Archive of Our Own ^beta

At the almost-adult age of almost-seventeen, Ned Leeds, freshly a senior at Midtown High, had seen a lot of really freaky, weird shit in his time. Everyone in New York City went through the insanity that wormhole caused in 2012 (and he was ten back in 2012, so he remembered every bit of it). But his exposure to weirdness went to a whole new level when his best friend turned out to be a superhero.

Two years later, a bit of weird was expected in Ned's life. Weird became more normal after the Homecoming Incident when he became Peter's part-time Guy in the Chair for the times Peter asked him to because he sensed something big might happen (and his sense was freaky accurate, too). Then, as Peter's fake Stark Internship went on longer and longer and teachers told Peter about all the projects he could talk about on his college applications and Peter started freaking out because he didn't actually have any projects at Stark Industries, an actual internship program got created. According to Peter, he said that the CEO Ms Potts created it and that Mr Stark said, "She thought it would be a good idea to actually have one for not just your cover, but to actually offer to kids all over."

So that launched a year ago and Peter wouldn't leave Ned alone until he applied and so Ned did, and he actually got in! Not only that, but they paid him a bit for his efforts! It was amazing! So that meant Ned got to see the occasional weird, awesome technology that SI was developing alongside all the weirdness that came with being Peter's Guy in the Chair. He, Peter, and 18 other teenagers and college kids got into the program for the New York office and got photographed by everyone. It was seriously awesome seeing himself all over the internet for like, a day. All the interns were grouped in pairs, too, because that way no one would ever wonder where Peter was if he wasn't making something, and Peter could actually have something for their college applications they had to start filling out over the next few months.

So yeah, life was great and weird.

But Ned was on the periphery of the weird. He got to learn some new programming in the insane tech at SI (which included some seriously sweet upgrades to his gizmo when he was Peter's Guy in the Chair, so that was nice), and he got to see Peter's weird stuff through video and audio recordings, but he didn't deal with it fully. And he absolutely never, ever dealt with it on his own.

So despite his experiences, Ned found himself frozen in awe as he saw, on his way to the subway to go home after hanging out at Peter's until way too late Friday night/Saturday morning, an honest-to-God superhero battle in the alley. In Queens! Sense did come back long enough for him to hide himself behind a dumpster. He carefully peered beyond it to get a better look at them.

He didn't recognize any of them, so maybe they were new or not even important enough for the blogs that kept track of superheroes to even bother with. He couldn't tell who were the good guys or bad guys (or if they were all mostly good guys, or if they were bad guys and badder guys, as sometimes happened). Less than a minute of watching did establish that the guy in the red cape was fighting the other three, but that didn't mean anything as to their degrees of goodness and badness. It was hard to make out anything regarding their outfits other than the cape in the darkness, but he could tell who was fighting who at least.

Whatever powers they had, though, were awesome. Ned wasn't sure if it was innate or tech, but there were gold shields and gold knife-things and gold ropes that sparked and shone in the dark alley. They seemed to be mostly around the guy with the cape, but he couldn't tell if it was him or the others using it, or both. There was also a lot of karate (or something; Ned had no idea what the differences were between various fighting styles, but it looked something like karate or kung fu, as much as he could tell).

Ned knew he had to show this to Peter. With that thought in mind, he took out his phone, dimmed the screen, made sure it was on silent, and carefully began filming. He'd get a minute of this and then creep back out. He was pretty sure this was going to last a while, anyway.

Problem was, he wasn't counting on there being others.

Someone grabbed him by the collar of his jacket and Ned squawked in protest. His phone fell to the ground as he was dragged into full view of the fighters by someone he couldn't see. Before he could say anything, the man behind him called to the group, "Give up or the boy dies!" Ned realized, as he felt something cold press against his head, that he was that boy. Terror fully engulfed him.

This was definitely a bad guy.

That call, though, did stop the fighting. The man in the red cape had put a gold shield-looking thing around himself by crossing his arms together while the other three remained around him. The man in the cape was looking straight at Ned, and Ned had never felt sorrier in his life. He should have just walked away.

"Let him go," the man in the cape said. "He's not a part of this."

"Give up, Doctor Strange," the man holding Ned repeated.

Doctor Strange was not a bad superhero name at all in Ned's opinion. He might have gone with Doctor Bizarre, if he was going for that sort of angle as a superhero, or maybe Master Bizarre. Yeah, Master Bizarre. That wasn't a bad name at all. If he ever became a superhero, that would definitely be a contender.

(Some part of Ned realized that his thoughts were going haywire in some attempt to keep from panicking.)

This Doctor Strange said, "What do you want?"

"For you to give up," answered the man. "Don't make me ask again." Ned heard the gun cock and he was pretty sure he stopped breathing at that.

The gold shield remained up for a couple more (terrifying) seconds, but then it dropped and Doctor Strange lowered his hands. The other guys immediately moved in; two went for his arms and the third was—trying to remove his cape? Ned forgot to be terrified for a second as he watched the man struggle with the cape, which seemed very stuck to its wearer.

"Let go," Doctor Strange said quietly, which made no sense, but then a couple seconds later the third man was able to get the cape off. What the hell?

The man dumped the cape into the nearest trash can, which he then took, lid and all, to the dumpster beside Ned and pushed the can between the garbage bags, lid down. He finally closed the dumpster after.

It was so weird that Ned nearly forgot he had a gun to his head.

Doctor Strange quickly reminded him of his predicament. "Lower the gun and let him go."

The gun left his head (thank God), but the man didn't let go of his collar. "Thank you for your cooperation."

Suddenly one of the men holding Doctor Strange pulled out—something he could hold easily in his hand—and jammed it at their captive's neck. Whatever it was caused Doctor Strange to lose consciousness a few seconds later.

"Get those cuffs on him," the man holding Ned barked.

"You sure we can't take the cape?" the man beside the dumpster asked. "It could sell for a pretty penny."

"More trouble than it's worth, from what I'm told," he answered. Suddenly Ned was spun around and he was looking at the guy holding him: a good foot taller than him, muscular, and could probably murder him with one hand tied behind his back. "Now what to do with you."

"You could let me go?" Ned tried.

The man appeared amused by his answer; Ned didn't know if that was good or bad. A moment later, he narrowed his eyes in thought. "You look familiar. Are you related to someone important?"

"Uh, no?" Ned answered. He didn't mean for it to come out as a question.

Cape-Trashing Guy approached and looked at him. "Oh, wait a minute—you're part of Stark's new smart kids internship, aren't you?"

Ned blinked. "Uh, yeah. How'd you know?" He didn't mean to say that last part aloud, but he was genuinely curious.

He didn't seem to mind the question. "Niece is in the program. I've seen that group shot on my sister-in-law's wall a hundred times."

Huh. Small world. Ned wondered if his sister-in-law and niece knew that their relative was in the kidnapping business. They possibly didn't, if Liz and the Homecoming Incident was normal.

The big muscle guy holding him looked thoughtful. "SI might pony up a couple mil to get their intern back. Good publicity. Right."

He moved quickly, and then Ned felt a sting in his neck. His last thought was, Well, this sucks, before he lost consciousness.

Ned felt really awful waking up, like that one time he thought it would be a great idea to drink (that being the first time he really drank) because everyone else was drinking at the party and it's not like he was going to drive or something, and he woke up later on the back porch with an aching back and the worst headache of his life. Waking up now felt a bit like that, though he didn't remember going to any parties last night.

He wasn't on his bed, he could tell that much. It felt like he was on the floor, like concrete, but he couldn't hear any noises.

Ugh. He had to open his eyes and get up, even if he really didn't want to move. The concrete was very uncomfortable.

Ned forced his eyes open and blinked up at a concrete ceiling he didn't recognize. "Ughhh," he moaned, annoyed at his pounding head. Where was he, anyway?

He forced himself to turn on his side. From there, he saw he was in a room that looked like some sort of basement, with nothing in front of him except a guy tied to a wooden chair.

Then his brain fully processed the sight in front of him—and Ned's memory came back online.

"Shit!" The teen scrambled up to his knees, took a moment to close his eyes against the throbbing in his temples, then flew into an adrenaline-filled panic. "Shit shit shit shit. Shhhhhiiit."

This wasn't good. This wasn't good at-freaking-all. He had been kidnapped, of all things! Kidnapped! Things like this weren't supposed to happen to the Guy in the Chair! He wasn't the superhero, far far far from it. He was way, way out of his depth here.

Speaking of superheroes—now that it wasn't super dark anymore (the basement had a couple very bright bulbs in the ceiling), he could better see the superhero called Doctor Strange. He definitely hadn't heard of him before, but Ned could tell even without the red cape that he wasn't like, some businessman or something. Probably not a real doctor, either, because he'd never seen a doctor dressed like that.

Other than his cape, the guy was wearing some sort of blue robe-looking thing and weird boots that were definitely customized. Doctor Strange himself was a bit on the older side, as far as superheroes went and from what Ned knew about superheroes. Maybe forty or fifty? Probably around Mr Stark's age, as far as comparisons went. He even had a brown goatee like Mr Stark. He was still knocked out and, unlike Ned, had been tied up to a chair.

That's 'cause he's the superhero and you're not, duh, Ned chastised himself. Still, it's not like he couldn't untie the ropes for him. Then Doctor Strange could probably get them out of there.

No, that wasn't right. He didn't think these kidnappers were that stupid if it was that easy to untie him. What was he missing?

Ned pushed himself to his feet and tested his balance; he was feeling a bit better, though his head still hurt a bit. He moved a few steps closer to get a better look at him. The man wasn't bleeding, so that was good. His clothing just looked weirder the closer he got; he'd never seen anything like it before. It looked a bit Asian, though he couldn't even begin to guess where in Asia it originated.

He then saw some sort of metal bracers were on Doctor Strange's wrists. They definitely didn't fit the rest of the outfit, and Ned vaguely recalled the bad guys (definitely bad guys) saying something about cuffs. Did they do something to superhero powers? Probably. Very probably. That was a logical explanation.

Ned exhaled, then looked around the rest of the room. There were a couple ancient-looking boxes against the wall, but the place was otherwise empty of furniture (except Doctor Strange's chair). Against one wall was a heavy-looking door, and in the top corner to the left of the door was a much newer-looking security camera. He narrowed his eyes at it; the model allowed visual input only, which meant that whoever was watching it couldn't hear anything. That was… something, Ned guessed.

He sighed again, then looked at the door. Maybe the door was unlocked? If it was unlocked, what was he supposed to do then? Pretend it was locked and work something out with Doctor Strange when he woke up? Run, hope that he found the exit, and call 911? But he'd only have a choice to make if the door was unlocked, so…. With that thought, Ned went to the door and carefully tried the handle.

Yeah, definitely locked.

Another sigh left him and he leaned against the wall near the door with a groan. What the hell was he supposed to do? This was so above his pay grade.

As he felt sorry for himself, Ned's gaze wandered around the nearly empty room aimlessly. Eventually he spotted a lumpy shape in the shadow of the stack of old boxes. He narrowed his eyes and pushed himself off the wall to take a closer look.

It was his backpack.

Oh god, it was his backpack.

Had they searched it? Maybe, probably. But that didn't mean they found his gizmo. He had to keep that thing hidden from both teachers and nosy classmates, and he got very good at that ages ago.

Perhaps…

His train of thought was interrupted as he heard shifting; Ned turned to Doctor Strange as the man began to stir. Leaving the backpack for the moment, the teen headed towards him until he was a couple steps away. "Hey, uh, Doctor Strange? Can you hear me?" he muttered.

Doctor Strange at first grimaced to himself (Ned wondered if he had as bad a headache as he just did a few minutes ago), then blinked a couple times before lifting his head to look at him. A look of confusion was quickly replaced by resignation. "You're here." He sounded groggy.

"Yeah," he replied. "I'm Ned. I heard your name." His superhero name, at least; he didn't think it would be polite to ask for his real name yet.

"Do you know why they brought you along?"

"They want to try to ransom me."

The confusion made another appearance. "Ransom?"

"Yeah," Ned repeated. "I uh, I'm part of the internship program at Stark Industries. I think they're going to try and get money out of them." He shrugged for good measure; he wasn't really sure if their ransom plan was going to work. But Ned definitely had the more boring story between the both of them, of that he was sure. "What do they want with you?"

Doctor Strange pulled experimentally at his ropes, which didn't give. He stared at one of his wrists in distaste, then sighed. "I'm not sure."

Ned stared at him. "You're not sure? Why not?" If a superhero was kidnapped, wasn't it always for their skills or for revenge? He couldn't think of any other reason.

Another experimental tug and sigh followed. "Because I'm not." At this point he shot a frown at Ned. "What were you doing in that alley?"

"Uh, well." He paused as he tried to figure out a good way to word it without giving away Peter or making himself look like an idiot. "I keep track of a lot of superhero watch sites and I know of all the heroes that've been active in New York. You've got Daredevil in Hell's Kitchen, Luke Cage in Harlem, the Iron Fist all over Manhattan, Spider-Man in Queens, and that's just the start of the list. I've seen dozens of people, but you didn't look familiar. So I was, uh, trying to figure out who you were." That sounded pretty good.

"Figuring me out by filming me?" Doctor Strange asked dryly.

Crap. "To review after! I was just about to leave, too. I wasn't expecting someone to come up behind me." That was a pretty good save, in Ned's opinion.

The man continued to give him a dry look before exhaling in resignation. "You shouldn't have lingered in the first place, but what's done is done." He leaned his head back. "As it is, there's good reason you don't see me on your 'superhero watchlist sites'. I'm not a superhero."

Ned stared at him; was he seriously saying that? "You were wearing a cape."

"Cloak."

"What?"

"It's a cloak."

He didn't know what the difference between the two was, and ultimately decided that really wasn't important. "Okay, fine, a cloak. You were wearing a bright red cloak, you have on this really intricate ninja warrior costume here—"

Doctor Strange looked completely affronted. "Ninja warrior costume?"

Ned ignored the interruption. "—you've got a cool made-up name for people to know you by, and you were using some really awesome tech or neat powers to fight off three guys who wanted to kidnap you for reasons you don't even know! And, and you also went through with the 'give yourself up to save bystanders' thing that heroes sometimes do—sorry about that," he added a bit sheepishly. "But see, all of that adds up to you definitely being a superhero."

Doctor Strange was staring at him with a weird mix of emotions that made him look somewhere between annoyed and constipated. Ned wasn't quite sure what to make of it; he was expecting something more along the lines of gratitude. He had complimented him, hadn't he? Peter would have definitely been more grateful, at least if Peter was dealing with someone he had just met. At least Ned thought so.

Maybe the man was actually pissed at Ned for helping him get caught in the first place. That would make this already sucky situation even worse. Maybe that's why he was giving him that really weird look. Oh god, how did he fix this?

Before he could figure out something else to say, he told Ned, "My name's not made up."

What. "What?"

"My name. Doctor Stephen Strange is my name. My actual name."

Ned stared at him for a beat. "You're actually a doctor?" was the first thing that came out of his mouth.

Another sigh. "I was a neurosurgeon before… all this." He gestured down to himself with his chin.

"And uh, what is 'this', if it's not being a superhero?"

Doctor Strange—and Ned still couldn't believe that he was actually a doctor—glanced towards the camera in the corner and said, "Let's just say that unlike the public acts of heroes such as the Avengers, I work in areas that have little publicity."

"You can be secretive and still be a superhero," Ned argued, then added, "Don't worry about the camera; it doesn't have an audio receiver. But it does have the visual feed, otherwise I would have, you know." He gestured to the ropes. "Sorry."

"Don't be," he answered. His eyes narrowed in thought. "How do you know the camera doesn't pick up audio?"

"I recognize the model. I'm good with electronics."

His brow furrowed. "You did say you worked at Stark Industries, yes."

Ned shrugged. "Just as an intern." He paused. "You can't get us out of here with those things on your wrists, right?"

Doctor Strange pressed his lips together and nodded once. "I cannot access any of my abilities with them on. I'm sorry."

He shook his head. "No, I figured, I just—I wanted to make sure before I tried something."

His brow rose. "'Something?'"

"Yeah. So uh, don't look at the camera, but if you look near the door and just to the left, you'll see a bit of wiring coming down from it. They put the camera up quickly, without running the installation wires through the walls which you should do, especially if you're watching kidnapped people with the camera."

The doctor huffed in brief amusement. "And I suppose you have an idea involving it."

"Yeah."

Doctor Strange's lighter look took a sudden serious turn. "Disabling the camera won't get you out of here, Ned. Annoying our captors won't help you in the long run. My advice is to remain calm, listen to them, do what they say, and I imagine that Stark Industries will pay their ransom to see your safe return."

Ned frowned. "What about you?"

"Don't worry about me."

Ugh. He sounded just like Peter when Peter was being stupid and stubborn. "No, look, I've got an idea. I just need—just hold on for a moment. You'll see." With that, he left Doctor Strange and went back to his forgotten backpack. In case anyone could see him on the camera, he pretended to look through it to find his water bottle. Actually, that wasn't a bad idea. "You thirsty?" he called.

"I'm fine," he replied. Ned shrugged and opened the bottle to take a quick drink. As he put it back in the bag, he felt for the hidden pocket that held his gizmo.

It was still there. This might actually work.

He stood and stretched, then started pacing around the door, hoping that it made it seem like he was anxious. In reality, he was looking for where the extension cords for the security camera connected with the camera on the wall, but he didn't want to be obvious about his looking.

It took about a minute of pacing for Ned to finally find the connection in the dim light of the corner. He took another couple laps beside the door, just in case he was looking too long at the same spot.

Then during his next circle, he went straight to the wall, jumped up (ugh, he hated being so short), and pulled down on the extension cord. It disconnected from the camera with a snck and the camera turned off.

Now to the most important part. Ned ignored Doctor Strange's look of curiosity as he dug through his backpack again and pulled out his little gizmo from its secret pocket and turned it on. He put it on and began relaying instructions, well aware he was being listened to by the doctor.

"Peter, it's Ned. So the craziest thing happened and I actually got kidnapped with a superhero called Doctor Strange. I'll tell you all about it later. When you wake up and get this, you need to go to SI and get the Avengers or something, there's like, at least four of these bad guys. Probably more. They want to try and ransom me to SI so they might already know about it. Anyway, you can get the GPS for my gizmo off either my SI laptop at the office or my house, and that's where you'll find us. Come—I mean, get some police or Avengers or whoever—ASAP! Okay, bye!" With that, he took the gizmo off and, keeping it turned on (its battery would last another day at least), he stuffed it back into the secret pocket, then placed his backpack as it was before.

Doctor Strange was giving him another weird look he couldn't quite read when he finished. "What was that?"

"My gizmo," Ned answered. "It's, uh, what I've been working on during my internship. They let me take it home to work there, too."

"And Peter?"

"My best friend. He's also my partner at the internship. He has the other piece this goes to." Said piece was usually connected into the Spider-Man suit rather than the gizmo's matching partner, but Doctor Strange didn't need to know that.

He nodded at his answer, then he stilled and his expression turned into one of urgency. "Untie me, quickly."

"Uh, yeah, sure, of course." Ned hurried over to him and started working on the knots behind the chair.

It turned out that untying him was not nearly as easy as Ned thought it would be. Whoever did the ropes did them super tight, and it took him a good minute until it was finally off.

"Quickly!" Doctor Strange muttered again as Ned moved to his right arm.

"Trying," he muttered as he worked on the ropes on his right elbow, then his right wrist. There, Ned slowed down involuntarily as he caught sight of the scars on the man's hand.

"Now!" the doctor barked, and Ned blinked himself out of his shock as he finished freeing the right arm fully.

Then he heard noises outside the door just before it burst open. He was really glad he told Peter that there might be more than four of them, because six came into the room. Despite not being able to use his powers (whatever they were) and despite still having one arm tied to the chair, Doctor Strange was up and he was fighting, with the chair up sideways, the bottom of the seat being used as a shield and the legs and back being used as rams.

And there was no way Ned was sitting out of this one. He might be short, but he otherwise had a body of a football defensive player and he knew how to knock people over and put someone in a chokehold, like every boy who ever watched WWE back in middle school did. And so he jumped in the fray, shoving away a skinny guy from Doctor Strange.

From there, things got rather blurry. He punched someone, he got punched, he bowled over another guy, he jumped on the back of someone else, at some point he hit the floor but couldn't really feel any pain, and at another point when trying to grab another guy he accidentally gave him an Indian burn. Served him right.

But they were outnumbered three to one, and the more experienced between the two of them couldn't use his powers and had one hand literally tied down. It would have been a miracle to win.

They didn't.

Ned found himself on the ground with a boot on his neck keeping him there, but still he struggled against the two other guys who were trying to tie his hands together. It wasn't until the boot pressed harder on his throat that he finally gave in just so he could breathe.

He looked over to Doctor Strange. They got him back in the chair, and one of them was pulling his head back and holding a knife to his throat to keep him still as the two others tied him again. This time they tied him so tight that the man grunted in pain at each pull.

When they finished securing him to the chair, the big, muscular guy that had snuck up behind him in the alley came in, scowling. This guy—who Ned had taken to thinking of as The Boss, since he had called all the shots in the alley—looked up at the wall and the disconnected cord, then right at him and scowled even more. Ned was forced back up to his feet and made to face The Boss.

"Think you're being clever, boy?" The Boss shouted. He crossed the distance between them and grabbed him by the front of the shirt, causing him to stumble. "I was doing you a favor by keeping you around, but that can be amended very easily."

Ned remained frozen, eyes wide open in fear. He honestly hadn't felt this terrified since the Homecoming Incident.

"I made him do it."

Everyone in the room, Ned and The Boss included, turned to look at Doctor Strange. Despite his position, his chin was lifted up in arrogance and a look of scorn painted his features. "I'm insulted that you're blaming him in the first place."

The Boss didn't let go of Ned immediately. "And why should I believe the man who's already saved the kid from trouble?"

Doctor Strange scoffed. "You're telling me, a former neurosurgeon renowned for my attention to detail, that you think the fifteen-year-old noticed the security camera flaws before I did? Really?"

Part of Ned wanted to protest that he was sixteen-almost-seventeen, but the other part was really impressed in both how convincing and scornful Doctor Strange sounded.

And it seemed to be working. The Boss let go of his collar and turned fully to the doctor. "And how did you think that would work out, Doctor?" he asked, still scowling.

"Fine, if the boy had been less clumsy with the ropes. A miscalculation on my part. Still, it did take six of you to get me down—and that's me without my powers." His voice continued to ring with complete derision.

The Boss started stepping towards him. "And you think you're just that much better because of your powers, do you?" he asked softly.

A part of Ned immediately became alarmed at that tone of voice. And that was when he realized exactly what Doctor Strange was doing. He began to protest. "Doctor Strange—"

"No," Doctor Strange said, speaking over him and ignoring him completely. "I know I'm better, with or without my powers, compared to a two-bit crime lord wannabe who desperately falls short and utterly irrelevant in a world filled with superheroes and supervillains."

The Boss snapped. He took the last steps to cross the remaining distance between them and socked the doctor right in the face. Doctor Strange's face snapped to the side with a crack that made Ned wince. Then the boss punched him in the chest, one, two, three times, and then again he hit him in the face. When he started on the chest again, Ned began to panic; with how tight the ropes around his torso were, he could see that Doctor Strange was having a hard time breathing.

"Don't kill him!" Ned shouted, unable to help himself. He pulled instinctively against the two guys holding him in place.

This caused the Boss to pause his beating and glance over at Ned, then again to his captive in the chair. At first Ned was relieved to see him stop hitting him, but the Boss then reached for his hand, the one Ned had seen all the scars on, and squeezed, making Doctor Strange gasp.

"Now let's get this straight," he started. "I have a buyer in Eastern Europe who is very interested in you, Doctor. However, his only request was that you're alive. If you give me any more trouble, I'll cut off a finger." He glanced over at Ned. "And I'll cut off one of his fingers too, for good measure. Do we have an understanding?"

Doctor Strange didn't say anything, but he nodded quickly as he gritted his teeth against the pain. Then The Boss finally stopped squeezing his hand and the doctor shuddered loudly and breathed as deeply as the ropes would allow him.

The Boss gestured to the wall and Ned was led there by the other two men, where he was forced to sit. "You stay right here and keep away from him. If you listen, you might still make it out in one piece. Get it?"

Ned nodded quickly and finally, finally all of them left the room. He heard the door lock behind them. Doctor Strange let out another shuddering breath and the teen immediately turned his attention to him. "Are you okay?" he asked quietly.

"I'm fine," was the soft answer, and Ned wasn't sure if he believed him. "Don't worry about me."

He felt frustration rise at that follow up. "I think I can worry if I want to!" he said back. He tried to tug his wrists apart, but they were tied very securely. "Why did you do that?"

"Do what?" He sounded tired and like he was having some hard time breathing, but Ned couldn't just let this go yet.

"Lie to them, tell them the camera was your idea." Seeing that whole exchange, seeing someone get hurt because of something he did frightened Ned to the core.

Ned saw him breathe in a couple times, which also seemed more difficult with his newly bleeding nose. "Because to them, Ned, you're more expendable. You can be removed. I can't."

He shook his head at the answer. "I can handle a few punches. I just did. I could take whatever he was gonna do for the camera." At least, that's what he was telling himself.

"Maybe just the camera," Doctor Strange replied. "But not for my retaliation just now—and your own participation in it. He was ready for violence then, and as I decided to show an escape attempt and fight them, I'd rather his anger focused upon me."

Ned frowned at him. "Did you think we could make it out?"

"No," he admitted. "But if they came in here to fix the camera with no other actions from us, they very well could have gotten suspicious and started digging." He didn't need to clarify to Ned what he meant by 'digging', and the idea of them finding the gizmo was a terrifying thought. "Thus, something that appeared to be an escape attempt."

It made sense when put like that, but… "They hurt you."

He saw Doctor Strange was still having some difficulty in drawing deep breaths. "I'll be fine. I've had worse." He lowered his head. "I need a moment to catch my breath. With luck, your friend will get your message to the proper authorities soon."

Ned nodded. He hoped that happened soon. And he really, really hoped that Peter took his message seriously and didn't try to come here alone.

Ned let the silence sit for a little while since Doctor Strange was having a hard time breathing with the tight ropes and he couldn't talk much anymore, but the silence began to drive him insane. So after about ten minutes into it, he said, "Hey uh, do you mind if I just talk about things to you to uh, distract me? I know you're having a hard time talking so you don't need to reply or anything, but I just would like to um, distract myself, if that's okay. You can just nod or shake your head."

Doctor Strange only offered a small nod, so Ned started to ramble. While he would have liked the idea to talk to another superhero about Peter and get his thoughts after all this, that was Peter's secret. So he kept mention of his best friend all but nonexistent, instead focusing first on his classes and what he was doing there, what starting to prep for college applications was like, and the universities he was looking at. When school talk started to get stale he pivoted the one-sided conversation into pop culture (Star Wars was at least ten minutes alone). The doctor didn't ask him to stop, so Ned plowed through everything he could think of.

He had just started talking about the shows his mom really liked to watch when he heard something above them, some sort of percussion sound. Doctor Strange, from how he suddenly straightened, heard it too.

"What's that?" Ned asked.

Another loud thump echoed above them. "Either they're moving heavy furniture, or they are fighting," said Doctor Strange.

Ned straightened and hope bloomed in his chest. Fighting? Were they being rescued?

The thumps came in erratic intervals, and though it definitely sounded like a fight Ned didn't want to jinx it by saying anything about rescue aloud. He then heard several loud pops, and it took him a second to realize that that was probably a gun going off. Oh man, he really hoped no one got hurt.

Doctor Strange remained just as quiet and still as the sounds above went on. He seemed very attentive and Ned didn't want to break his concentration. Ned was also trying to figure how long the noises had been going on for; every minute felt like ages right then. The fight could have been a minute or ten and he wasn't sure if he would be able to tell the difference.

Then the silence began. It was definitely a silence and not an extra-long time between thumps, at least from what Ned could feel. He didn't know what it meant, but every passing second felt like an hour, and he could feel his anxiety rising. What if rescue never came? What if The Boss decided he really wasn't worth the trouble and killed him?

Before he could completely dissolve into a full-blown panic, he heard a couple sounds behind the door before it was kicked open (and partially off its hinges).

Oh my God. It was Iron Man. And War Machine! And—

"Pe—" he almost said when he saw Peter in full Spider-Man mode, but he caught himself and turned it into, "Help!" Hopefully Doctor Strange didn't catch that.

Peter ran to him while Mr Stark and Colonel Rhodes went to Doctor Strange. Peter asked, "Are you okay?" as he broke the ropes with his hands (and that was so cool!)

"Yeah, yeah," Ned said. "Thanks, uh, Spider-Man."

As Peter helped him up, he leaned in and whispered, "You gotta tell me what happened once we're out of here."

Ned nodded, but in the meantime, both he and Peter looked over to the three men to listen to them. Both Iron Man and the War Machine had their faces exposed now and were already talking to Doctor Strange, but Ned had missed the first part of the conversation.

"So you're actually that Doctor Strange that disappeared two years ago," Colonel Rhodes was saying as the two of them got the ropes off him.

"Yes." Doctor Strange took in a deep breath when the ropes around his chest fell, then hissed in pain as his arms were released and blood circulation normalized through his limbs.

"You sure you don't need a medic of some type?" Colonel Rhodes asked, clearly eyeing his bruised and bloody face.

"Yes," was again the answer. "As noted, I am a doctor. It's mostly bruises. My nose isn't broken."

Colonel Rhodes accepted that answer, then said dryly, "We were looking for a dual identity of some sort, not an actual doctor. I wasn't expecting the first Google hit to be accurate."

"And what's your schtick, anyway?" Mr Stark asked, arms loosely crossed now that all the ropes were released. "I see the kooky outfit and all, but I'm not getting the superhero vibe."

Before Doctor Strange could answer, Ned instinctively jumped to his defense. "He's definitely a superhero, Mr Stark." All three of them turned to look at him, and that was a little intimidating.

"Oh, hey Ned," Mr Stark said easily. "Good to see you on your feet. Nice thinking with the message to Peter. Did you know they were going to call the police instead of getting me?" He looked mock-offended.

Ned wasn't sure what really went down, or how many loops Peter had to go through to get to Mr Stark, but he was really happy that he did. "Thanks for taking the time to rescue me."

"No one ransoms one of my interns," he said. "Besides, I got Rhodey and Spider-Man to join the fun. That bunch upstairs were easy, all things considered—I'd think a supposed superhero could handle some ordinary, gun-toting idiots." He raised a brow at Doctor Strange.

Doctor Strange didn't seem particularly bothered by the slight, but that did bother Ned, after everything the doctor had gone through because of him. "He would have!" he protested. "He was fighting like, like a ninja against three of them but another guy caught me watching and, uh, yeah. He gave up so they wouldn't kill me and they put those cuffs on him after, to stop him from using his powers."

For some reason Doctor Strange had that resigned look on his face again, though Ned didn't get why. Didn't he want them to know he was a superhero and that he had saved him? He saw no reason as to why anyone wouldn't want Iron Man and the War Machine to know about their heroics. They could even work together! Oh man, that would be totally sweet.

Colonel Rhodes looked at the bracers. "I could probably break them, but it might be safer to get the key. Any idea who'd have it?"

Doctor Strange nodded and described The Boss to him. He then said, "He also may have something else of mine. It's brass with two loops, and it doesn't look like anything you'd recognize. If you find it, please bring it; I don't plan on leaving here without it."

"Noted," the colonel replied, and he left the room.

Ned cleared his throat as a bit of an uncomfortable thought came to mind. "Uh, all those guys… are they…?"

"Webbed up or cuffed," Mr Stark said, then added, "Mostly. We did our best. Don't worry about it, kid; none of us would kill someone unless it was really necessary."

That wasn't as reassuring as Ned would have preferred. He just nodded and went to his backpack to get a drink of water because he was suddenly thirsty.

Peter, who had been more quiet than he usually was, suddenly asked, "What are your superpowers?" to Doctor Strange.

Doctor Strange gave a bit of a weird look to Peter, and Mr Stark shot Peter a warning glance, and with Peter's decidedly younger-sounding voice (compared to how Mr Stark and Colonel Rhodes sounded under their masks), Ned wondered if Mr Stark had told Peter not to talk in front of Doctor Strange. From what Peter had told him of Mr Stark, that sounded a bit like something he would do.

The doctor was definitely looking at Spider-Man a little differently, though Ned couldn't quite figure out what he was thinking (though to be fair, he couldn't figure out what he was thinking the entire time they were together). But he did answer Peter and said, "It's a bit complicated."

Mr Stark scoffed. "I think we can handle it."

Doctor Strange looked a little annoyed, though Ned wasn't sure why. Finally he answered, "Magic."

Ned waited for the punchline. It didn't come.

Mr Stark waited a beat, then crossed his arms. "Magic."

"Yup."

Now that Ned thought about it, what he saw in the alley did appear quite magical. He slowly nodded. If there were a bunch of aliens around, he saw no reason why magic couldn't also exist. Maybe it was just a science they didn't really understand, either; that would be really neat.

"Care to clarify?" Mr Stark asked.

"Not really," said Doctor Strange, and Ned frowned a bit; he really didn't get why he was, well, acting like a bit of a dick with the other superhero. Iron Man had rescued him, after all.

Mr Stark definitely wasn't impressed with his attitude, either. He kept his arms crossed and reminded him, "You're not acting very grateful considering I just rescued you."

"If anyone is to take credit for the rescue, it would be Ned and his quick wit," Doctor Strange retorted. "Though he also got me fully into this situation." He didn't sound mad about it, at least.

"Hey, kids get into trouble. That's their thing. They don't always get out of trouble, so I suppose he can share in part of the glory of the rescue," Mr Stark said back easily.

Whoa, whoa, whoa. "Hey, no, I really didn't do anything—"

"Don't fail to take credit where credit's due, kid," Mr Stark interrupted. "I'm glad you had your—what'd you call it?"

"Uh, gizmo." Ugh, he should have come up with a better name before Tony Stark asked about it.

"Yeah, gizmo. Glad you had it. You helped get yourself out of a sticky situation with something you created. Eat it up."

Ned could almost feel the energy burning off Peter; he knew his friend well enough to know that he wanted to jump into the conversation again, but Mr Stark's frown the first time seemed to be enough to keep him quiet for the moment.

"Though you wouldn't have needed it at all if you hadn't stopped where you weren't supposed to in the first place," Doctor Strange said again.

Mr Stark retorted, "Did you not just hear what I said about kids? God, Doc, you're not really a people person, are you?"

Before Doctor Strange could retort, Colonel Rhodes was back, which was probably for the best because Ned really wasn't sure what was going on between the other two adults. If anyone could make sense of it, an air force colonel definitely could.

"Found both the key and your little brass thing. What is it, anyway?" Colonel Rhodes handed it to him, then gestured for him to bring up his wrists so he could unlock the bracers.

"It's called a sling ring," he answered. Ned narrowed his eyes; his hand was shaking. No, both his hands were shaking. Did Doctor Strange have bad scars on both his hands? He was curious, but not curious enough to ask and potentially offend him.

Mr Stark narrowed his eyes too, but asked instead, "And what does this 'sling ring' do?"

Both the cuffs came off. "Thank you," Doctor Strange said to the colonel. He ignored Mr Stark's question altogether and said to the two of them, "I presume you want to turn these people over to the proper authorities."

"Well, yeah," Mr Stark said, eyes still narrowed.

"I would appreciate my name being kept out of the story."

Colonel Rhodes frowned at him. "And why should we do that?"

Doctor Strange's eyes left them to look at Peter. "You allow Spider-Man to assist you despite the fact he has not dotted all i's and crossed the t's in whatever the authorities are trying to get enhanced people to sign. Grant me the same favor."

Ned glanced at Peter; the big big big reason, he thought, that neither the Colonel nor Mr Stark forced him to go to authorities was because he wasn't technically an adult yet, and Peter didn't want his family and friends used against him if his identity was known. But Doctor Strange didn't even have another identity, so Ned wasn't quite sure why he wanted to remain unknown. If that were the case, he should have gotten a superhero name, right?

Mr Stark shot Peter a 'stay out of this' look again, then looked back at Doctor Strange. "The difference between him and you is that I don't trust you." And that meant Mr Stark trusted Peter. That was amazing. Ned did his best not to look over at his best friend, though he could almost feel the bewilderment and thrill from him.

The doctor huffed. "I'm not asking you to. I'm asking you to say that I left before you could get my identity from me."

"That doesn't mean the people who took you won't tell the guys in suits who you are," Colonel Rhodes pointed out.

"Perhaps," he answered. "I'll deal with that if it happens."

"Again, why should we grant you this favor?" the colonel asked.

He exhaled, glanced at Ned, and then told Colonel Rhodes, "While the Avengers may deal with the physical threats that threaten the Earth, they are not the only threats in existence. It's not helpful for world governments to be worrying about something that they can neither see nor have any hope of fighting."

Mr Stark's eyes were still narrowed. "And what, you can?"

"Yes—when I'm not being hassled in alleyways by middlemen. Speaking of." With that, Doctor Strange turned away from them and lifted his arms out towards the far wall; that weird sling ring was on his left hand now. He began to move his right hand in a circle, and golden sparks suddenly appeared in the air.

The two other adults immediately went on the defensive, but Ned and Peter found themselves staring as the golden sparks turned into… a portal. An actual portal. And from what Ned could tell, it was the same alleyway that the fight had been in.

"There's no need to shoot me," Doctor Strange said dryly. "I'm just retrieving my cloak." As he walked through the portal, he called, "As mentioned, leave my name out of it!" And with that, the portal shut behind him, disappearing in a waterfall of golden sparks.

The silence sat for a couple seconds.

"Wow," Peter breathed beside him. "That was so cool."

"You should have seen the stuff he did when he fought them in that alley," Ned confirmed.

Mr Stark turned his frowning face from the wall to Ned. "Where was that alley?"

Ned answered, "Queens, not too far from Peter's place. I was on my way home when I saw them."

"Hmm, we're not too far from Queens, at least by flying. If you give me the address I might be able to get there in a few minutes."

Colonel Rhodes shook his head. "Doctor Strange can make portals; he'll be long gone by the time you get there. Besides, we need to do some cleanup here."

Mr Stark sighed. "Fuck, yeah, you're probably right." He looked back to the wall. "What an asshole."

"He reminded me of you," said the colonel. "Only more polite."

"Hey, rude." He frowned thoughtfully. "Still, I got an energy read on that—magic, whatever, that thing he did just now. I could probably look for traces of it around the city. If he was in an alley tonight, I imagine he's around." His brow furrowed. "There's tons of these people in New York; I swear it's something in the water." He then looked over at Peter. "Speaking of, you need to get yourself and Ned home. You can't be here when the suits arrive, and I'll make sure you're not interrogated without me and a lawyer present, Ned. You don't have to worry about that."

"Are you going to tell them about Doctor Strange, about who he is?" Ned asked.

Mr Stark exhaled. "Haven't made up my mind yet. He kept you safe, so he has that going for him. But he's an asshole, so major points against him. However, if I mention him, the suits might want my help to look for him, and I don't want to do that."

Colonel Rhodes shot him an amused look. "You're still going to look for him, though."

"Well, yeah, of course I am, but that's to satisfy my need to know if he's actually causing trouble or not, and to figure out what the hell he meant by threats we couldn't see, because that sort of sounds like my job. And if he isn't causing issues, I don't know if I'd still send suits after him. He hasn't annoyed me that badly."

The colonel nodded and looked again at Ned and Peter. "Well, there's your answer. We'll have a better idea of what you should say later in the day, Ned. Peter, call Happy; he should be nearby with a car. He'll take you two back to Queens."

Peter nodded and after Ned grabbed his backpack, the two of them left the room. On the way up the stairs, Peter said, "Dude, we're like half an hour from Queens. You need to tell me the whole story on the ride back."

"It was both the scariest and most amazing thing that's ever happened to me," Ned said.

"And look, you saved a superhero!"

"Yeah, that was the amazing part," he said, then added, "I never want to do it again, though. Not like that at least."

"Yeah, it gets a bit rough," Peter admitted. "I wish I could have seen more of Doctor Strange's powers."

"Me too."

The two teens made it to the ground floor and out of the building. Once in Happy's car, Ned spent the entire ride fielding questions from a very enthusiastic Peter and a less-enthusiastic-but-secretly-interested Happy about his experience.

He was more than happy to recount the story to the two of them, but Ned was very sure that while it was a very cool experience, he absolutely never, ever wanted to be anything but a heroic Guy in the Chair in the superhero business from then on out.