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Stephen conjured a blast towards his right, cloak billowing behind him as he levitated in the air, and moved fast enough to avoid a hit going his way by conjuring a shield. They were in another battle, and the interdimensional being he intended to vanish back was being difficult. It wasn't normal that the attacks happened in the city, especially on a busy Monday morning where more people are likely to gather in the streets, but then again interdimensional attacks weren't exactly what most people find 'normal' to begin with.
The moment he heard the Avengers making their way there, no doubt intending to help them, Stephen had shouted at them that it was strictly sorcerer-related business, and that they could deal with it themselves without their help. But of course, as always, they intervened and managed to make it worse.
Initially, Stephen had just wanted to calmly trap the thing with his bands and quickly take it back to its dimension, but the team’s arrival had been ‘grand’ enough to distract him from his own actions, and Tony, the genius he was, decided it was a wonderful idea to blast the thing with his repulsor – effectively making the beast defensive.
“Now you just made it mad!” he shouted, letting the cloak pull him over to the side to avoid a street lamp flown his way. Stephen grumbled in frustration, staring daggers at Tony that was now flying in the air.
“Uh…” Tony's voice filtered through his suit, rather dubiously. “the… whatever that thing is, sort of saw that coming,” he said with a little shrug. Stephen just continued staring at him, his right eye twitching.
But before he could speak another word in, one of the creature's tentacles grabbed a nearby bus and threw it into the air in their direction. Tony flew to the sorcerer's way and grabbed him by the waist, pushing them both to the side, but not quick enough to avoid the bus thrown their way and was hit mid-air as they landed hard on the ground from the impact.
“Shit, shit,” Tony said when they landed on the ground.
Stephen coughed from under him. “Are– are you okay?” he managed.
“Yeah. Yeah, I’m fine,” Tony nodded, and his eyes seemed to scan hastily down the sorcerer’s torso. “The suit took most of the damage. Are you?”
Stephen tried sitting up, but he winced a little as he felt pain shoot up in his side. He clutched it with a trembling hand, his eyes clenching shut. That’s not good.
“Hey, hey, you okay?” Tony said, his faceplate was open now, and Stephen saw the familiar signs of concern written all over his face.
“Yeah,” Stephen nodded, “Yeah, totally fine.”
He decided to ignore the pain flaring up at his side – he's endured worse anyway – and winced a little as he tried to stand up. Tony knew better than to ignore that.
"Yeah, no." He said, "Doesn't look like you're ' totally fine ', doc."
"It's nothing," Stephen said, and only realised too late how snappish he sounded as the words came out of his mouth.
Tony actually looked genuinely more concerned now at that reaction.
"...you sure?"
"Absolutely. Yes. I'm perfectly…" he trailed off for a moment when his vision blurred suddenly, "...perfectly…" the darkness in his eyes did not dissipate after five seconds, and his doctor side fluttered in alarm when he felt the (unfortunately) familiar taste of metal on his tongue, "fi–"
Blood spilled out from his lips and his knees buckled to the ground, the red liquid spluttering down to the dirt and rubble, catching over his robes and trousers.
"...fine," he finished, before his body flopped to the ground on its own accord, the last thing he registered being Tony's muffled voice saying 'shit' under his breath.
*.~ ◇ ~.*
When he came to, he had to squeeze his eyes shut for a moment when blinding lights assaulted his vision, an involuntary groan escaping his lips. He stayed there for a moment, eyes closed, trying to remember how or why he ended up here, or where the hell he was in the first place. When he attempted to open his eyes again, he squinted, slowly adjusting himself to the room's lighting.
Hospital bed.
Some sort of hospital room.
There was some muffled chatter from the door, silhouettes gesturing animatedly behind the translucent glass.
And then whoever was there froze and stopped talking upon hearing him, and Stephen's body tensed up as the door was opened with a click, revealing Tony as the engineer slipped in.
"Ah. The wizard has awoken. How was your nap, sleeping beauty?" he said, but his voice lacked the usual playful tone. It seemed sharper now. Snappish.
Stephen didn't answer, instead searching through his memories to remember what had happened.
"What happened?"
"You don't remember?"
Stephen frowned.
"We were…" he paused for a moment, a crease between his eyebrows, before his eyes widened, body jolting up from the bed, causing Tony to step immediately forward, hands shot out in caution. "We were in a battle. What happened? Where–"
"Handled," came Wong's voice from where he had just stepped in through the door. The librarian had his usual look of exasperation plastered on his face, almost as if he had expected this to happen (which was, admittedly, in Stephen's case… pretty damn accurate).
Wong sighed as he took in Stephen's condition as he laid on the hospital bed. It seemed that 'beaten half to death' was a popular trend within heroes nowadays, Stephen most especially.
"Wong," Stephen greeted.
Just then, the door opened again as a worried-looking Christine came in with a clipboard held in her arm. She sighed.
"Every single time…" Stephen heard her mutter under her breath.
Stephen frowned, sending a look to both the engineer and the other sorcerer.
"You brought me to Metro-General?" he asked, and was answered with the affirmative by Wong.
He most expected to be at the tower's Med Bay, considering their… circumstances, but was surprised to find himself here.
"Yeah. Your assistant–"
"Not his assistant," Wong interrupted, and Tony replied with a snort.
"Your sidekick–"
"Just– just call him Wong," Stephen said, fearing the look on Wong's face, despite it being a poker face. He was getting better at telling what the expressions on the librarian's face meant. It was all in the eyebrows.
"Wong here said you only trusted this hospital," Tony said, "Well, specifically, he said you only trusted one doctor," he pointed a thumb to Christine, "That being Dr. Palmer here."
Christine nodded, sighing.
"Is being beaten and then bleeding internally to the point of collapsing on more than several occasions a necessity in your cult, Stephen?"
"It's not a cult," both Wong and him answered simultaneously. Her expression just became even more concerned.
At the silence, Stephen decided to shrug.
"It could be worse."
Tony winced, the look on his face saying 'Damn. You shouldn't have said that.' , clearly being the one who knew better about situations like this. Wong's face was outright disappointed now, and Christine's was utterly incredulous.
"It could be worse? It could be worse?!" she carded a hand through her hair, "Stephen Vincent Strange!"
Middle name. Not good.
Even Wong looked a bit impressed at her. And this was Wong, the man who had lectured him over a million times about his… tendencies.
"Every single time I see you, you're either bloodied and beaten or already unconscious."
Yeah. Definitely not good.
"Ever since you joined that damned cult–"
"Not a cult," both sorcerers corrected again.
"Just– just whatever!" she said, her exasperation clear as day. He had only noticed then the amused look on Tony's face and silently sent the engineer a pointed look. "Look, Stephen, I'm tired of constantly wo–"
"It's fine, Christine." he intervened, attempting to calm things down. The look on Wong's face just indicated that he made matters worse.
She paused, her lips pursed as her eyes fixed on him. It was needless to say that her expression had turned to a point where it looked as if she was saying, 'I'm done. I'm so done with you.'
Stephen thought quickly on how to reply.
"I mean, the bleeding was all internal, right?"
"Yes."
"Then it's alright because that's where the blood is supposed to be!"
There was a silence that fell in the air after the poorly-attempted joke went out of his mouth. A second passed. And then another. And then suddenly, Tony doubled over in a fit of laughter, not being able to handle himself in whatever ridiculous argument he had just witnessed.
"You–" he pointed at Stephen, still laughing uncontrollably, "Did you just quote Brooklyn 99 at her?"
He laughed even louder at that, and Stephen was actually worried it might disturb other patients outside the door. But he couldn't help but join in, his own rumbling chuckles slipping out of him easily.
Wong was kneading the space between his eyebrows, muttering 'idiots' as he conjured a portal, presumably to Kamar Taj.
Christine, meanwhile, still had concern etched over her face as he stared at the two laughing men. But then a smile appeared on her lips, almost without her meaning to, and she finally giggled herself.
"Okay. Fine. That was funny." she admitted. "I would've been concerned if you hit your head too hard or something if it weren't for the fact that I knew how horrible your jokes were already." And incredibly ill-timed.
Tony made a humming sound to indicate he was interested.
"Oh, you have got to tell me about that sometime."
She sent him a playful smirk, the look on their faces almost certainly planning for a 'Sharing About Stephen's Most Embarrassing Moments In His Life' meeting.
Stephen's head moved back and forth between them.
"You better not be planning anything."
Tony feigned a gasp.
"Us? Against you? We would never!" he said, and Stephen rolled his eyes playfully at that.