Written for the 2019 Marvel Rarepair Bang. There's art associated with this fic as well, which I would link to, but of course this website doesn't allow links. If you hunt it down on my tumblr (linked in my profile) you can see the awesome art!
Let everything happen to you
Beauty and terror
Just keep going
No feeling is final
Rainer Maria Rilke
Everything was black and red and white and loud soft loud soft insanity, static in his ears, static in his brain, fade in out pain and then no more fading out, just pain, more and more of it.
Machine noise. Screaming. Wailing.
"Jesus Christ, Stephen—"
Why didn't you listen to me—
"What the hell did this?"
"Trust me, you don't want to know."
Bodies. Death. Kree. And more. Skrull. Krylor. Xandarian. Damn.
Damn.
move, out of the way, it's coming, you brought this
your fault
your fault
"He's flatlining."
"Even if I can stop the bleeding, he's going to need a transfusion—"
"Yeah, that might be a problem…"
Bleeding, he was bleeding, his brother was bleeding, his brother was
no
Stop.
Another machine scream of warning. "I'm losing him."
this was what magic was for
So reach for it, make it do what you want, it's yours, Loki (that was Mother's voice), it's not about bending it to your will, it's about finding it, becoming it.
Come on, Master of Magic.
(that wasn't his mother's voice, that was the voice that had kept him alive after The Fall, but it might as well have been her, she was the one who'd kept him on this side of the event horizon, who'd kept him from losing himself completely)
Black and white, pain, static in his brain. A little green. Blue at the edges of his awareness. A little less red.
And then just black.
Loki didn't know it was possible for everything to hurt this much and to still be alive.
That was a lie.
He'd been in terrible pain before and he'd made it through. Maybe not intact, but close enough. Of course, maybe this was death. But it didn't sound the way he'd always imagined Hel would. There was a clock ticking somewhere, and—a kettle whistling? It didn't feel much like Hel, either. Again, only the way he'd imagined it. It had never been high on his list of places to visit, even though he'd assumed that it was where he'd be ending up after his death. No, he was pretty certain that right now, he was on a bed, his arms resting on a scratchy wool blanket. And furthermore, he thought the bright warmth on his hands and eyelids was the sun.
The sounds were a bit harder to test, but the rest of it was something he could confirm or deny with little effort. Though, he had to be honest, the idea of opening his eyes seemed herculean.
He breathed in. It hurt. But he scrunched his eyes shut tighter, told himself it was only pain—and what was more of that?—and filled his lungs as best he could.
And was rewarded for it with a coughing fit. Spasms of agony ripped through him and all that effort to take the breath was instantly nullified as he choked and wheezed. It took a few minutes for it to stop, by which time, opening his eyes really felt like too much effort.
How defeatist.
Gritting his teeth (those hurt too, somehow), he forced his eyes open, then forced them to stay open.
He was in a bed, in a room, with the curtains wide open at the sides of a window, through which the sun was streaming.
And he wasn't alone.
"Good morning," said the man who was sitting, hands folded in his lap, in a chair to the side of the bed. "Actually, afternoon. How are you feeling?"
Loki wet his lips, then pressed them together. There was a book open in the man's lap, as though he'd been sitting there for awhile, keeping himself entertained while Loki lay unconscious.
The idea didn't thrill him.
The man was still looking at him, expecting an answer. Or perhaps trying to ascertain whether Loki could answer. It was an open question. Breathing and opening his eyes were one thing. Speaking? Possibly beyond his ability.
For the moment that it took to gather his reserves of strength, he studied the man. Short brown hair, gray at the temples. Neither old nor young by human standards. Somewhere in between. His expression was entirely unreadable. He was dressed in blue and black in a robe that was belted around the waist, and a pair of leather gloves were draped over one of the arms of the chair. There was some kind of amulet, shaped like an eye, with intricate metal-work in its center, around his neck, resting on his chest. Of course, none of that mattered all that much—the only thing that mattered was the power that Loki could feel radiating off him.
This man was a sorcerer.
Shit. Odin's beard, blood and guts, Norns help him, was it—?
Loki reached with his mind for the Tesseract in the pocket of magical space he kept it hidden in. If it was gone, if he'd lost it during the battle and the resultant hours…or days…or who knew how long, of unconsciousness, then—
But his senses came up against the cube's power. Still there. Safe. He relaxed, his shoulders unknotting just a little. The relief at finding the Tesseract still hidden and on his person gave him the strength to finally respond to the man, "Bad. Very bad."
His voice was hoarse, but at least it worked. The man nodded, "You did almost die, so that's not totally unexpected." Holding out his hands, he made a circle with them about six inches across and said, "You had a hole that big in your chest. Had to do a skin graft. I hope you didn't have any scars you were particularly attached to." When Loki just stared at him, he stood up, gestured, and asked, "Mind if I check on it?"
Loki shook his head. Easier not to talk.
The man got to his feet and approached, then gently lifted the blanket and sheet away from Loki's chest. He hadn't even realized he wasn't wearing a shirt. The man studied him. Loki tried to look at the damage that had been done to him. His memories of how it had happened were hazy. It was too much effort to lift his head, so he just let it flop back onto the pillow and watched the man's face. After a minute, he moved his hand so he could put it on Loki's skin. It was enough time to see that his hand had a pronounced tremor. Whoever had done the surgery that had saved Loki's life, it probably hadn't been him. At least, hopefully not. He'd never been particularly vain about his scars, but a hand that shook that badly would probably leave a nasty one.
After feeling around for a minute, the man nodded and said, "Looks good. It's healing well."
As he took a step away from the bed, Loki watched him, furrowing his brow, then asked, "Where am I?"
Pulling his gloves on, the man said, "The New York Sanctum. I was…advised against bringing you here, but there weren't a lot of options. I think the Feds might still be after you, and leaving you at the hospital for them to find you seemed a little too un-Hippocratic Oath." When Loki stared at him blankly, he said, "The Hippocratic Oath? Do no harm?" This didn't clarify anything, so he shrugged. "My name is Doctor Stephen Strange, by the way."
Swallowing to try to make his voice come out as slightly less of a croak, Loki said, "You're a sorcerer." His voice was still croaky, so, chalk that up as a failure. There had probably been tubes down his throat while the doctors had operated on him, but this felt like it was the result of something else.
He remembered screaming.
With effort, he made himself stop remembering.
Nodding, the man—Stephen Strange—said, "Yes. My order protects Earth from threats that are slightly more…metaphysical, let's say, than aliens or robots."
Loki's guard had gone up without him realizing it. Or rather, Loki's guard never went down, but this put him on high alert. This man's Hippocratic Oath and doing no harm might not extend to someone like him. Though—hadn't he said he thought someone was still after Loki? Did Strange know who he was?
After a moment, Strange said, "Get some more rest. I'm glad you woke up. It means you probably will again." This last part was added wryly and Loki couldn't help snorting. Trying to, at least. On the exhale, he started coughing again.
As Strange opened the door to leave, Loki managed to stop him with, "Wait." When Strange turned, Loki said, "You didn't ask who I am." Bravado and contrariness made him say it as though his identity was something to be proud of, when nothing could be further from the truth.
Tilting his head, Strange said, "Because I know who you are, Loki of Asgard."
Loki swallowed. His throat felt scraped raw, like he was coughing up shards of glass. "Don't call me that. Asgard is gone." Not exactly true, and yet, somehow also a deeper truth than words could ever capture. "At least, it might as well be."
"Fine." Strange regarded him. "Just Loki, then? The architect of the Battle of New York."
At that, Loki laughed a little, which turned into another cough. "Not the architect," he finally choked out. Taking several deep breaths, he added, "Just a fool." It bore thinking about, though. Who he was. If not Loki of Asgard, then what? He would never call himself an Odinson again, no matter his bond with Thor.
There was something he thought he should be thinking about, but he remembered that he didn't want to remember.
So he didn't. Thor was his brother, but Loki wasn't an Odinson. And he wouldn't take the name of the biological father who had cast him out to die.
Just Loki, then.
Strange was impossible to read and Loki wasn't exactly at his peak mentally at that moment. Still, he couldn't help trying, and failing, to do it, even though he couldn't see past the man's faint smile. It was a smile that gave nothing away, which was something Loki was quite good at himself. He wasn't sure if he respected the fact that Strange was playing a game he knew so well or if it rankled him. Of course, the only thing he was really sure of was that he was in pain, and increasingly, that he just wanted to sleep.
Resting his hands against his sides, Strange watched Loki, then said, "The fact that you recognize it makes me think it isn't the case anymore."
What, that he wasn't a fool? Strange was wrong there. But the effort to tell him so was too much. As he closed his eyes, it occurred to him that he had no reason to trust this man, that letting his guard down to fall asleep was a Very Bad Idea, but his body simply couldn't hang on to consciousness. He slipped away into sleep, registering the click of the door closing behind Strange just before there was nothing but black.