Stephen mutters quietly to himself as he reads through a book and he snaps it shut when he hears a crash from upstairs. Peter had gone with him to the Sanctum today while the sorcerer went through its books, promising not to touch anything, but that promise was broken a couple of hours upon arriving. Peter managed to keep himself busy with homework but must have recently finished if the noise was anything to go by.
"The Sorcerer Supreme mutters to himself?"
Stephen turns in surprise and narrows his eyes at the man standing in the middle of the foyer. "How did you get in here? I would ask if you are a sorcerer as that is the only explanation, but I don't recognize you."
"Not all study in Kamar-Taj."
Stephen glances at the man's hand. "Yet you have a sling ring. Those are strictly found at the compound, which tells me you either stole from the master teaching you or you killed them...either way it makes you a rogue." The sorcerer supreme sighs. "Here I thought I found all of you. My mistake."
He flicks both of his wrists up and their surroundings crack, giving away the mirror dimension. Stephen would never forgive himself if Peter was dragged into a fight with a rogue sorcerer, and he really didn't want to clean up a guaranteed mess. He needed to swipe the rogue's sling ring first and then he could worry about extracting the man's magic.
"Dr. Stephen Strange...Sorcerer Supreme...my name is-"
"Yeah, I don't care."
Stephen could have sworn he heard a snicker but his foe didn't look around, so he brushed it off as a trick of his mind. It wouldn't be the first time. There had been a few times he said something that got a ghostly laugh, but he never found anyone when he looked around. He even called out but got no answer.
An offended look crosses the man's features but he continues. "My name is-"
"I seriously don't care." Stephen interrupts again. "It won't matter in a few minutes."
He conjures and throws his whip out against the rogue and misses by a hair when the man dodges to the side. When he pulls out his sling ring, Levi leaves Stephen's shoulders and squeezes itself around the rogue's wrist tightly enough to cause him to drop his sling ring and Stephen rushes forward and snags it off the ground. The rogue manages to throw the cloak off his hand and kicks the sorcerer supreme in the chest before he can move away, and Stephen grunts as he flies backward and hits the wall.
"This is what I get for pulling my punches."
He staggers to his feet and ducks the rogue's flying fist, and then reaches up to grab the man's arm and turn to throw him over his shoulder. The rogue grunts when his back hits the floor and Stephen suddenly finds himself on his own back when the mystery man flips their positions and shoves one of his arms against the doctor's throat. With his free hand, the rogue conjures a knife and raises his arm and Stephen attempts to shove the man off when he brings it down.
A loud thwap causes both men to freeze, but the sorcerer supreme recovers at the sight of webbing holding back the rogue's arm. Stephen smirks and grabs the web, wrapping it around the man once he successfully shoves him off, and Peter jumps down next to the doctor as he reaches out and extracts the rogue's personal magic.
"How dare you! You have no right to take what is rightfully mine!"
Stephen rolls his eyes as he dismisses the mirror dimension. "Cub." Peter webs the rogue's mouth. "I am the Sorcerer Supreme. It is my job to take magic from those who use it against innocents and with ill will." He then looks over at Peter. "How long have you been here?"
Peter shrugs. "Long enough to know you didn't care about this guy's name."
Stephen chuckles as he draws a portal and sends the man through it to Kamar-Taj, leaving him for the other masters to deal with. Peter deactivates his suit and the sorcerer quickly notices the oversized sweater the teen is wearing as his own, and has to keep himself from smiling like an idiot. Peter looked to be swimming in Stephen's sweater, but he somehow made it look adorable.
"Want to tell me why you're wearing my sweater?"
"I found it."
"Give it back."
"No way! It's mine now!" Peter climbs the wall when Stephen reaches out and he grins. "It's my security blanket!"
The sorcerer raises an inquisitive eyebrow. "How so?"
"Smells like you."
"And what will you do when the smell wears off?" Stephen asks as he massages his temples.
"Switch it with another one." The teen's says as if it were obvious, and really...it kind of was.
"Steal your father's clothes."
"I do. I have one of his shirts!"
Whatever. He didn't really care. If borrowing his clothes comforted the teen, he would happily throw what little bit he had in his closet at him. Although he wouldn't actually admit that out loud because then more than one sweater or shirt would go missing at a time.
Stephen walks up the stairs toward the Sanctum library as Peter follows across the ceiling, and he sighs when he finds Wong sitting at the table with his earphones in. He calls out his name a couple of times before finally waving his hand, using his magic to pull the earbuds out. Wong looks up from his book at the sudden interruption and Stephen folds his arms.
"I could have used your help a few minutes ago."
"With what?"
The doctor rolls his eyes. "With the rogue sorcerer that walked through the front door."
"You look fine."
"So Tony says." Wong rolls his eyes. "I was almost stabbed. I'm only okay because of Peter."
The librarian raises an eyebrow. "Is there a problem I'm not seeing?"
"Only that I unknowingly dragged my son into the mirror dimension."
"Totally cool by the way." Peter pipes up from his crouch on the ceiling, making Wong jump.
"Stephen, we all know you wouldn't let anything happen to him. He's obviously fine and so are you."
"Wong, hitting in me is one thing but Peter-" Stephen laughs when the other sorcerer throws a book at him in retaliation, and he side steps the second book as he answers his cell phone when it rings. "Yes?"
"Hey Wifey...you in New York by any chance?" Tony asks and Stephen hears a faint explosion in the background.
"At the Sanctum. That better have not been the lab."
"I wish it was the lab. No Mama Bear, just another typical alien invasion. I'm assuming the baby is with you and we could use a couple of extra hands."
"Ugh. Do I have to? I just dealt with a rogue."
"Some of them are using magic. Wanda and Loki can only do so much."
Hanging up, Stephen sighs and opens a portal, which Peter jumps through with a whoop (no doubt overhearing the phone call with his enhanced hearing), and the sorcerer ducks the third book Wong throws at him before following Peter. The teen was already swinging around and webbing up some aliens that the others were fighting, giving them the moments rest they needed before having to dodge and deflect the attack of another alien, leaving Stephen to find the creatures using magic.
To be fair, it was pretty chaotic. Bruce actually had to let the Hulk out and Stephen had to clone himself to deal with the multitudes of magic-using aliens so he could take the risky moments to make sure the rest of the team was okay. He already had to conjure a temporary shield between Steve and an alien that was trying to blitz him from behind when the captain was occupied with two others.
The fight was going rather well otherwise. Thor found their ships just outside the atmosphere and was taking care of those while they took care of the creatures left over on the ground, and everyone would be able to walk away without a scratch. That was until one of the remaining bigger aliens threw a car at Bucky and he managed to dodge it. It continued to fly across the street and the winter soldier looks ahead of it to find it flying right toward Stephen. His actual physical form, not one of his clones.
"STRANGE! Look out!"
Stephen looks away from the alien he just killed and once he catches a glimpse of the car, he attempts to conjure a shield while his armor starts to cover his body. It was too late though. The car crashes into him, sending both the human and automobile over the nearby railing and into the ocean, and Bucky quickly subdues the still approaching alien with his metal arm as he presses the comm piece in his ear with his free hand.
"Someone better be a good swimmer because Strange just got thrown into the ocean! By a car that was meant for me."
"Where?" Steve asks worriedly.
"Directly behind me."
"I see you. I'm getting him."
Another splash confirms the captain's dive into the water just as the alien in Bucky's metal grip throws off the soldier. He lands on his back as Peter swings over him and in between them, and the eyes on the teen's suit turn red before the metal legs come out of his suit and one darts out to stab the alien.
Then again.
And again.
Peter went ballistic on the alien and it took both Bucky and Sam to pull him away from the now very dead alien corpse. While they calm him down, Steve surfaces with the unconscious sorcerer and Tony yells for someone to calm Bruce as he flies over to help them onto dry land. Once they get Stephen onto his back, the billionaire's helmet recedes and he leans down to listen for and signs of breathing. There was none, but he still had a heartbeat so he started mouth-to-mouth.
"Why the fuck didn't the cloak do anything?!"
Steve wipes water out of his eyes. "It tried, but it risked strangling him."
Tony says nothing as he continues his mouth-to-mouth resuscitation until Stephen finally chokes and turns his head to the side to cough up the water in his lungs. Steve looks over the sorcerer and nudges Tony when he finds shaking hands and the billionaire stores away the rest of his armor to grab one of the hands an gently massage it.
"Hey Thumbelina! You busy?" Tony asks.
A grunt then, "Not anymore. What's up?" Scott asks.
"It's your dream come true. You get to hold my wife's hand...well massage it really. The water was cold enough to chill the pins in his hands so they're hurting right now. Cap is too cold to help so you guys switch."
Steve pats Tony's shoulder and runs off when Scott arrives, and the other man drops to his knees and takes Stephen's other hand, mimicking the genius's ministrations. "Doesn't shortstack usually help with this?"
"Barnes and Bird-boy are a little busy trying to keep him from making another pincushion out of the alien that did this. Which is very dead now by the way." Tony stops his massage when Stephen's hands finally stop shaking and he reaches up to brush wet hair away from his forehead. "Does anything hurt?"
"S-Side." Stephen forces out through chattering teeth.
Tony and Scott check both sides and the ex-criminal points out a piece of metal buried in Stephen's side and they carefully roll him onto his uninjured side. Scott carefully wraps his hand around the metal and the doctor hisses in pain as Ant-man looks up at Tony. The billionaire nods after checking with FRIDAY to make sure it hadn't hit any organs, and Scott pulls out the shard leaving Tony to close the wound with a medicated web that Bruce and Peter had designed. It was only temporary, but it would hold until they got him back to the Med-bay and Bruce could see to him.
"Anything else?"
"No...j-just cold."
Tony taps the sorcerer's bracelet, and the nanotech quickly covers Stephen's body. "FRIDAY, have Victor turn on his suit's heaters. Low heat."
The heater kicks on as the Avengers join them, the last of the aliens killed, and with some help they get Stephen onto the Quinjet and to the Med-bay. Bruce properly cleans and dresses the man's side injury and puts him on an IV as a precaution against any bacteria from the water he swallowed, and gently but forcefully shoves Peter into a chair when he doesn't stop his pacing. Tony, on the other hand, grabs an extra blanket from the closet and lays it over Stephen's sleeping form.
"He'll be fine. I want to keep him here overnight just in case though."
"Thanks Brucie Bear."
Bruce nods and keeps himself busy at one of the holographic screens across the room, Peter plays on his phone after getting his chair as close as possible to the bed, and Tony sits in his own chair with a Starkpad and kicks his feet up onto another empty chair. A couple of hours pass in silence until Stephen finally blinks heavy eyelids open, and he groans quietly.
"I've definitely had better days." Peter's head snaps up at his words. "I've also had much worse."
Tony could tell that Peter was holding himself back from climbing onto the bed to cling onto Stephen. The sorcerer noticed too because he slowly pats the side of the bed on his uninjured side, and after getting an okay from Bruce, he carefully climbs onto the bed and tucks himself into Stephen's side.
"Spider-Baby here actually used Instant Kill."
"You don't want to see the other guy." Peter mumbles into Stephen's collarbone.
The sorcerer huffs. "I vaguely recall your father saying something about a pincushion."
Tony snorts. "Maybe at first. Now the correct description would be Swiss cheese."
Stephen sighs. "That was an image I did not need."
A comfortable silence passes for a few moments.
"Tony?"
"Yeah babe?"
"Is there anyone responsible with the team?"
Both Tony and Peter laugh. "Rhodey." The billionaire answers.
"Oh thank god."