait for a response, doesn't look at Rogers at all. Blatantly ignores the question in Christine's eyes as he turns abruptly away. The Cloak does most of the work in choosing his path out of the room; Stephen concentrates on not dropping the glass he's still holding. His fingers are clamped like a vise, and they're whining about it.

He moves out of the Hall and into the darker room next door, and the noise, heat, light begins to fade with every step. It's bliss, and he buckles under the relief. The Cloak keeps him from falling; the scotch splashes in the glass, licks at his palm. Giving no notice to the display cases he passes, his only interest is the empty bench he can see by the wall at the far end of the wing. He's almost there when a security guard enters through the open doorway beside it.

"I'm sorry, sir. The museum is asking its guests to keep to the –" Between the lowered lights and the blurred vision Stephen can't read his name tag, but the recognition that flashes across the guy's lined face is clear. "Hey, you're Doctor Strange. You are, aren't you."

He does his best to fake a smile. "I am. Just looking for, uh… the men's room," he improvises, spotting a sign down the hallway from where the guard just came.

"There are restrooms in the Great Hall. The museum requests –"

"Okay, you got me. I'm also trying to get a break from my date." The lie flows smoothly despite the harsh way his voice rumbles around the inside of his head.

"Ah," the man says, understanding. Stephen catches the shine of a wedding ring as the guy begins searching his pockets for something. "Look, I know I probably shouldn't ask, but... do you think I could I get your autograph?"

The request sends a sharp twinge through his right hand; this one's completely psychosomatic. He sees sheets of paper covered in kindergarten penmanship. "Maybe on the way back out," he says, gesturing toward the restroom sign with his glass. "Okay?"

The guard considers for a moment, gives in with a nod. The privilege of celebrity, and Stephen's not going to argue on principle; with this headache bordering on overwhelming, he doesn't really know how many more coherent sentences he can string together anyway. He moves past the guy and down the hall, seeking solitude before the man has a chance to rethink his allegiance to the museum's rules.

The lights are motion-activated, and the strobe effect as they flicker on is too much for his fragile equilibrium. The glass clunks against the hard counter as he finally sets it down; the door smacks against the wall of the stall as he bangs his way in. His knees crack into the hard floor tiles, and before he expects it he's throwing up scotch and bile into the bowl. There's not much to expel, but the strain and dehydration slam the migraine nauseatingly against the inside of his skull to keep him locked in the brutal cycle for a while. He's gasping, wrung out, when he eventually sags back onto his heels.

His ears are ringing, the buzzing of the stupid lights the only answer to his feeble moan. Stephen swipes at the sweat on his face – the moisture in his eyes, at his nose – with his sleeve. The Cloak flutters, alerting him to the way it's been trapped between his folded legs, and he immediately changes position to free it. He shifts to sit on the tiles with his knees pulled up to his chest, distantly noting that at least the place seems to have been cleaned since the museum closed.

Now the Cloak's tapping gently at his cheek, and though he's uncertain how much time has passed he's suddenly aware that he's missed most of it. The reverberating click of heels on ceramic tile announces Christine's presence before he sees her, before she calls his name. He doesn't bother to answer; the restroom is fairly big, but the only occupied stall isn't difficult to find.

He blinks up at her as she comes into view of the open door, unwilling to even lift his head from where it rests against the dividing wall. "What're you doing here? Men's room."

"I was worried about you when you didn't come back. A security guard pointed me this way."

"Traitor," he grumbles. Her dress creeps teasingly up her thighs as she crouches beside him, but Stephen's too miserable to muster any real interest. "Told him I was hiding from my date."

"Well it might have something to do with the part where I told him I was also your doctor. And the fact that you've been in here for at least twenty minutes."

His arms lie loosely crossed on his bent knees, his hands hanging useless and jittery. His right wrist feels hot, inflamed. "Did he ask for your autograph too?"

"He didn't. I think he just wanted someone else to check and make sure you weren't dead."

"Well, Doctor, as you can see…" He moves to rest his forehead on his wrists, lifts his head instantly when he's reminded that one of his sleeves in drenched in gin. The pain in his skull spikes and he closes his eyes, groaning through bared teeth. "Not dead. Leave me alone."

Christine brushes the backs of her fingers over the skin of his unbruised temple. "Can you stand up?"

He doesn't open his eyes. "Probably. But I might throw up on you."

"Please try your best not to. This dress was embarrassingly expensive."

His lips twitch with weary amusement. "S'a nice dress."

"Thank you." She runs her nails lightly through the hair above his ear, and a memory of her lying naked and smiling beside him plays out behind his closed eyelids. The fingers fall to his neck, check his pulse. "We need to go to the hospital. Get a CT."

"S'not a bleed." Though he can certainly understand why she'd think so.

Unaware of his silent support, Christine begins listing her proof; her voice gets louder with every symptom, bouncing around the empty restroom. "No? First the unwitnessed head trauma, followed by epistaxis, headache, vomiting –"

"Who says I have a headache?" Stephen mumbles petulantly.

"You've had a headache since I showed up at your door." He's grateful when she drops her voice to something closer to his low level. "Now you don't even have your eyes open, and you're starting to slur your words. I'm serious, Stephen. We need to get a scan now, find out what's going on."

He can't tell if the dismissive flick of his fingers is discernible in the rest of the erratic trembling. "Migraine," he explains.

"A migraine." She sounds skeptical. But hopeful. Who wouldn't root for migraine over intracranial hemorrhage?

Maybe not the person currently experiencing said migraine. Stephen hums an affirmative that vibrates unpleasantly through his sinuses; he swallows against the rising nausea.

"How can you be sure?" she demands. "I don't remember you getting migraines; are they some kind of late effect of the accident?"

"No."

"What do you mean, 'no'?"

"Know you know what no means… 'member the time I –"

"Stephen, open your eyes." When he doesn't, her voice slips from its calm doctor tones into a frustration he'd faced more than once during their brief love affair and his long recovery. "Goddammit, Stephen, open your eyes or I'm calling for an ambulance. Right now."

He doesn't doubt that she'll do it, not if she thinks there's a chance he's bleeding in his brain. Prying his eyelids apart to squint at her, he swears through his teeth as he's assaulted by the bright lights of the men's room. He ducks his head; the Cloak rises from his shoulders to shape itself into a temporary hood.

She looks sympathetic, for all the good that does him. "Better. And, honestly, more than a little bit adorable. But you know what I'm trying to do. I can't see anything like that."

He forces his eyes open a little wider; easier to do when the Cloak still shields him from the worst of the glare. Christine reaches up to push it out of the way, but it stubbornly refuses to move until Stephen raises a trembling hand to nudge it back from his face. She shakes her head, lifts his chin.

The overhead lights pierce his brain, tighten the bands around his skull as he allows her to study him. He even complies with her request to track the path of her moving finger, though he's also fairly sure that he doesn't have a concussion. The shifting of his eyes makes him dizzier; the noticeable sensation of physical motion in his head is sickening. Stephen chokes, twists away from her to hang his head over the toilet and retch. Pointless when nothing comes up, and it only makes him feel worse.

He slumps against the wall, blinking blearily at Christine from the shadows of his new hood. She's chewing on her lower lip, and he can't look away from the deep contrast between the dark shine of her lipstick and the gleaming white of her teeth. "Well your pupils aren't dilated, and they're symmetric…" she begins, still sounding unconvinced.

"See? Migraine."

"Probably," she concedes. "Still, I'd like to get a CT just to be safe. If you've suddenly started getting migraines, we should –"

"Christine, stop. It's fine." He'd hoped that the migraines would fade like some of the other side effects as his body adapted to the magical energy, but they continue to come with obnoxious unpredictability. Still, he can see the direct correlation. "Know what's going on," he murmurs.

"I wish you'd tell me," she says. "If you won't go to the hospital, do you think you can get up so we can at least get you home?"

Stephen wonders if he can open a portal like this. It certainly won't be fun, anyway. "Maybe in a minute." He lets his determined eyelids fall closed again.

He hears her shift beside him, the fabric of her dress slipping over her skin. "Okay, whenever you're ready. But you'd be a lot more comfortable in your bed."

He thinks about lying down on the cool tiles, reconsiders. "Yeah."

"So let's get up. But you're going to have to help me. These shoes are definitely not recommended for any kind of lift-assist."

The thought of moving spins through his head with a preemptive vertigo. "In a minute."

"Come on, Stephen." A hand on his arm, another sliding between his back and the thin dividing wall. "Up. I don't want to spend all night on the floor of a public men's room."

"So don't. Go back to the party."

The hand on his back disappears, but the one resting on his bicep remains. "I'm not going to just leave you here like this. I know you don't want to move, but you'll feel better being home. I promise."

The pinky and ring finger on his right hand are almost completely numb, heavy with an irritating tingling. Compression on the ulnar nerve from the swelling in his wrist, no doubt; like with the migraine, knowing the cause brings no comfort at all. "Soon. Go; I'll come find you."

"I'm not going back to the stupid party." There's that frustration again.

"Seemed to be hitting it off with Rogers. Probably looking for you." He's probably looking for Stephen, actually. And not just for some chaste flirting and social niceties.

"Is that jealousy?" He can hear the smile in her voice.

"Nausea." His own voice sounds hoarse, wrecked.

"Well the easiest way to keep me away from him is for us to leave."

Stephen blows out a breath, cringing at the foul taste coating his tongue. He cracks open his eyes, looking at his blurry hands rather than Christine. "I, uh, I don't think… the portal…"

"There are still other ways to travel, Stephen. We'll take a cab like normal people."

"No." The vehemence surprises both of them, but the anxiety that crashes over him is inescapable. He can't breathe. Already so light-headed, the sudden flood of adrenaline makes him feel like he might fly apart. "No," he repeats through his hyperventilation.

"Hey, calm down. Stephen? Talk to me. Tell me what's going on."

She doesn't know – no one knows – that he hasn't been in a car since his return from Nepal. That the mere thought of driving, even riding, usually triggers frantic memories of incomprehensible weightlessness and something too much like panic. Immediately after the accident there'd been no alternative, but everything had been such a fog of pain and hope and depression and drugs then that he hadn't really noticed. Now, with the sling ring, there's no need for a vehicle at all. Most days he's able to pretend to himself that this is the only reason for his pedestrian status.

The anxiety thrums through him, adding new depth to the misery as he fights to get control of his breathing. A segregated, still-logical sliver of his mind tells him that he'll never make his point like this. That if he can't get a handle on it she's going to call for that ambulance after all. "No cab. I can… just give me a minute."

Flipping, flying. Confusion, terror. Pain.

"Okay. Okay, just breathe. We don't have to do anything you don't want to do." Her hand traces a soothing pattern over his bicep; the Cloak does the same at his temple with the edge of its makeshift hood. Stephen realizes that he's got his eyes squeezed tightly shut like a child. He doesn't open them. "Just breathe," Christine repeats. "Slowly. In and out."

That slice of sanity taunts him as he sits struggling to simply breathe evenly, picking up its old worn refrain. If he can think rationally at all, he should be able to think his way to calm; he knows he's smart enough to rise above this ridiculous drama. But each inch of relaxation finds itself inevitably offset by the remembered lurch in his stomach that comes again and again. He keeps hearing that horrifying crunch of the guard rail breaking free. Keeps falling. His heart beats furiously at the inside of his skull.

He rubs fiercely at his eyes with twitchy fingertips. Christine's already seen him at his worst, but he still feels pathetic. Exposed. "I… fuck… m'sorry." It tumbles out on its own between his inconsistent respirations; apologies have never really been one of his strengths. She'll probably take it as further proof that he's got major trauma to his brain.

Stephen waits for the observation, a joke, but she stands. He drops his hands to see what she's doing. She crosses to the sinks, points at his abandoned drink. "This yours?" When he responds with a slow nod, she dumps the rest of the scotch into the nearest sink and rinses out the glass, filling it with water.

He doesn't move to take it from her. Because he's tired of throwing up, doesn't want to give his stomach the excuse. Because his left hand's started spasming from one side of his palm to the other, and his right feels like nothing more than a worthless lump of gnarled tendons and bones. Because if he doesn't move, maybe he can trick his headache into ebbing enough for him to be able to get them out of here without having to ride a car. He doesn't explain any of this to her. He admires the creamy, out of focus curves of her breasts instead, trying desperately to distract himself from everything.

"Do you want to talk about it?"

"I really don't," he exhales.

She leans a hip against the open door. "How about the migraines? Can we go back to talking about those, since it seems like we might be here for a while?"

"We won't be." The Cloak's new hood follows him as he starts to push himself up, follows him as lightening strikes his brain and he collapses back down onto his coccyx. A humiliating whimper slips out before Stephen can stop it; he tries to morph it into a manly growl, gets a jagged rumble echoing through his head for the effort.

"That wasn't supposed to be a challenge," Christine sighs. Close. She's crouched beside him again; he opens his eyes to find the glass floating in front of his face.

He takes it from her with a shaky hand, manages a couple of glowering sips before setting the glass on the tile and dropping his head back against the wall. His eyes close again, but he can picture her fingers as they dip into the shadows of the hood to brush a stray lock of hair off his sweaty forehead. The Cloak's a comfort he's not willing to sacrifice, but it's also yards of heavy fabric. It's hot under here. He probably needs another shower, definitely a toothbrush.

"Sometimes these things just happen," he hears a scratchy impression of his voice trying to explain. "S'just part of of it."

"These things? Part of what?"

He wishes he'd actually made a decision to tell her before he'd started talking. "Migraines. Things." The Cloak briefly shifts with his shrug. "Price of the magic."

"Migraines and what else?" Her voice has returned to Doctor Mode, but her fingers stroke repetitively along his hairline. It occurs that the Cloak must've shifted out of the way for her; he doesn't open his eyes to check.

Her nameless perfume – faint, but too close for too long with this headache – is starting to bother him, but he doesn't want her to stop what she's doing. Stephen swallows, gives her another shrug. "The nose bleeds. The nausea." He doesn't want her to know how bad it can really get. He's not happy that she's even seen this much. "It's improving." More or less.

"Well I hope so," Christine says. "Otherwise you might need to find a new career."

Again. Her fingers trip ever so slightly. Or it might be his tic of a flinch. He doesn't say anything; her fingers have already resumed their motion.

"So why do you do it then?" she asks, the question soft under the lights' humming buzz.

"Because I can." Other than the occasional trill of lingering anxiety, he feels utterly drained now. Hollow. Too wiped out to be anything but sincere. "Because I feel like I should."

"And is that enough?"

He rubs absently at his right hand with his left, thinks about Pangborn. "Most of the time."

Their silence spreads through the big room; it might be nice to finally have the quiet if he didn't feel so uncomfortably vulnerable. But he reminds himself that she's already seen him out of his head with delirium, drugs. Sobbing, writhing in pain. This isn't even the first time she's sat with him on a bathroom floor. Stephen blinks open his eyes. Christine just looks thoughtful, and still pointlessly sympathetic.

They both startle when the main door creaks open, a loud sound in all this stillness. "Um… hello?" comes a man's voice.

It's the security guard. Christine stands, pokes her head out of the stall. Stephen knows he should probably get up, but he doesn't move.

"Look…" The man sounds hesitant, and he's not moving away from the door. "I'm glad you two, uh… made up, but you really can't… You shouldn't even be in here."

Christ, he thinks they're in here having sex. No wonder he's so reluctant to come further in.

"You think –" Christine starts, getting the same message. "No, Doct–"

Stephen grabs her hand to cut her off. He wishes they'd been in here having sex; it's a far better story. His fingers quiver against her palm, and he notices how cold – compared to her, compared to the rest of him – his hands are. Christine notices too, judging by the the surprised glance she gives them.

"Sorry," Stephen calls out, with as much flippancy as he can dredge up. Fortunately he doesn't really have to work to raise his voice with the acoustics in here. "We're leaving."

"Great," the disembodied voice says. "I'll just be… Sorry to have to, uh..."

There's another creak as the guard exits. Stephen wonders if he'd be this friendly to someone not deemed autograph-worthy. "Accommodating guy," he grunts as he attempts to get off the floor. He's still unbalanced, dizzy, and he suspects that Christine and the Cloak are doing most of the work.

The confused motion sensor behind the toilet finally activates, filling the small space with a roar of rushing water. Stephen winces, slumps against the wall. "You better hope he doesn't have a gossip blog," Christine says, not letting go of his arm. The casual tone belies the worried set of her eyebrows; she looks like she thinks he's going to fall.

It's not an outrageous concern. There's a grey haze in his brain, and though that toilet's got to be done flushing the roaring persists. He locks his knees, determined not to pass out. If for no other reason than that, if he falls, he's certainly going to crack his head open on something in here.

"Stephen?" It sounds repeated; he pulls his gaze up from where it's drifted to the floor. "Maybe you should sit back down."

As an answer he jerks his chin toward the open door behind her; the tiny motion whiplashes through his head and down his neck, sends pinched-nerve impulses straight to his fingertips. But she has to move in order for him to get out. Once freed from the stall, he pulls his arm out of her grip and stumbles to the line of sinks. His wrist protests the weight when he braces himself with both hands on the counter.

Glazed eyes glint darkly back at him from under the shade of the Cloak; he shifts his focus to Christine, standing directly behind his left shoulder. Other than the faint blush to her skin and a few strands of hair that have escaped from their knot, she looks as she did when he'd opened his front door. He's abruptly aware that he's completely ruined her evening. His eyes drop to his hands, refuse to loiter long on the crooked jumping fingers. He ends up staring vaguely at the faucet, his body still struggling to adjust to its new upright position.

"How're you doing?" Christine asks gently, rubbing circles over his shoulder blade through the Cloak.

Like he shouldn't be standing. Like he's going to vomit. Like his head might literally burst. "Peachy," he snarls, grabbing a handful of paper towels from the dispenser beside him. It's not automated, but the sink is; he's grateful that he doesn't have to convince his fingers to cooperate in order to turn it on.

"What do you want to do?" she asks. He blots at his face with the wad of wet paper, hoping to conceal the way his treacherous pulse starts to speed up again at the thought of having to get in a cab. She glances toward the door. "I could just go tell him you're sick, that we'll be out when you're ready…"

He doesn't care all that much, but on the whole he'd rather be thought of as a guy who'd sneak off for a public rendezvous than a drunk who can't hold his liquor. And he's got no intention of trying to autograph anything. "No, let's get out of here," Stephen rasps. He clears his throat, but it doesn't seem to make a difference. "Any minute Rogers is going to come busting in, broadcasting righteous disappointment. Might kill us both."

Christine's painted lips twist into a smile. He's not really used to the sight of her with a lot of makeup on, a rarity when most of their time together was spent at the hospital, in his condo. "He didn't seem that bad," she says.

Stephen presses the cool paper towels against his throbbing forehead, closing his eyes with the fleeting relief. "Likes you."

"And how exactly is he going to find us?"

"Guard s'not gonna hesitate. F'he gave me up to you, he'll definitely sell me out to Captain America." It's getting difficult to keep his words apart again. He drops the clump of soggy paper into a convenient hole in the counter, blinking repeatedly as he deliberately massages his injured wrist to try and wake himself up. The pain in his head is oppressive, smothering; the complaint from his wrist barks an innervating contrast.

"So…" Her eyes flick uncertainly toward the door and back, clearly afraid to bring up the cab and run the risk of setting him off. Stephen scowls, loathing that expression. He can't stand when she looks at him like he's so fragile, unstable.

Not that he hasn't given her plenty of cause. He compulsively meets his own eyes in the mirror again, and the scowl deepens. He immediately glances away.

"Don't want to bother with a cab," he tells her reflection, daring her to challenge this obvious avoidance of the real issue. The blatant deflection won't allow him to maintain this eye contact for long either. "We'll leave from here."

"And what's the poor guard going to think, when he finds out we've disappeared?" He doubts it's the question that she actually wants to ask.

Stephen shrugs. He just wants to go home. "Let'm wonder."

His first attempt at a portal is just a sputtering of sparks, a surge of agony through his skull. The nausea flares and he gags behind clenched teeth, wavering though he's leaning against the counter. Christine moves closer, mostly obscured by the hood in his peripheral vision, and he gestures impatiently with a fluttering hand for her to back up, leave him alone. He wishes he didn't have an audience for this.

Determined, Stephen doesn't give himself time to think about it before he tries again. The magic's about his concentration, his will; he tells himself this over and over until he's finally able to conjure the doorway. He can barely make out what's on the other side, his eyes crossed and barely open.

"Go," he grinds out, swallowing convulsively. "Now." He's not sure how much longer he can hold his head up, let alone keep the connection open.

Christine moves into his line of sight, looking like she might argue; he can't spare the attention to wonder why. She changes her mind, steps through the portal. Stephen staggers through behind her, almost plowing into her where she's standing on the other side. Her hands come up to stop him, catch him, but a last-second wrench of his body sends him tripping in another direction to avoid the collision.

His bruised knees hit the old hand-woven rug that covers his bedroom floor. He hears Christine swear as he feels his eyes start to roll back into his head.

When he opens them again he's lying on his back on his bed, still wearing everything but his boots. The Cloak's draped itself over two-thirds of his body like a blanket, and Christine's bare arm rests across his chest on top of it. She's asleep beside him, her face washed clean of makeup. Like him, still dressed in her clothes. Her other hand is in his hair; he discovers this when he shifts his head.

He squints at the clock across the room, unable to tell if the hand points closer to ten or eleven even with the shaft of moonlight that falls across its face. The migraine seems to have dulled, but he's not looking forward to moving and testing this assumption. Still, he really should get up, go sleep in one of the other rooms. After everything else tonight, he doesn't want to disturb her if he's beset by the usual nightmares.

With an inaudible sigh, Stephen lifts his head off the pillow in a tentative test; he's pleased when nothing instantly explodes. His entire neck feels like one solid knot, and his abused abdominals grumble as he tenses them to sit up. He's barely raised his shoulders when the Cloak ripples, forcing him back down onto the mattress.

Christine stirs drowsily with the motion, his surprised grunt. "Stephen?"

"Go back to sleep," he murmurs. Experimentally twitching a shoulder, he discovers that the Cloak's actually exerting a faint pressure. Keeping him down. He glares at the ceiling.

Her fingers untangle from his hair as she pushes up onto her elbow. He rolls his head over the pillow to watch her, apparently the only movement he's to be allowed. "Do you need anything?" she asks, not looking fully awake. "How do you feel?"

"Better." She yawns widely, apologizes unnecessarily. "Go back to sleep," he repeats. She checks his pulse instead.

Christine glances around the room, finds the clock. "I should probably go."

It would make things easier. But her fingers have started combing through his hair again. It's incredibly soothing. "Whatever you want," he mumbles, his eyelids drooping.

He's fading when, amidst the rest of the general discomfort, he realizes that his bladder's annoyingly full. He tries to ignore it, but now that he's noticed, the sensation won't be denied. Stephen groans, drags open his heavy eyes. "Gotta take a piss," he says hoarsely, mostly for the Cloak's benefit. He can't go anywhere if it won't let him up.

It releases him, but insists on following him into the bathroom regardless of his attempts to shrug it off as he shuffles to the door. Christine makes a noise that could be a sneeze, but sounds a lot more like a suppressed snort of amusement. Stephen doesn't turn around.

He leaves the light off as he urinates, washes his hands. The headache lingers and he's still disconcertingly light-headed, but he doesn't really want to sleep in his clothes. He's unfastening his belt when his index and middle fingers seize dramatically. He considers it a victory when the noise that escapes him is a hiss and not a shout.

Stephen turns on the hot water in the sink as near to scalding as he dares, holds his fingers under the stream until the tendons loosen up enough that he can move them again. Sometimes this works. He eventually manages to strip down to his boxer briefs in the diffuse moonlight, but the digits threaten an encore throughout with their ominous scattered pangs. Deciding to leave the clothes in a pile to be dealt with later, he's turning toward the door when a debilitating vertigo sweeps through him. He's glad for the Cloak's presence now, because it's the only thing that keeps him off the floor.

He stumbles out into the bedroom feeling wobbly, weak; Christine's still here, waiting under the comforter. Despite his his desire to spare her his new restless sleeping habits, he doesn't feel up to dragging his sore body any farther than this room. He slides in beside her, realizing that she too has shed everything but her underwear. His penis twitches half-heartedly, slips back into stupor.

"Do you mind?" she asks.

"Not as long as you don't expect me to do anything but lie here and snore."

"I don't expect anything from you, Stephen." It's said lightly, but it verges too close to a dangerous subject between them. One he's certainly not getting into tonight. Maybe he should sleep somewhere else after all.

But her fingers have returned to his hair, her breasts soft and warm when they brush against his arm. He relaxes a little when the conversation never begins. "Does it always do that?" she asks instead.

He cracks open an eye to see what she means; the Cloak hovers like a sentry at the foot of the bed. "Sometimes." She hasn't slept here yet, he realizes. "Creepy?"

"No. Just weird."

The rhythmic stroking of her fingers is hypnotic, and he drifts comfortably in it. "Sorry," he mumbles. "About the party."

"Two apologies in one night? We're definitely scheduling that CT in the morning."

A scowl flickers over his lips. He's making an effort to be nice here. "M'serious."

"Not all of it was terrible," she says. "How many women can say they've met Captain America?"

"Never taking you anywhere ever again…"

He's not sure when he falls asleep, but when he wakes up again Wong's standing over him and there's an obscene amount of light pouring in through the windows. Christine's gone. The other man stares down at him silently, arms folded across his chest; Stephen moans, rolls away from him and pulls the comforter up over his head. Wong yanks it back off of him.

"You look like you got hit by a bus." The tone's not unkind, but there's not a whole lot of sympathy in it either. "Get up. You're needed."

Stephen buries his head under the pillow, already knowing Wong's not going to take no for an answer.

end.