Chapter Text
In another lonely universe
We're laying side by side
No one's hurt, and no one's cursed
And no one needs to hide
- Perfect by Depeche Mode
Loki
The Statesman broke.
This was never meant to be Loki's escape. It was meant to be his grave. It might still be, but not yet. Not before he was certain the remaining survivors were safe. Not before he was certain Thor was safe. He deserved this death. They did not.
Metal tore. Bulkheads crumpled in on themselves. Alarms bled together into one continuous wail. Oxygen hissed out through ruptured seams, dragging heat and sound and breath with it.
Loki stumbled down the flooded corridor, boots splashing through water and coolant. The air tasted like metal and smoke; every breath scraped his throat raw. The emergency lighting flickered green over twisted bodies—Asgardian refugees who had already survived the end of their world, only to die here.
He stepped over a young man he recognized from the lower decks. Dead eyes red with ruptured capillaries. Neck at a wrong angle.
Loki did not let himself look too long. If he stopped, he would start counting, and if he started counting, he would start breaking. The Black Order had been relentless and efficient. They were here for a purpose.
They were here for the Tesseract.
And for him.
What they had gotten was an illusion. A mirage. A story they could report back to Thanos with confidence. The turncoat Loki Odinson was dead. The stone was not on him. What they got was a lie.
He rounded the corner into the main artery of the ship—and his heart stopped.
Thor was on the floor.
The corridor looked like the aftermath of a storm god’s nightmare. Panels blown out, walls cratered, scorch marks burned across the metal. Thor lay at the center of it, half-buried under a fallen bulkhead, bloodied and unmoving.
“Thor!” Loki choked, voice shredding its way out of his chest.
He dropped to his knees and grabbed at the metal then pulled back with a hiss, his fingertips and palms burned. He reached again, ignoring the blisters bubbling from his skin and heaved the bulkhead up.
“Come on,” he hissed through his teeth.
The bulkhead shifted. He forced it aside with a ragged cry and dragged Thor free.
Thor’s face was ashen under smeared soot and blood. His remaining eye was swollen shut. Blood trickled from his nose and ears. It soaked into the blond of his beard like rust.
“No,” Loki whispered. “No, no…”
He pressed shaking fingers to Thor’s temple, searching for something—heat, energy, the familiar hum of power. Instead, he felt it: a wrongness radiating out from within. A pulsing, swelling pressure that made his own head throb in sympathy.
He did not need healers or machines to know this was bad. He had seen it before—on battlefields, in prisons, in back-alley duels that left fighters convulsing on the ground, bodies still breathing while something important inside them had gone dark.
Thor’s fingers twitched once. His limbs jerked with a brief violent spasm that sent a crackle of static through the air. Tiny arcs of lightning snapped over his skin, biting Loki’s hands. The smell of ozone overwhelmed him.
Then Thor went limp again.
The corridor shook beneath them as something massive tore through the ship’s hull. The harsh voices of the Black Order were growing distant now, retreating, their task complete. The ship was left to break apart around the survivors like an afterthought.
Loki’s breath came fast and shallow.
He could conjure daggers and phantoms and shackles. But he had never learned healing.
His mother had tried to teach him, but he had resisted. He was already thought a preening half-man (though he was still a boy at the time) for learning sorcery at all. He did not need to give the warriors-in-training in the yard more fodder to use against him. Now he regretted his weakness. How he had let his fear of insult keep him from learning such a valuable art. If Thor died… if he did not recover, Loki would have no one to blame but himself.
Loki slid his arm under Thor’s shoulders, gritting his teeth as he hauled him up. Thor’s weight was familiar. Loki staggered, nearly fell, then shoved his shoulder harder under Thor’s.
“Come on, you oaf—we are not finished,” he huffed. “Do you hear me? You do not get to die now. Not after everything.”
The emergency pods were already launching, ejecting out into the void in a panicked, half-coordinated exodus. Loki stumbled towards the last one that still had power, dragging Thor like dead weight, ignoring the tremor in his legs and the way his lungs burned.
Asgardian refugees crowded into the cramped pod—faces he knew, faces he did not. Fear made all of them look the same: wide-eyed, hollow, waiting for judgment.
They parted for him and Thor. Not because he was their prince, Loki knew, but because Thor was their king.
They sealed the hatch just as the Statesman split behind them, the sound of shearing metal swallowed by vacuum. Loki pressed his palm to the control panel, forcing his magic into it. The pod shuddered, then lurched forward, flung out into the cold.
As space swallowed the burning ship, Loki held Thor against him, fingers digging into the leather of Thor’s ruined armor like he could anchor his brother’s soul through sheer force.
Loki bowed his head, hiding his face from the others on the pod. They had endured enough. The last thing they needed was to see their prince’s tears.
The pod crashed into icy water and skipped like a stone before grinding to a halt near the rocky Norwegian shore. The impact tore a groan from Loki and knocked several Asgardians off their feet. Systems sparked and died in a mess of smoke and flickering lights.
The hatch stuttered, then wheezed open to grey sky and cold wind.
The air outside was salt and chill and distant birds, a far cry from the burning metal stench of the Statesman. Loki dragged Thor out first, boots slipping on algae-slick rock, and lowered him onto the uneven shore. Sea spray hit his face, cold enough to sting.
Thor lay motionless, chest rising and falling under torn armor. Each breath sounded like it had to fight its way through a storm.
Asgardians spilled out behind Loki, shivering in thin clothes and half-armor, blinking against the daylight. Pods were still landing while others bobbed in the water, their cargo of traumatized refugees long deposited on the shore. Loki took a mental inventory. A thousand at most—assuming all the pods were filled to capacity. He knew they were not. Less than a thousand dirty and battered refugees. All that remained of a realm.
This place was supposed to be their new home. A promise Odin had made in his final moments after Loki and Thor had found him in New York—disoriented, paranoid, reeking—the effects of Loki’s spell harsher than even Loki had realized—and Odin, his power still formidable, had transported them there. Odin had prophesied this moment and named their future.
Their new home. Earth. Norway. A shore that was not theirs, under a sky that was not theirs, on a world Loki had once tried—and failed—to conquer.
Loki felt sick. For a moment, the world narrowed to the sound of the waves and Thor’s uneven breathing.
Then he heard the whine of repulsors.
He looked up.
A red-and-gold figure streaked toward them, landing with a heavy thud that sent pebbles skittering. The glossy armor panels shifted, eyes lit white. Tony Stark.
Loki’s hand twitched, instinctively searching for a dagger he did not have. A dagger he had last seen buried in some Black Order corpse.
“Okay,” Stark said, seemingly to himself. The helmet folded back to reveal his face. His eyes scanned over the scene, over what remained of Loki’s people, like he was taking inventory. “Not what I was expecting when I told F.R.I.D.A.Y. to arm the missiles…”
A few seconds later, another figure approached from higher up the rocks—Natasha Romanoff, dressed in tactical blacks, red hair tied back. She moved with the careful stillness of someone who could kill you without you knowing she was there, a quality Loki would have (and had) appreciated under different circumstances.
The radio clipped to her shoulder buzzed with activity. Voices chiming in with callsigns and codes. Aircraft flew above, their searchlights skittering over the refugees. Loki winced when one of the lights landed on him and stayed. A baby wailed behind him. He looked over his shoulder in concern, but the child was in a family member’s arms—as safe as any of them could hope to be. When Loki looked back it was into the barrel of a firearm.
He was too tired to summon a smirk. “I take it you remember me,” he wheezed.
“You did leave an impression,” Romanoff said, not lowering her firearm. Her eyes flickered down to Thor before retraining on Loki.
There was a hiss and clank as Stark came to stand beside Romanoff.
Loki’s first instinct was to straighten up. To gather himself. To try to appear, if not in control, then at least less pathetic than he was certain he looked. Then Thor seized in his arms and even the illusion of bluster left him. He cast his eyes to the ground and tried to quell the tremor in his hands.
“Help him,” Loki rasped. “Please. Do what you will with me, but please help him.” The baby’s wail was louder now. He heard others crying as well. Adults as lost as orphans. “Help them, please.”
A faint tremor shivered along Thor’s arm; tiny arcs of electricity crawled over his skin before guttering out. Loki flinched.
“Tony?” said Romanoff. Even Loki could hear the questions disguised in the one word.
Tony exhaled. “Yeah,” he said quietly. “I’m not losing another friend… not today.”
Romanoff holstered her firearm then turned her head, speaking into her comm. “We’ve got Asgardian… civilians on the Norwegian coast, one critical. We need transports. Medical first, then containment.”
Loki sagged, all the fight bleeding out of him at once. He sank to his knees beside Thor, fingers curling around his brother’s hand.
“I’m here,” Loki whispered in their old tongue. “I won’t leave you.”
“Medical’s almost here.” Stark’s voice sounded tinny. He had reactivated his helmet.
Loki gave him a small nod of acknowledgement, but he did not move.
He stayed anchored to his brother’s side, hands shaking, the sound of approaching transports and Stark’s low, tense muttering a distant buzz.
For the first time in a very long time, Loki of Asgard knelt not in mockery, not in chains, but in genuine supplication.
Tony
The corridor leading to medical was too quiet.
Tony hated quiet. Quiet meant he could hear himself think. After New York, Sokovia, Siberia, and everything in between, Tony’s thoughts were as loud as a war zone. Silence made everything worse.
And lately, it made him think about how fucking Looney-Tunes classic his life had become.
Six months ago, right after the refugees crashed in Norway—after Thor’s limp body lit up the medical bay with involuntary lightning arcs—Tony had seriously considered sending Loki to the Raft. He had the legal justification. The moral, too. Loki had tried to level Manhattan. Killed people. Terrorized a city. Tony still dreamt about it burning.
But Loki had been kneeling on a Norwegian beach, soaked and shaking, Thor half-dead in his arms, and Tony had stopped himself.
Something in him had cracked sideways.
He’d told himself it was strategic—Loki might be needed if Thor woke up violent, confused…
But that’d been a lie.
The truth was simpler: Tony didn’t know if he could survive putting another person in a cage. Yeah, the fucked-up-ness wasn’t lost on him. He sent his actual friends to the Raft. Heroes. People who’d bled for Earth locked up because they wouldn’t sign a fucking piece of paper. Meanwhile Loki—kneel-you-pathetic-mortals—Odinson was walking around the New Avengers Facility (NAF for short), with not so much as an ankle bracelet.
Yeah… the fucked-up-ness really wasn’t lost on him.
He reached the room. The door slid open.
The room was dim. Cold. Sterile. Everything Thor wasn’t.
The low machines hummed softly. Oxygen hissed through tubing. An IV pump clicked on rhythm.
Thor lay at the center of it all—massive, still, and diminished in a way that felt almost sacrilegious. His skin was pale. His face sunken. The bandage that’d been taped over his missing eye had left contours around the socket. His hair, what hadn’t been shaved away for surgeries, spread across the pillow like spilled gold. The monitors cast soft blue light across his face, which twitched now and then with the residual storms flickering under his skin.
Hulk sat beside the bed. Oh yeah… there was that. More proof that he’d been lying to himself when he said he might need Loki for god-control if Thor ever woke up.
It’d taken a few days, but Natasha was eventually able to coax the story out of the Hulk about how he’d ended up on an escape pod with a bunch of Asgardians. The guy should really write a memoir: Hulking Out: The Story of How One Earth Hero Smashed His Way Through the Galaxy and into Our Hearts. Tony would write the forward, obviously.
Hulk was hunched in a reinforced chair, massive hands folded in his lap, eyes fixed on Thor with uncanny gentleness. Hulk didn’t like hospitals. But he liked Thor. Or maybe he just recognized someone else lost inside a body that wouldn’t answer.
Brain damage. Spinal cord damage. Neurological storms. A coma deep enough the machines had to remind his body to breathe. Yeah. It was bad. It was fucking bad. Like Thor couldn’t wake up—like he might never wake up—fucking bad.
Tony’s eyes roamed to the side of the bed opposite of Hulk. Loki sat slumped forward in a chair, his elbows on his knees, his hands hanging limp, dark hair falling into his eyes. He wore human clothes—black slacks and a dark green sweater pulled tight across his thin frame. Terrestrial. Pedestrian, even, except he'd taken to keeping his nails black after seeing one of the nurses with polish. Oh, and he didn’t wear shoes—like ever.
Tony still wasn’t used to the sight. He cleared his throat. “You know you look like you’re five minutes away from fronting an emo band, right?” he said.
Loki didn’t look up. “Your attempts at humor grow more desperate by the day.”
“That was pretty civil coming from you. Looks like I’m not the only one running out of material.”
Loki’s jaw tightened, the muscle twitching sharply. Tony knew the tells now—months of watching Loki unravel had taught him every crack and fissure in the god’s carefully sharpened exterior.
He also knew Loki was one snapped nerve away from either crying or throwing a chair through the wall.
Tony wasn’t sure which he’d preferred.
He walked to stand beside Hulk, arms crossed, studying Thor’s readings. “Anything new?” he asked quietly.
Loki let out a breath that wasn’t quite a laugh. “Marvelous question. Delightfully optimistic. Sadly, entirely pointless.”
“So… no.”
“No.”
Tony rubbed at his jaw. “His ICP is stable, at least.”
“For now.” Loki’s voice was flat. “Until the next seizure.”
As if summoned, a faint crackle of static danced over Thor’s arm. Hulk rumbled anxiously, leaning forward slightly. Loki tensed, half-rising from his seat before the sparks fizzled out.
Tony put a hand on Hulk’s shoulder. “He’s okay, big guy.”
Hulk huffed, unconvinced.
Loki sank back into his seat, staring at Thor like he was memorizing the shape of him before he disappeared.
Tony sighed. “Look, Black Parade—”
Loki looked like he wanted to throw him through a wall. “You are insufferable.”
“Yeah,” Tony said, “but it’s part of my charm.”
Loki scowled, but some of the tension drained out of his shoulders. Tony smirked to himself. He wasn’t good at comforting people. Mostly he annoyed them until they forgot to be miserable.
“Yeah, so. I might have something new. Might,” Tony continued.
Loki turned to him fully now. “Your experts dropped like flies. Your machines, which hold undoubtedly superior intelligence to your own, have produced nothing.”
Two months ago, Tony would have taken that as an insult. Now it just sounded like facts. The experts he’d consulted had dropped like flies. None of them had shit to offer. Nothing that his machines (Loki was referring to Stark Industries AI’s) hadn’t already come up with. Actually, far from being insulted, Tony kinda took it as a compliment that Loki thought his AI’s were that smart.
“I’ve been digging into fringe neurological research,” Tony began. “We’re talking stuff way outside the FDA-approved handbook. But apparently there were these two up-and-coming doctors, fresh out of med school, who had some ideas good enough to land them a Rand Fellowship—”
“I have no idea what that is,” said Loki, interrupting.
Tony waved his complaint away. “It’s big. Like the equivalent of a Stark Grant for engineering, but, you know, medicine. Trust me.”
Loki nodded.
Yeah… that was also new. Tony still wasn’t used to Loki’s trust. He’d given it slowly at first, but as Tony ignored the experts when they said nothing could be done, insisted they keep Thor on the machines even though his seizures kept blowing them, promised they wouldn’t give up on Thor and kept keeping that promise, Loki had let his walls fall.
“The point is, they were looking at head trauma—brain trauma—gunshots, car accidents, shrapnel… serious damage, and trying to repair it by stimulating neural regeneration, but not in like a: let’s just let cells multiply and see what happens kind of way. They were using surgical techniques to remove damaged tissue, model the tissue removed, then piece things back together with cloned tissue modeled after the real thing but with the damaged bits fixed. Seriously cutting-edge shit for the time.”
Hulk grunted and Tony got the impression that if Banner were in the driver’s seat, he’d have something to say. A problem for another day.
“Did it work?” Loki asked.
Tony exhaled.
Of course, Loki would ask that. Perceptive as ever. Too smart for his own damn good. Fuck, sometimes Tony really missed talking to Thor.
“No,” Tony admitted because he’d learned the hard way in the last six months that it’s real fucking hard to lie to the liar. “But I wouldn’t put it on them. They were close. I mean real close. Everything I read said their theories were sound. They were just ahead of their time. The technology, especially in imaging and cloning, just wasn’t there yet.”
“So, what’s different now?” said Loki.
Yep, really missing Thor. He could go for someone who wasn’t smart enough to poke holes in his latest desperate plan. In short, he could go for a himbo right now. “Me. Obviously,” said Tony.
Loki raised an eyebrow.
“The ideas were sound. The skill was there. The tech wasn’t. Well, I’m Mister Technology.” Loki didn’t look convinced. Yeah. Couldn’t really blame him. “Look, I’m not going to pretend like this is it. I don’t know if this is it. But it’s something. It’s the first something we’ve had in weeks—”
“Where do we start?” said Loki, cutting him off. Tony could see something flash in his eyes. Hope? Or maybe just stubbornness. God the guy was stubborn… not that Tony knew anything about that—
“Well?”
“Yeah. So. Dr. Christine Palmer, Metro-General. World-class trauma surgeon. Looking at her record, kinda want to poach her permanently. F.R.I.D.A.Y.’s already reaching out.”
“I thought you said it was a pair?” said Loki.
Tony waved this away. “The other one was a neurosurgeon.” Loki gave him a look. “Yeah, I know. But when I say was, I mean was. Some kind of accident. Retired early. Not practicing anymore. I’m not saying it’s a loss, because apparently the guy was like the neurosurgeon, so it’s, yeah, a loss, but we really only need one of them to try to get us started. Palmer’s still practicing. Still brilliant. So, she’s the lead worth talking to.”
Loki nodded slowly. “I would not want you to waste your time hunting down another useless mortal.”
Tony smirked. “Aw. Look at that. You do care.”
Loki’s expression fractured—for a second—then reformed into something tired, sharp-edged, and unbearably human. “I care about him,” he whispered. He gestured towards Thor. “And I care that I have failed him.”
Tony felt that guilt in his gut. “Hey. You didn’t—”
“I did,” Loki snapped, then sagged, gripping his hair. “I did. I always do.”
Hulk growled. It sounded sympathetic.
Tony cleared his throat. “Anyway. We’ll go tomorrow. Early. Catch her before her shift starts.”
Loki nodded once, a sharp, jerky movement, and Tony knew the conversation was over. He’d learned how much Loki could take at one go, and he was clearly at his limit.
Tony flicked the lights down another notch and slipped out the door, leaving Loki in the dim glow of machines and storm light, his hand resting on his brother’s, Hulk keeping silent vigil on the other side.
Loki
Loki hated the way humanity’s lights spread across the horizon.
Earth burned too bright—garish neon, restless headlights, the scattered glow of a world that refused to sleep. From the Quinjet, the land below looked like a pulsating, living thing. Midgardians didn’t understand darkness; they tried to banish it with bulbs and screens and noise.
It was how they dealt with everything, it seemed.
Loki caught a glimpse of herself in the window. Her bleached reflection could not hide the dark circles under her eyes. She had considered glamouring them away, then decided she did not care. At least not enough to waste magic for vanity.
She had taken her female form as a precaution. Even for mortals, it had not been that long since she had laid siege to New York City. Surely, some mortals would recognize her. Tony had been clear that they were keeping the presence of the Asgardian refugees on earth under wraps.
“Don’t want to cause a panic,” he had said.
Loki, not wishing to risk bringing further harm to her people, had agreed to operate on Earth with discretion. Discretion had quickly turned to deference to Tony and Natasha. My, how far she had fallen.
She straightened her blouse. Long-sleeved, dark green, sheer, except where it would be indecent. She had paired it with a fitted black skirt, black boots that rose over her knees (footwear was required in a hospital), and a black trenchcoat that she wore open.
Tony turned slightly in his seat to look at her, giving her a once-over. Loki did not miss the appreciation in his gaze. Typical. Asgardian men had preferred her this way too. For once, she would like to meet someone who appreciated all her forms equally.
“Gotta say, you pull off the whole femme fatale look really well.”
Loki glared.
Stark raised both hands in surrender. “Compliment. Mostly.”
“No matter my form, I can still stab you.”
Tony grinned wider then winked. “Exactly.”
Loki made a feral noise low in her throat and turned back to the window, jaw tight. Truthfully, she could not decide what infuriated her more: Tony’s unrelenting sarcasm or the way some part of her now relied on it to keep from unraveling entirely. Much as she could see that Tony had begun to, if not rely on her company, certainly to seek it out.
The emptiness of the Avengers Compound—the notable absence of Rogers and Barton—had not been lost on Loki. At first, she had not cared. Then she had become mildly curious. They were Thor’s friends too, after all. When she finally did care enough to ask, Tony had deflected with sarcasm. “We had our Yoko Ono moment.” Romanoff’s explanation was more enlightening.
Tony cleared his throat. “F.R.I.D.A.Y. called earlier. Palmer’s still ghosting us.”
“She does not wish to speak to us,” Loki said distantly.
“Yeah, well, too bad. She’s gonna.”
Loki nodded. She believed Tony.
The hospital lobby stunk of antiseptic and sickness. Loki’s skin crawled. Mortality had a smell. She would never get used to it.
Tony walked beside her in his fitted charcoal suit, hair messy, eyes sharp beneath dark-tented glasses. Loki knew his exhaustion rivaled her own, and yet he still carried himself like he knew he was the smartest bastard in the room.
The receptionist looked up. “Can I help you?”
Tony flashed a tight smile. “Dr. Christine Palmer. She’s expecting us—”
The receptionist eyed him. “Name?” she asked.
“Tony Stark.”
The receptionist straightened up. “Of course, I’ll page her.”
“Thanks,” said Tony with a wink.
The receptionist looked starstruck.
Loki rolled her eyes.
It seemed, in spite of her ghosting, Palmer was indeed expecting them. She appeared moments later—scrubs dark navy, a smear of what looked like blood, but was probably ointment or disinfectant, near her shoulder. Her hair was pulled into a messy bun. She was stunning in the cutting way of someone who had no patience left for nonsense.
Her eyes landed on Tony. Immediate irritation. Then her gaze flicked to Loki. Immediate dismissal. Norns it was like traveling with Thor.
“Dr. Palmer,” Tony began, holding out his hand with his best billionaire smile.
Palmer ignored his hand, choosing to cross her arms over her chest instead. “What do you want, Mr. Stark? I already told your assistant I didn’t have time to meet.”
Tony dropped his hand. “Yeah, uh, I can see that. Sorry. Thought your shift didn’t start until later.”
Palmer’s jaw perceptibly tightened. Tony had mentioned having to hack into the hospital’s schedule, which meant that when Palmer was or was not on shift, was not public knowledge.
“It’s called being on call,” said Palmer.
“Right.”
Loki could see Tony’s eyes dart back and forth from beneath his glasses. To anyone else it might have looked like he was panicking, but Loki had come to recognize the tic as a sort of recalibration. Tony was consuming the data that flashed rapid-fire across the lenses of his glasses as he actively formed a new plan. Whatever he saw seemed to encourage him to continue.
“Right. Then I’ll get right to it,” he said. “I want to talk to you about your Rand Enterprise Fellowship. Your work on neural tissue repair specifically.”
Palmer huffed. “If your assistant had just said what you were after, I could have saved you the trip. That research went nowhere. Even if it hadn't, I have zero interest in revisiting it.”
“Digital Assistant, actually. You talked to my Digital Assistant,” said Tony, “and, see, this is what hurts me because I really thought we were building a rapport here, but I know you’re lying. You got far—like up for human trials far. Like medical journals saying you were doing some godlike shit far. Then, nothing. No more publications, no further trials. What I want to know is why?”
“We took the work as far as it could be taken. The fellowship ended, and we moved on with our careers.”
“Uh huh,” said Tony. “And by we, you mean you and Stephen Strange, right?”
Palmer froze. Loki noted the way Palmer’s shoulders tightened, barely perceptible.
Tony must have noticed it too. He pounced.
“So, if you don’t want to talk. Where can we find him?”
Palmer looked away. “He’ll give you the same answers I did.”
“Then we might as well waste his time instead of yours, right? So, where’s he hanging out these days?”
Concern flickered across Palmer’s face, so fleeting Loki almost missed it. “He’s retired. I haven’t spoken to him in well over a year. I’m not even sure I have his current number.”
Loki felt the lie ripple like a tremor in the fabric of the room. She knew well the difference between lies born from love versus those intended to harm. Palmer was not hiding the truth out of spite. Whoever this Stephen Strange was, Palmer felt the need to protect him. To lie for him.
Tony reached into his pocket and produced a business card. “Well, if you do hear from him, or if you change your mind—call me.”
“I won’t,” Palmer said coldly, not reaching for the card.
Tony placed it on a nearby counter anyway.
Palmer glanced at it then turned on her heel and marched off, leaving the card where it lay.
Loki watched her walk away—back straight, chin high, shoulders set like she’d just defended a fortress.
Loki respected her. She was protecting someone she loved. Not that that changed anything. Palmer was not just lying about her former associate, she was also lying about, or certainly downplaying, the fruits of their labor. Tony was right, this was a thread worth pulling. Loki would unravel the whole thing if it would help Thor.
The hospital doors slid closed behind them, leaving Loki in the cool morning air.
Tony shoved his hands into his pockets. “Well. That went great. Love it when people lie to my face.”
“She was protecting him,” Loki murmured.
Tony grinned. “So, you caught that too?”
“I am the god of lies,” Loki said. “Deception is… familiar.”
“Well, I know one thing. People like her don’t protect things that aren’t worth protecting. This Strange guy might be worth talking to.”
“Do you think he will be more cooperative?”
“Yeah. He’s retired, right? Talking to me will probably be the most exciting thing to happen to him in years,” said Tony, walking fast to catch up with Loki who had not stopped walking to entertain his sarcasm. “Gotta find him first though. F.R.I.D.A.Y. couldn’t find an address, but we got something else in mind. Right?”
“Right, Boss. I’ve already flagged Christine Palmer’s device. When she calls Stephen Strange, you will be notified.”
“You think she will call him?” Loki asked.
“Oh yeah. She’ll call him.”
Loki nodded but kept her eyes forward. This was the first new lead they had had in weeks. She did not wish to get her hopes up only to have them dashed upon the rocks of yet another dead end of mortal medical mediocrity, but she had to admit, Tony was right, this felt different. It felt like they were finally going in the right direction.
Tony nudged her shoulder, drawing her out of her thoughts. “C’mon, Trouble. Let’s go lurk in my jet and spy on a doctor. Real hero work.”
Loki nodded. This time with a smile.
The Quinjet sat on a neighboring building’s landing pad—the hum of its engines softer than an Asgardian skiff’s. Outside, the sky had darkened. The morning’s grey overcast giving way to a heaviness, as if the atmosphere itself were waiting for something to break.
Loki sat curled in one of the rear seats, knees pulled up, arms wrapped around them in a posture she would have once mocked in others. But she was exhausted. Bone-deep. Soul-deep. Too exhausted to fear mockery.
A tick sounded against the hull.
Then another. Then a cluster—sharp, icy impacts peppering the jet’s exterior.
Tony lounged in the seat opposite her with an ease Loki envied. He was flipping through a tablet and singing one of his obnoxious heavy metal songs under his breath. Loki caught the words “I’m TNT…” and then some seconds later, “So lock up your daughter, lock up your wife…”
Another crack of hail hit the roof—harder this time.
Tony looked up. “What the hell was that?”
“As perceptive as ever,” said Loki. Tony looked at her, clearly confused. “It is hail.”
Tony leaned over and looked out the window. “Huh. In November? Fucking global warming.” He turned back to his tablet.
The minutes dragged.
“Do you still think she will call him?” Loki asked, hating how small her voice sounded.
“Yeah. But, if she doesn’t soon, I’m gonna send Nat in. You could go too. You know, girls night.”
“You are insufferable.”
“I know,” said Tony. “It’s one of my strengths.”
Another burst of hail rattled across the jet’s plating, this time mixed with a low rumble of thunder.
Tony glanced at the ceiling. “Better not ding my hull,” he grumbled.
F.R.I.D.A.Y.’s voice chimed through the cabin, crisp and clean.
“Boss? Dr. Palmer is placing a call to an unknown number.”
Tony bolted upright. “Patch it through the speakers.”
“She said it was an unknown number,” said Loki.
“Yeah, well, let’s make it known,” said Tony.
The jet filled with the soft, tinny sound of a phone ringing.
Once.
Twice.
Three times—
Then—
A click.
“Christine?” a deep voice answered. “Is something wrong?”
He sounded calm on the surface, but even through the phone’s mechanical stripping, Loki could hear fraying at the edges. Like a man expecting bad news.
Palmer exhaled. “Stephen… you’re going to think I’m being paranoid, but Tony Stark came to see me today.”
Silence. Then: “…Tony Stark as in…?”
“Yes, Stephen. That Tony Stark. Stark Industries, Avengers, billionaire, playboy, thinks he’s god’s gift to capitalism.”
Tony smirked. “Wow. She really captured my essence.”
Back on the line, Strange sounded faintly amused. “Okay. What did he want?”
“He wanted to know about our work through the Rand Fellowship,” said Palmer.
Tony stiffened beside Loki. Alert. This was it.
Loki could hear Strange release a slow exhale. “Okay… what did you tell him?”
Palmer hesitated. “The truth. I mean the version that wouldn’t cause me to violate my NDA. I told him we never got to something that could help anyone.”
When Strange spoke again, the weariness was unmistakable. “Then what’s the problem?”
“He didn’t listen,” Palmer said sharply, voice radiating irritation. “He’s going to try to find you.”
Another pause, and then: “Did he say why he’s interested?”
“No,” said Palmer. “And before you ask, no, I didn’t ask. Because it doesn’t matter.”
“I know,” Strange whispered.
He sounded as tired as Loki felt. Palmer must have heard it too. Her next question came out gently, like she was afraid of scaring the voice on the other end of the line away.
“Are you okay?”
Strange scoffed softly. “No less than usual.”
Palmer sighed. “You sound tired. Are you sleeping?”
A beat. And then: “No less than usual.” Strange’s voice sounded wry, playful even. Deflective.
Loki filed that away. Retired or not, Strange clearly had some burdens.
“Okay,” Palmer said as though something had been decided between them, though Loki was certain nothing had. “I’m going to London at the end of the week for a conference. I’ll be there for two weeks. When I’m back, I’m coming to see you. And you’re getting a physical. I don’t care if I have to break into your sanctuary, I will check on you, and you better be there.”
Another pause, then Strange replied. “If I’m here… I’ll be here.”
“Take care of yourself, Stephen.”
“You too,” Strange murmured.
The call ended. The jet fell back into silence, punctuated by the irregular tap-tap-tap of ice hitting the hull.
Tony exhaled. “F.R.I.D.A.Y.?”
“Call traced successfully, Boss. Stephen Strange was speaking from Greenwich Village, New York City.”
Tony blinked. “Greenwich? Seriously? Well, that’s refreshingly straightforward...”
He went back to fiddling with his tablet, fingers flying over illuminated glass with practiced skill. “Bleecker Street. We can take a car.”
Loki opened her mouth to respond—
F.R.I.D.A.Y. cut in again.
“Boss, you’ve got an incoming call from Natasha. Thunderdome priority.”
Loki felt her blood run cold.
Tony went rigid. “Patch her through.” His voice sounded rough, like he was forcing the words out against a throat that was trying to tighten shut.
The line opened. Natasha’s voice flowed out, smooth. Controlled.
“Tony. Loki. Thor had another code four episode. Strong electrical discharge. Blew another surge protector and took out power to half the medical bay. He’s stabilized now, but I figured you’d want to know.”
Loki felt her heart pound against her ribs. She dug her long nails into her palms. Every instinct screamed to run—to teleport—to rip open the sky itself to get back to Thor. The Tesseract seemed to hum to her from within her pocket dimension.
“Yeah,” said Tony, running his hand down his face. “Thanks.”
“Anything on your end?” asked Natasha.
Tony looked at Loki. Their eyes met… Loki felt her pulse slow. “Maybe. Let me call you back.”
“Understood.”
The call ended.
Outside, the hail had given way to ordinary cold rain. The storm was moving on—thunder and lightning distant.
“Okay. New plan,” said Tony.
Loki quirked an eyebrow at him.
“We go back upstate. Check on Thor. Either come back tonight or hit the trail in the morning.”
Loki nodded. She did not trust herself to make such choices anymore. If it had been left to her, she would have dragged Palmer to NAF and demanded she help her brother at knifepoint. If it had been left to her, she would have already teleported to Thor’s side, exposing the wider universe to the Tesseract’s power and inviting Thanos’s attention once more. If it were left to her… Thor would already be dead. She had no magic to heal him. No magic that could keep him alive. No power to keep him safe. Tony had kept her brother alive. Tony kept her brother safe.
So, Loki deferred to Tony.
Tony
The medical wing always smelled faintly like ozone now. The back-up’s back-up power hummed.
Electric scorch marks marred the far wall—damage from past seizures they still hadn’t fully repaired. Tony stepped inside behind Loki and felt the air tighten, like the room itself was holding its breath.
Hulk was gone—Natasha had coaxed him out after the emergency.
Thor lay motionless on the reinforced bed beneath a tangle of wires and sensors, chest forced to rise shallowly by the ventilators surgically placed into his trachea. His hair was damp with sweat, sticking to his forehead. A faint shimmer of static flickered over his skin every now and then—less than earlier but still fucking terrifying.
Loki was on him immediately. Her hands shook as she touched Thor’s face, then his wrist, then hovered trembling over the lightning scars climbing his collarbone.
“Brother, I am here” she whispered.
Thor didn’t stir, but the static dissipated and the lightning under his skin flickered out.
Tony watched Loki fold inward—like she was trying to hide inside her own ribs. He’d seen her angry. Snarling. Cutting. Spitting. But this? This quiet, imploding grief? It was the worst. The absolute, fucking worst.
Because he understood it too well.
Guilt. Fear. The kind of loss that didn’t happen all at once but in slow, merciless inches.
He cleared his throat. “Hey, uh… I’m gonna give you a minute.”
Loki didn’t respond. Didn’t even seem to hear him. Her forehead was pressed to Thor’s hand like it was the only solid thing left in her world.
Tony stepped out into the hall.
Natasha was leaning against the wall across from the door, arms folded, expression sharp in that way she got when she was working. Not hero working. Working, working. Spy working. Intelligence. The look she got when she was in her element.
Tony stopped beside her.
“Well?” he asked. “You find anything on our doctor?”
Natasha didn’t blink. “Stephen Strange. Thirty-eight. Neurosurgeon ranked top of his field—arguably the best in the world at the time. Car accident. Severe nerve damage in both hands. Career ended.”
“Yeah,” Tony muttered. “That part I knew. Sucks to be him. Give me something new.”
Natasha continued, voice low. “After the accident, he spent every last cent he had trying to fix his hands. Experimental procedures. Off-the-books surgeons. Flew all over the world chasing treatment. Nothing worked.”
Tony nodded. He knew what desperation smelled like. Strange, apparently, had bathed in it.
Natasha kept going. “He sold everything. The apartment, the watch collection, the car. Bankruptcy filed, assets liquidated. Then he disappeared off the grid. He has no active address.”
“The house in Greenwich?” asked Tony.
“Not his,” she said flatly. “His driver’s license is expired. Plenty of time to renew. He didn’t. No bank account. No credit cards. No phone, no email, no digital footprint.”
“So, he’s unlisted? You know the rate of spam calls has tripled in the last year…” Tony tried. Natasha clearly wasn’t buying it.
“He’s a problem,” she said.
Tony rubbed his face. “Okay. Hit me with the big one.”
Natasha nodded. “His last legal whereabouts was in Nepal. Kathmandu. After that—nothing.”
“Except now he’s in Greenwich,” said Tony, knowing where she was going with this and not exactly thrilled about it.
Natasha nodded again. “There’s no record of him reentering the United States. Not through any customs point. Not even an illegal border crossing I can track.”
Well, fuck.
“You’re telling me that you—the person who could find a needle inside a needle in a haystack inside a locked vault—can’t figure out how he got from Nepal to New York?”
Natasha shrugged slightly. “Could be a clerical error. Could be identity fraud. Could be someone covering his tracks.”
Tony raised an eyebrow. “You think he’s a player?”
Natasha shook her head. “I think something’s off about him. Maybe not Avengers’ level off, but off enough that we should be careful how we bring him in on this.”
“Yeah. That’s assuming he wants to be brought in on this. Palmer sure as hell didn’t.” Tony rubbed his forehead with his finger and thumb, trying to work the tension out of it.
Natasha tilted her head. “Do you really think this guy can help Thor?”
Tony looked down at his hands. They were shaking. He hated that. He couldn’t even blame withdrawal since he’d more or less put the bottle down after… after Siberia.
“I don’t know,” he admitted. That hurt more than he’d expected. “I’m running out of ideas, Nat. Every experiment fails. Every procedure hits a wall. I’ve got nothing left to throw at this except wild chances and strange doctors.”
Natasha’s expression softened. Just a little. “You’re doing everything you can, Tony.”
“Yeah.” He gave a brittle smile. “That’s the problem.”
Footsteps echoed behind them.
Loki emerged from the room. Her eyes were red, jaw locked, hands clenched.
Tony straightened, feeling helpless. “How’s he doing, Elvira?”
That did it. Loki rolled her eyes and stood straighter. Nothing fixes despair like irritation. “No better nor worse than this morning.”
Tony glanced at Natasha, then back at Loki.
“Okay,” he said. “Game plan. We get some sleep. Tomorrow, we hit Greenwich. Hard.”
Loki stiffened. “I should not leave. He could seize again. He could—”
Tony stepped closer, putting a hand on her shoulder. She didn’t pull away. Kinda amazing that he didn’t expect her too. “Okay,” he said gently.
Loki looked at him questioningly, like she was expecting a fight. Tony should give her one—really, they could probably both use it—but he didn’t have it in him. Not tonight. Not after it felt like they may be getting somewhere after weeks of circling the drain. Not after thinking, Greenwich, fuck, something easy for a change, only to have Nat let him know that this Strange guy might not be as straight forward as he’d thought.
“I actually do better without you hovering behind me threatening to stab me,” said Tony.
Loki blinked at him.
Okay, fair enough. Tony’s heart wasn’t really in that one.
“Fine,” Loki whispered. “Do not let this one say no, or next time I may make good on my threats.”
Tony smirked faintly. “Don’t worry, Vampirella. Annoying talented people into my employment is my specialty.”
Nat rolled her eyes. “He’s not wrong.”
Tony clapped his hands once. “Okay, team. Get some rest. Tomorrow morning, we visit Greenwich and make a retired surgeon’s day.”
Loki smiled faintly… almost fondly?
Yeah. Tony wasn’t going to let Doctor Strange say no.