"Hey, Doc!"
Strange closed the portal to Queens behind Peter Parker, using the opportunity to take a deep breath before turning to address the...raccoon?...that had called him.
"Yes, Mister...?"
"Rocket. No 'Mr.' to it," the raccoon replied, rolling a shoulder to limber it up. "We finished blowing up all the aliens. Now what do we do?"
Strange looked around for a second, at a loss.
Another task for Quill's crew? Already?
He felt like he'd just barely sent them off ten minutes ago...had that much time already gone by?
But his confused hesitation was doing nothing to abate the impatiently tapping foot of the tiny mammal, and Strange cast a quick glance about to see if he could make up another task before they began interrogating him about what he'd been doing this whole time.
Unfortunately, however, after a moment of looking around the otherwise deserted building, he still came up blank. There was simply nothing here that needed to be done.
At least, not by this particular group.
"Find something constructive for yourselves to do around here. I have to assist Dr. Foster with setting up her research area," he sighed at length.
Until they figured out if Maximoff's dimension was accessible, helping the scientist would have to be his top priority. Everything else hinged entirely on that.
Strange gave the space group a quick nod to dismiss them, planning to beat a hasty retreat to the lab before they could ask questions, but it would seem that luck was not on his side today, and the green woman called his name before he could fully turn to leave.
"Did you find the girl?" she demanded, and Strange bit back a groan as he turned to address the alien crew once more.
"Yes, and no. We found where her power is emanating from, and are looking into how we can-"
"So you didn't actually find her yet," the blue-skinned cyborg cut him off sharply, her expression hardening into a dark scowl.
"...not in person, no. But we know where she is."
"Why can't you just go get her then, if you know where she is?" Quill frowned.
"We found a large magical force that is covering part of an abandoned city like a dome, and as far as we can tell Maximoff is inside, but we have no sure way to transverse the magical barrier. Which is why I need to get Dr. Foster settled. Now if you don't mind-" he said sharply, stepping pointedly around the group of them.
"Okay, but are we all just supposed to stand around here with our thumbs up our asses until you figure out how to get in?" Quill asked, moving to block him. "Shouldn't we plan on attacking Thanos, now that he doesn't have the stones to help him?"
"Last I checked, he still had most of his army intact," Strange replied through gritted teeth.
"So we start picking off more of the stragglers," the man countered. "Eventually he'll run out of cannon fodder, and then we can get him."
"Or, your attacks reveal our location, and he sends what remains of his army to kill us while we are weak and scrambling," Strange sighed."It's not safe to move on Thanos yet. You are all to stay here and wait for my orders."
"But how is that helping anything?" the tall, blue, tattooed man interjected. "Shouldn't we at least be doing something useful?"
"The most useful thing you can be doing right now is letting me assist Dr. Foster," he replied a bit sharply.
"Or, we could get some decent firepower in the works for when we next face off against the maniac," Rocket countered. "Seeing as you don't actually have any idea where our backup is."
And as much as he wanted to, Strange couldn't deny that.
"You are welcome to build any weaponry you would like," he replied a bit sarcastically, just barely resisting a comment about the racoon being old enough to make his own decisions.
"I don't need your damn permission, I need resources," the little creature explained slowly through gritted teeth, like Strange was especially dense. "Not sure how you do things here, but last I checked, you don't have any matter materalizers, and I've yet to find any stone tools lying around for us to use."
It took every ounce of Stephen's willpower not to roll his eyes.
"Stark has a lab, I'm sure you can find something to entertain yourself with," he sighed.
"Yeah, sure. I'll go play with the primitive baby toys for a bit," the racoon shrugged. "Don't see how that's going to help anything, but maybe if we're lucky I'll be able to scrap together a big enough pile of gunpowder and cannon balls to wipe out Thanos from here with your trebuchets."
Strange just barely resisted a sarcastic reply, reminding himself that standing around waiting would be difficult for a group that often handled their own problems quickly and with force.
"All I ask is that you don't break anything too expensive, and that you try not to blow anything up," he conceded, sweeping a hand out in the general direction of Stark's lab. "And please try not to need me for the next hour or so."
"Didn't need you to start with," the racoon muttered a little sourly, but thankfully he let the subject drop - moving toward the lab with the others following begrudgingly along behind him.
Strange watched them only until they were out of sight before shaking himself out of his distraction and whirling in a blaze of red velvet to go find Dr. Foster.
Author's Note: Life got hectic and I've been forgetting to post, but I'm not dead yet, I swear!